Kate's New Trip Away

Hi all ... well here's the diary of my next trip away

This time I have decided to head for Ararat for the extended weekend leaving the afternoon of the 4th October and driving home 9th October. Bit of a change of scenery from the Bendigo districts of my last few trips, but I thought it was time that I tried some different types of ground and spread my spending money around in some different areas. And a 500km trip might be a change from an 800km trip ... a saving of 600kms round trip!

Looking at all the local towns and their parks facilities, I decided to make Stawell my base camp. Stawell is only 35kms from Ararat (not much further than I'd normally drive to do my shopping here at home!) and on doing some internet research, I found what looks like a very nice caravan park - Grampians Gateway Caravan Park.
WebSite: Grampians GateWay Caravan Park

An 'Ensuite Powered Site' is listed at $32/night ... and that sounded pretty 'decadent' for a 'tent-er' like me, so rang ahead and have booked my site. I will report on this caravan park ... the idea of pitching my camp, having power and an en-suite shower? ... now this I have to experience!

Accommodation Available (currently advertised prices)

3 Types of Cabins
Executive From $85/cpl
Ensuite From $70 4-6persons
Standard From $60 Double
LINEN & DOONAS SUPPLIED

117 Powered sites from $25/night
Ensuite powered from $30 /night
Un-powered site from $12 p/head p/night
EFTPOS AVAILABLE, MOST CARDS WELCOME HERE.

I've now become quite proficient in using the camera on my iphone, so I'll make sure I take plenty of pics both onsite and while I'm out in the field. Hopefully I might even have some pics of my finds!?!?!

Hope all goes well for your planned trip AND you find some of the yellow stuff.

Annie

Hi Kate hope you have a good time i can t make it but i have stayed twice at that caravan park on my way to Darwin and have been very happy with it so i hope you enjoy your stay there and most importantly find some treasures cheers Terry

Hi Kate,
When are you heading off to Stawell?
Remember that offer of maps is still open, especially if I can get them to you before you leave
Regards
Terry

G'day Kate have a nice trip and hope all you dig holes turn out to be golden...

Cheers.

Mike.

sounds like fun Kate

Hi KAte and hope all your photos have yellow blobs in them. Now I don't want to see any out of focus photos from you so do know how to focus the iphone and remember not too close and maybe use a tripod or lean on a book or something.... all good advice that I saw a wise woman once give out...

Seriously, good luck and eager to hear your tales.

Hi bicter, Terry. Oh no! I had completely forgotten about your maps!! And I could have done with them for this trip, too!

I'm leaving here on Thursday (tomorrow) afternoon ... so looks like the maps will be for the next trip ... unless you want to catch up over there?

Thank you everyone for your good wishes ... it all helps! LOLOL Yes! I will be very careful with the focus on my pics, Costas

Hi everyone! I made it here to the Grampians Gateway Caravan Park

As many of you know, we operate an interstate trucking company from our home property 24/7 ... so you can imagine the kind of mad-house my place is My intention of leaving around 4pm actually went really well ... I was out the gate at 3:30pm Thursday! WooHoo!! How cool was that!

Then the phone rings. The phone rings. The phone rings. The phone rings. The phone rings. Aaaarrgh!! By 7pm I'm only 150kms down the road!! Needless to say, I didn't reach Stawell until the wee small hours of the morning, so caught a couple of hours cat-nap before actually arriving at my destination.

A warm welcome from Maree (Maree & Daryl are 'mine hosts') was a great way to start my stay! First impressions are always just so important ... and this time that proved to be exactly the case!

Daryl turned up to help erect my tent not 10minutes after my arrival at the site allocated to me. So did one of the long term 'cabin' residents here. I couldn't believe my luck! These two fellow's were absolute gems!! I'd love to say they came to aid the 'damsel in distress', but we all know this old girl might be an 'an old dame', but she 'ain't no damsel'

My campsite is not more than a few feet from my own private bathroom/wc. This is a modern building of four identical bathrooms/wc's, obviously servicing 4 patrons who have the room to each park their vehicles immediately next to their own private facility. I've been to a few caravan parks but this is the first one that I have seen arranged this particular way, and it's brilliant! Clean, well appointed and would happily cater for the whole family!

I hadn't had much sleep the previous night, so I spend the day making the campsite 'home', exploring the park, going into town to stock my larder of the perishables etc etc. By 3pm I thought "I'll just have a quick cat-nap" ... and woke up around 7pm! Could NOT believe that!! But I'm comfortable, warm, well fed (having fired up the BBQ for a quick snack) and now happily ensconced in my accommodation.

