Flat Creek Station - near Georgetown Qld

I spent two weeks from 8/9/12 at Flat Creek Station detecting and, sadly, I did not find any gold. I found boot tacks, buttons, lead bullets, bullet shells, horse hobble chains and nuts and bolts but no gold Nevertheless I had a good time.

Flat Creek Station is near Mount Macdonald and the site of Macdonald Town (Angor to Zillmanton book - P65) which was surveyed in May 1896 after gold was discovered. 'The initial Nuggety Gully initially produced 60 to 70 nuggets ranging from over 8 oz to 180 oz'.

It is a large property and you are permitted to detect anywhere but must fill in your holes. The campground is a basic bush camp but has flushing toilets and showers with hot water provided by a 'donkey' system. The property owner, Peter, has a drinks and nibblies night on top of one of the hills near the camp viewing the sunsets and this was a good time to yarn to others camping there.

It was pretty dry and hot during our stay and at one stage was about 40 degrees inside the van. The grass was a bit high in places and small black bush bees (don't sting and about size of a small fly) swarmed all around me one afternoon after the perspiration on my skin. In the end there got to be too many to concentrate on detecting even with a fly net.

I was fortunate to get some details of this place from Lee (on this forum) before I went there. Thanks Lee!. Plus I met a lady, Jenny, who spends a lot of time detecting there with her parents and a guy, Dave, and they kindly let me tag along with them a couple of times. Jenny has had some success over the years and Dave took 3 weeks to find his .8 grams. Later, another guy, Allan, went onto another part of the property called 'The Rush' and managed to pick up a very small nugget. Others came and went without success.

The whiteboard at the homestead records some large finds and from memory there was a 16 oz nugget found in 2010. The Visitor Information Centre at Georgetown has a nugget on display that was found at Flat Creek.


View over campground


One of the gullies


Seed pod that looks like a butterfly to float on breeze

Annie