Detecting (GPX) & Panning GOLD near Bathurst (PICS!)

TIP: Open your internet web browser window wide to view the images in full as the webpage will automatically crop them.

My wife and I stayed up in the Turon (close to Hill End) for a few days to oversee our dig location and to catch up with a few friends that were nearby on a local visit from our local Prospecting Club. The drive there was nearly made disastrous when we struck a a series of massive potholes in the freshly sealed road... the results of the heavy rain recently, no doubt. We hit one DEEP hole at 110kmph which actually launched us airborne for a short distance. The impact when we first struck it was just horrible. The locals laughed when we described this event and told us the holes were actually unfilled detecting holes from last weekend (LOL!). I bumped into some people living on an adjacent property who also happen to run another well known internet Gold Forum and they asked me immediately if we had a GPX-5000 with us. I got the impression they'd had a similar experience in the location were in... that all the gold there was fairly fine and more suited to panning. But this was just for our comfort. After setting up our gear and preparing for a few days with our friends nearby, I spent the early afternoon showing Rena how to run the new detector and within just a few minutes she was able to set it up by herself as well as tune and balance it properly. The rick soil in the district was typical of the iron rich goldfields of the region and my Pick Magnet was soon encrusted with bits of iron stone and a small meteorite.


On the hunt for her first HotRock


Exquisite Purple Flowers... everywhere!


Just seconds after her first encounter with a poisonous snake, she was ready to separate from me to hunt on her own!.

I have to hand it to Rena, she's a Canadian and yet she can't handle the extreme temperatures of our Australian climate easily. But she's used to Rattlesnakes and insisted on wearing her cowboy boots as a snake guard. I wore some gumboots though more for the purpose of avoiding the wet clay. Within just a matter of seconds of my walking over a Red Bellied Black Snake, she was ready to put some distance between us to use her machine as far away from mine as possible to avoid interference. She stayed where the snakes seemed to be located and did a great job of unearthing some artifacts and shotgun shells prior to my rejoining her. These were found on the mossy sides of an enormous dig - where old miners over a century ago had lifted all the stones out of a gully by hand to get to the gold deposits beneath. I suspect one of them must have had a bag of nails with a hole in it because that's all my monoloop coil could find there - in vast quantities.


Rena Digs for her own targets for a change...


The GPX-5000 proved slightly oversensitive with my usual array of coils.


The 'Business End' of the GPX with my trusty 14" Monoloop NFA coil.

I gave Rena the trusty Double-D coil to start with and she performed better with that coil than i was able to get with the Nugget Finder 14" that I was running... and this was only because the ground was filled with a wet, jelly-like clay that was odd in the way that it jiggled like jello when dug. The same clay was filled with HotRocks that I sampled for later discussion, something I'd noticed on the same property years ago with the X-Terras. I even walked straight over a Red Bellied Black Snake as Rena kept shrieking "Snake! Snake! Snake!" at me. I hadn't seen it because it was underneath a thick weave of grass. When I turned around I yelped at her to unscrew my detector cable so I could grab the snake for the camera before it disappeared but she took too long (I'd screwed it on tight) and by the time I was ready the tip of the snake's tail was disappearing down a hole in the ground shrouded by long grass. Rena dug some old Winchester shotgun remnants and i dug a few miner's boot tacks before we went back to find the snake again but she wasn't coming back out. Satisfied she was familiar with the machines, we headed off to intercept our partners at the digs a few districts away and spend much of the afternoon and following day trying to detect fresh gold.


Rena figured it out eventually.

We took a look at how little things had changed in the region before setting off for dinner. I was told there was a woodfire pizza available from a cafe nearby but they'd closed down a couple of weeks ago and we drove into Sofala to get a bite at one of the Restaurants. Both were closed but the pub was serving beer and sausage rolls, neither of which appealed to us at the time. Locals with their dogs (all seemingly called "Nugget") were roaming the street to catch up with their friends or grab another beer and it's easy to see why city life is depressing by comparison. I couldn't be bothered driving back to the Hill End pub again so instead, we drove to the crest of the hill overlooking the town (better phone reception) and phoned a close friend of ours who actually lives on Sofala Road. He canceled his dinner plans to join up with us at short notice.


The view over Sofala's township at Sunset.


Locals parked around the pub for food and drinks. That was a lovely sunset that I missed - I arrived just a little late for the ideal shot.

We then drove into Bathurst and took him out to one of our favorite Chinese restaurants. We didn't want to leave anything valuable behind and a decision was made to bring our new machines and any gold from our second site into town with us and this was then delivered to friends for safekeeping. Though the meal was really delicious, we'd intended to return to our cabin in the bush to watch some movies and get the fire going ASAP. It was close to freezing when we returned and I barely had time to snap some pictures of the stunningly bright Milky Way overhead before the dropping temperature (and metal tripod) forced me inside. That fireplace was a welcome necessity but I was unable to get comfortably warm and instead found a use of the electric blanket on the bed. That's one of the reasons I prefer not to camp outdoors unless I really have too... I just love my creature comforts ...but I dozed off before Rena cranked up her iPad to watch the movie.


