Groundhog Australia Day

No it isn’t the 26th of January but it feels like a recurring theme. No gold so far.

Great breakfast in the Moonambel Resort Hotel; bacon, eggs and mushrooms on toast. Perfect. Served by the owner, Stu. He was a good sport and had been invited to a hen party’s breakfast. Good lad!

I set off for Landsborough Nature Conservation Reserve at 10 am in the morning, hundred hours. It looks small but it isn’t.

I found a place to park the car on the main road. Sadly the car hire lease doesn’t allow me to drive on tracks. If I do and it get’s stuck then it’s quite expensive. But walking is my pleasure.

Walking up into the Reserve I saw some old gold workings from the 1850s over to my left, and had a detect around them. Lots of targets but all bullets or nails.

The weather was clear and hot. By 13.00 the temperature was pushing 28C. The bush was becoming breathless. At this level of breathlessness it’s difficult to keep swinging the detector, then slicing down through hard earth with the pick, and then using the scoop to whittle down the source of the BEEP!

There was nobody here.

I made my way slowly up towards the hills and then I came across an old dam. I detected around it but only old timers’ metal.

I thought this was gold as I got quite deep. Morefool I.

Distant views in the bush are quite rare. Australia is mostly flat and covered in forest or desert, like this.

I’ve got a Camelbak. It’s a rucksack which takes all my gear and a plastic sack full of water with a tube so that when I’m digging away in the heat I can suck water out of the back. Lifesaver!This bloke didn’t have a camelbak.

The day wore on and I wore out. The pub is closed on Monday so I wrapped up at around 16.30 and trekked back down to the car. Avoca is the nearest village of any size so I headed there to buy some food for Monday, as well as bog-roll, which appears to be in short supply.

Back to Moonambel, an early dinner and an early night as a group of young women rolled in and cranked up the jukebox. Nevertheless it didn’t keep me awake.

Night night.