The park itself is just that ... a park setting! Beautiful big old gums, open spaces, a lake that is fed from the local river, quite tame ducks and their young on the lake, some 'pet' alpacas in an huge enclosure, a play area for the younger kids, beautifully landscaped rose beds and gardens ... Maree and Daryl truly have done a wonderful job in restoring this park over the last two years or so that they have owned it! I am told that it had been pretty run down when they took over, but I can assure you, now it is a true credit not only to themselves, but could easily be a BIG drawcard to the town as a tourist 'hot spot'.

I have taken quite a few pics of the park so will post these under today's 'ramblings' first thing in the morning ... when I have found where I put the phone/laptop lead! I know I packed it somewhere ...

HOW TO FIND THE PARK: If you are coming in from the Adelaide side you will see a 'McDonalds' on your left. Turn immediately to the right! Drive straight down the road a few hundred metres and you will be right in front of the entrance ... Easy!!

Great going Kate, sounds like you're on a winner spot up there.

What a day! It hammered rain all night with lightning and thunder, and today isn't much better! But the forecast is for the rain to clear to showers tomorrow, so I just might get in some detecting ... Perhaps???
One good thing ... I now kow that the tent is definitely water proof, the little heater does a great job, and I've caught up on sleep! :-)
You are not going to believe it, but last trip away I had a few issues with the laptop. Yep! It's done it again! And theres no shop open until Monday. So for the moment it will be quick notes using the mobile phone.
Catch up again soon, Good Prospecting to All

Kate, might be time to throw a few dollars towards an iPad. I bought one to use in conjuction with my laptop for when I'm bush and probably have used the laptop about 2x in the last year....just love the iPad.
Cheers

G'day Costas! I just might do that!!! I cannot believe that my dear little laptop has gone on strike!

Anyway, today was, pretty miserable in the morning but cleared up for the afternoon, although breezy and a bit chilly. Met up with Simon and went for a couple of hours swing, although it was fruitless for both of us. With my laptop on strike I didn't have my intended spots, but Simon was a good sport and brought along his ipad with a local map already loaded.

Having a detecting buddy was great, even if we both had long faces! :-)

Tonight is pork chops for dinner, so I am off to put my chef hat on, fill the belly and hit the sack. Fresh air is a great tonic for an insomniac like me!!!

Happy swinging everyone, and hopefully I will have some ' gold news' come tomorrow evening.

G'day Kate sounds like you are having a very exciting trip... Hope tomorrow brings some Golden Joy to you...

Cheers.

Mike.

G'day Kate hope every thing is ok haven't heard from you for a few days... Hope you found the mother load... hope you have a safe trip back home... Hope you sorted out your Laptop problems...

Cheers.

Mike.

Still AWOL

Must be too busy diggin. We want photos after keeping us in suspense for so long

Diggerdude

Hmmm hope all is ok with Kate, she hasn't logged in since Sunday, highly unlike her, unless as you said Mike, she's found the mother load and still digging them all out...

Hi guys! No I didn't find the MotherLoad ... I found a completely fried hard drive ... with no hope of recovery!

That having been said, I have now had a new hard drive installed on the laptop and am now in the processes of restoring and/or reloading the entire computer ... business & social

I will return to tell you of my 'finds' in the next day or two ... after I have reconfigured all the business files, and made the accountant happy!

Cheers everyone, and thanks for all of your comments.

Glad to hear that You're alright Kate...as for computers, they're buggers when they're not working properly, aren't they.

Good onya Kate, glad you're ok. Damn computers....might be an idea to do a ghost image of it every month or so in case it happens again, at least you can get most of it back within an hour or so. As far as the finds, can't wait to see the pics (?)
Cheers

Hi Folks, Hi Kate, You could engrave what I know of computers on the head of a pin but fortunately for me I have a brother who is the opposite of that and has been "into" computers since they first became available to the public, if I have learned one thing from him it is to have an Image of your current setup to re-install in an unrecoverable situation like you just had and to backup your files to an external source such as desktop drive, disc etc, If you dont have the good fortune to have a computer nerd amongst your friends or family I suggest you seek some professional advice on this matter, particularly if you have stuff you do not wish to lose such as personal photos and business critical data etc, a small cost that will seem even smaller when the inevitable proverbial hits the fan, I enjoy reading of your exploits and look forward to future reading.
Regards
Wayne.

