The Other Side Of Redbank – At Last

I have faith in Redbank. It is a reasonably sized Conservation Reserve, with different approaches, clear geographical features and a lot of gold has been found here in the past. So today, my last day detecting, I’m going over to the far eastern side of the reserve, where there are old shallow alluvial gold workings. Perfect for an old get with a detector.

Well, it was a perfect morning. And, as I walked along the track bordering the Reserve and private land, the vineyard in the background was impressive. If barely perceptible on this photo!

Any vestige of cloud cleared early and I was busy straight away, collecting lead shot and bullet casings buried in the soil. It’s going to be another long day. And a hotter than normal one.

I’ve had the geographical co-ordinates for most places I’ve detected this trip due to spending a couple of days at home on the state of Victoria geological website and printing out maps of the old workings that I wanted to visit. This gets overtaken by events when you get help from different sources, and most notably Damien, but I’m back to one of my pre-chosen areas. Next to the Sunraysia Highway. The entrained HGVs using this highway at speed forced me to back my car off the roadside and well into an opening in the trees. The force of wind from these monsters is incredible. The heaviest, out in the outback, weigh up to 175 tonnes!

I started detecting and I liked the ground. Not littered with scrap metal and not much of an overburden until you reach the clay and rocks underneath. Then it’s hard work.

Once again the day descended from the start into a shotgun pellet chase. I found dozens.

By early afternoon I’d worked my way down the hill that descended from the Sunraysia Highway, and part way up the side of the hill on the other side of the valley. I’d gone off course and my Garmin said I needed to head due West. I felt more confident. Away from the road, and even the noise of the juggernauts had faded into the background, the lead shot had reduced. It could be on. Suddenly there was a loud shotgun blast that made me jump. The Bush is quiet, spookily so, and the shot really had me leaping like 12 lords.

This is a Nature Conservation Reserve and the shot I was finding were from the old days. Nobody is allowed to fire guns in the Reserve. There were another two shots quickly following each other. Two pillocks with guns or one with a double barrelled shotgun. Not much gets past me.

The direction had shifted to the south and slightly closer. I kept on detecting and thought it would go away. Then another shot, much closer. Shit!

I quickly kicked the earth back into a hole I was digging. I hadn’t come across anybody in my 19 days detecting and I didn’t want to come across whoever this was. Two more shots a bit nearer and I was off. I didn’t run, that would make a noise and I’d probably went a pisser. If I headed towards the sun then I would meet the Highway at a perpendicular. The shots receded, as had my hairline over too many decades to recall. It took me half an hour to get back to the car and I headed back to the giant mullock heap near Moonambel, the scene of my biggest nugget find. As the sky turned deeper Indigo. OK smart arse, if you don’t think it’s Indigo what do you think it is? Prussian Blue? You’re having a laugh!

This wasn’t far from the quarry which I had left in a hurry yesterday after being spooked by someone who was no one saying ‘Hello Dave’. Stewart, the pub owner, had gone up in the afternoon to collect lumps of quartz as decoration for his garden. He was mindful of what I had said about the disembodied voice, and the hairs on the back of his neck (why is it always the back of your neck?) had stood up as soon as he left his Ute. He thought someone there was watching him. He could hear them walking around him in the Bush but couldn’t see them. He was freaked out by it and got back in the Ute and drove home.

The ants, not the big buggers, just the little buggers, go bonkers when they feel the electro magnetic field generated by the detector. It’s like an ant rave. Happy Mondays for Hymenoptera.

I faded into the hot afternoon and for the sixth day running I didn’t find gold. It’s almost like finding gold isn’t the objective. It’s looking for it that counts. Gold is the icing on the cake, but the cake is gold hunting. It’s been 19 successive days of hard labour, rewarded by enough gold and silver, together, to make a ring for my lass. It wasn’t meant to be solely gold, that’s why I found the 190 year old shilling. Lost by some poor lad working his guts out digging a hole halfway up a mountain. It must have slipped out of his pocket and into the mullock heap developing around the excavation. He must have been distraught when he realised it was gone. A shilling in 1860 was enough to keep a family alive for a day. A substantial loss. But I’m sure that he would be happier knowing that his loss is hopefully going to become a family heirloom. Worth little and highly valuable.

I’ve loved being here. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about it. I’ll do a final blog for this trip tomorrow but the gold hunting is over.

Night night.