After The Goldrush

Thanks Neil. Well the ‘gold rush’ was two days ago when I got four pieces in a day. The ‘after’ was yesterday, thanks Paul, when I got bugger all. Today I was going down to the huge pile of quartz and sandstone, not far from the pub, where I had already found two pieces. I would give it a go.

I woke tired and didn’t rally. It was warm, approaching hot. Breakfast was profuse, approaching brilliant.

Up the road I wandered, and set about detecting on the top of the pile of rocks lurking in the background.

After three hours nix, nowt, nada. I went over the back and dropped down to where I had found my biggest nugget the previous week. After three more hours I conceded that it wasn’t there.

Stu had been doing up his garden, cutting the yuccas back and laying rocks around them. I filled the car with chunks of quartz and took them back to the ranch. They looked good round the base of the plants. Just needs to collect a few himself in his Ute.

No gold today. Night night.

And hello.

I was up early after the second day without gold, and decided to head up to Castlemaine again. The weather was much cooler and I worked the area we had been in at Campbell’s Creek where I had found four little nuggets on the previous trip. Within two minutes I had my first hit.

And it was to be my last.

I left at 13.00 and drove to Maryborough, on the way back to Moonambel, where I extended my metal detector contract at Coiltek, washed my dirty skiddies (again), filled up with petrol and had a late lunch.

I’m tired. Loving this adventure though. Whilst the temperature is low I’ll do some detector-climbing tomorrow more locally. Love those mountains.

Night night.