<BOO!!> Yep! Here I am ... back again!!

Shhhh! I'm not supposed to be 'socialising' on the computer ... I'm still re-loading programs etc. Thank goodness I had a full backup of the business files etc (except for a couple of days - and that's easy enough to re-do!) However, there are a couple of favourite programs that I've lost, and probably quite a few of the gps waypoint files that I've bought over the past 6 months or more! But I have retrieved a heap of emails etc from off the BigPond Servers, so I'll be spending a few hours going through the appropriate messages and attempting to re-download any files that I can find reference to.

I won't bore you with all of the details of my temper tantrums over the laptop disaster, however ........

I did have one really interesting afternoon at Deep Lead ... Ahhh! Berry Interessssting

On the afternoon before I was due to leave to return to SA, I found a little spot that looked really interesting! It was almost as though I could see the 'old timer's' tent sat amid three dig holes. And there, right in the middle of the little clearing I got this lovely mellow, but strong, signal. WooHoo!! So I dug, and checked ... and dug some more ... and checked again! The signal was getting stronger!

So I widened the hole and kept digging! Then <clink> ... Hmmmm! That sounded interesting!! Not gold, obviously, but I'm beginning to think the 'old timer' may have put his little personal trinkets box down a little ways, to keep it safe and secure By this time, I am down (estimation) about 27"-28" (40cms?) I'm lying face down on the ground, legs being used as braceing, one arm stretched down into the hole trying to get the fingers under the object to hoist it out! There was a whole lot of grunting and cussing going on ... Ooops! ... That was ME!!!

And finally ... out came this really heavy square-ish object covered in solid clay/stone. Approximate weight? Maybe 8-10kgs.
I chipped away a heap of the attached clay/stone and got quite a lot of it off ... to a manageable size, anyway! By this time it was almost dark ... I'd been digging for well over two hours!!! So into the car with it, and return to camp! The full clean-up would be done back at home, but my imagination was beginning to work overtime!

Once home in SA, one of the boys (to my horror!) put the pressure cleaner on my 'treasure' ... we chipped and scrubbed, and scrubbed some more ... and slowly appeared ......................................

A BLOODY GREAT CHUNK OF STEEL AAaaarrrggghhh!!!!!

My only thought, because of its shaping and size, is that it may have been a 'block' to possibly crack open stones/rock upon. Disappointed? You betcha! Going to give up? NO BLO*DY WAY!!!

(Pictures to follow in the next day or so!)

Don't you just HATE it....why couldn't it be a 8 to 10 kilo hunk of gold???
Ohh well, there's always next time....
Cheers

Hey Costas ... Yep! For sure!! One thing I did learn is that Deep Lead is just that .... quite deep in places! I don't believe, from what I saw of the area, that it is as conducive to good detecting as the mid-north country of VIc ie Bendigo and associated fields.

The area is quite clear through the bush in some areas, and really scrubby and covered in undergrowth in others ... and it seems that the majority of holes are around 4ft deep and more (120cms).

Kate I recon if you revisit the area, you'll have to dust the cobwebs off the SD that you've got, stick a BIG coil on it and put the switch on 1 or 2 and hopefully pluck that deep hidden 10Kg slug.
Or just go to a shallower area....
The problem is sometimes we can do all the research and google earth that we want, but until you actually physically go to an area, you really don't know what it really is like...
Cheers

That is so true Costas. Google Earth never tells me that an area is covered with softball sized rocks

I hear ya, piston broke!! I'm beginning to think I might change from 'gold detecting' to 'brass detecting' ... I know it's not worth the same as gold, but with the amount that I seem to be able to find, I reckon I could be on a 'fast track' to the good life ...

Hi Kate ,

Glad to hear you are ok and had a great trip,sorry not all turned out with your dig how it should have ,but you should have guessed you dug up what i had burried for safe keeping under that slab of iron were all my winter bones ,for next season out on the gold field did you not dig any deeper?? glad you didnt my larder is safe.
good luck on your next trip.

AAaaaarrrggghhh!! Lone Wolf ... so it was YOU!?!?!?

When I do go back and find that BIG nugget ... I'll shout ya a can of flea powder!!

G'day Kate glad to hear you are ok... Sorry to hear your Lap top Hard Drive Died... Glad you have got it all sorted... Don't you hate those deep holes for CRAP... You just don't know until it is out... Hope you have better luck next time...

Cheers.

Mike.