Bloody Oath!

Don’t know what it means but they say it a lot. Let’s google it! It means I absolutely agree.

One of Stu’s super bacon and egg breakfasts and I was away again. Moonambel means ‘hollow in the hills’ in the aboriginal language, as it is lodged down in the valley between the Northern Pyrenees running up to the Kara Kara park, and the Southern Pyrenees running down towards Ballarat. The Pyrenees are towards the southern end of the Great Dividing Range, which runs the length of Australia from North to South, just inland from the coast. The yellow bits are the Great Dividing Range and the Red Cross is where I’m sat in the hollow in the hills.

So, as it is a hollow in the hills, over millions of years the reefs of quartz, which were pushed up in a molten state from the earth’s core, have been exposed to the world on the slopes of these mountains through natural erosion. The quartz just happens to contain bits of gold. In fact they can be very big bits. The biggest ever, found 30 miles from where I’m sitting, weighed 109 kg. That’s more than a fat bastaaard like me. At today’s price that little nuggie would be worth £11.5m.

The exposed quartz becomes dislodged and falls down the mountain, shedding its gold which ends up at Moonambel in the hollow. So I was going just up the road again. This pile of rock is tailings from a massive, mechanised gold extraction operation near Moonambel which churned out tonnes of gold in the 1970s and 1980s. I hope they left little pieces in this pile.

It is hot. I mean very hot. Hey ho.

After a couple of hours of detecting, releasing shotgun pellets and bits of iron from the pile, I was jiggered. And as a reward Theia gave me a tiny flake.

It is so great to find a piece of gold. Just wonderful. The value isn’t relevant. It’s the chase. That’s what makes you feel mighty real. Thanks Sylvester.

I couldn’t quit and worked up, down and around this huge mound of pebbles, way into the afternoon. But Theia didn’t shine any more.

Even the eucalyptus trees surrendered, and so did I. I went back to the pub and met Trevor.

Trevor is a seasoned, highly experienced, knowledgeable and successful gold detectorist. I plied him with beer (well only one) and he told me the location of a secret place which will open Theia’s door and let me float home on a pile of gold, Gold I tell you!!

And I’m going down there tomorrow morning. Secretly.

Hoooraay!

Night night.