A Roll Of Toilet Paper

It was going to be warm today so I wanted to be close enough to base, but high enough to get some air. The static heat, whilst dry at the moment, was a devil to work in. Not a breath of air under the eucalyptus trees.

I decided to climb the mountain that I had been up a few days ago and try the workings over the back. Not many people would want to venture up there and I might have a chance. It might not be too exploited.

An old local in the pub last night said that we need to keep having adventures because life is like a roll of toilet paper, it goes faster towards the end.

I parked up on Redbank Nature Conservation Reserve.

It’s going to be a hot one!

On the way up I stopped at some workings and got a very strong signal. It took twenty minutes digging with my pick.

Then I pulled out this 1834 One Shilling coin, King William IV. And carrying on it was a slog 1200 feet up the mountain in this heat with my gear.

But I made the top in good time.

I walked over the top to the other side and dropped down off the ridge to some old workings. Very deep ones at first.

And I was straight onto a target in the large mullock heap. Nearly half an hour digging this time. Big old iron nail.

Moving along under the ridge to the shallower workings straight away I was on a target. Bingo!

This is small stuff and I need to ramp things up if I’m going to hit taaaget! I spent the rest of the afternoon making my way down the mountainside waving my detector. So far, except when Damien came over, I haven’t seen anyone during the day. Nobody.

This isn’t the outback, it’s barely the bush, but it’s quite remote. The views down on the farmland look like Derbyshire, but this is Oz. It’s different. It’s underpopulated.

Yorkshire, the Peak District, Scotland and Cornwall are in my heart. Oz couldn’t be. But I’m loving this experience, and finding gold is the fulfilment of a dream.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great and very different place, and beautiful in its emptiness. And I’m deliberately out of the cities, with their more sophisticated attraction, but I miss something. Community and my old lass.

Night night.