The amazing Milky Way is ALWAYS much brighter in the country - absolutely stunning as usual!


The Fireplace was well appreciated at what I suspect was Minus 2 degrees.

Sofala was our first port of call in the morning as we needed food and wanted to stretch our legs in the sunlight. A tour bus had arrived and was idling on the side of the road near the General Store. Inside the store I found things were marked up a little beyond expected retail prices but remember that these small towns rely on tourist trading to remain functional. A small flat nugget was on display for sale at precisely $5,000. And a copy of Doug Stone's latest book was $150. Still, it will cost the difference to drive into Sydney to pick up a copy and then return again so perhaps this wasn't so crazy. I still don't understand the price on that nugget though because it looked to be about 12 grams. Again, I think they rely on the tourists when selling such items.


Sofala's main street was quiet at breakfast time... .


A stray caterpillar on my finger.


A familiar geological location for those who frequent the area.


My Mini Gold Concentrator bucket from Cresswell was useless (for the first time!) with all this overburden as I could not get to my favorite spot with the rising waters.


Noticed a friend's car by the river and stopped to see if they were nearby.


Dean pans the dirt he'd been digging earlier ....

The local prospecting club had chosen to head off to Golden Gully at Hill End which may or may not have been intentional. Golden Gully was named for the color of the soil there rather than the amount of gold that it gave up but it attracts visitors all the time for the name alone. By the time they'd returned, we'd dug around the entire location to prove whether or not there was any gold about. I'd usually done very well here in the past when crevicing and we found some chunky bits in the cracks yet again. A couple of the Keene Crevicing Claws really came in handy this time around.


Quite a bit of gold came out of this crevice over a couple of hours.


A Black Rock-Spider unearthed by my diggings. All critters were given new homes or returned to the nearest shelter.

Unfortunately the sun was setting and darkness set in and so we all called it a day prior to scuttling off in our different directions again. Before we departed, a new chum who'd consulted me previously over detectors came by to show me what he'd recently found in just a couple of days. I'd warned him previously to avoid mentioning to anyone he didn't know where he'd found his gold and as a result of his visit to the gathering of Prospectors around our diggings, several of them must have blabbed to others outside of the group. I say this because I've already been phoned and emailed by others who declared their intention to grab a new GPX-5000 first thing in the morning to head off to where the new chum "found" his colors. I've tried to hint that the stated location may actually be a fool's errand but they won't listen. It's not that easy to find untouched or undetected areas ...and when you find them, it's necessary to be cautious lest you return to a lot of earth tilled in your absence. It's been raining like crazy out there recently and more rain today ought to dampen the mood of those digging with a GPX. After months and years of drought, the soil is holding in a lot of water now that tends to cause a little havoc with detectors - compared to damp soil which i find far more agreeable.


A group of prospectors from our club gather around our lucky crevice.


Some lucky gold in my pan... found by a new chum with a GPX in less than a couple of days.


Cleanup near the fireplace before leaving...

Besides the gold, getting out into the countryside, like in the pics, repairs the spirit.
Living in the city, running the rat race, does nothing but wear you down.

Those pics are great ...

Looks like a great trip away

awesome pics nero_design, your luck that your wife go's detecting mine is cracking them with me because i'm out evey friday saturday and sunday....i said that once i got the gpx4000 i was going out any chace i could get and she said that was okay, but now it's changed, it's you should stay home and have family time....i don't know they change there mind all the time. it's another story if i bring gold home tho...
cheers
stoppsy

Marco, thanks for the pics and the story,, pictures of me old stomping ground has made me home sick,, just like listening to macca on sunday mornings, ,, 23 more flights and i,ll be back,, cheers

Great pictures and story you have me jelous (just kidding)lol hope you
and the wife find a big one .
Shane

Excellent photography and depth of field Marco, what camera are you using
Cheers Mark

Pics like that might even encourage the wife to come along. Good effort

nero_design,

Just incredible pics, looks like rena is having a good time...my wife is too interested in the blow dryer and her GHD hair straightener so i trot off by myself...pity really, thanks a heap for the posts and the very best of luck with the 5000, i hope you do really well out of it

HueyDuck.....

Great post thank you for sharing.

Great post Marco, well done.

Ahhh the good life, great pics and stuff......

Thanks for sharing

Mate, those pics are very nice. Thanks for sharing

lovely pics! The 14" seems to be well suited to the 5000 and is fast becoming one of my favourite coils

Great post Marco, sounds (looks) like a good time was had by all, thanks for sharing.

Cheers

Great pics and great post marco. My wife hid the camera on me this past weekend because I never find gold when I take my camera. Those were some great nuggets in that pan.

Dicko..

Coles bridge still has some colour good to see.
A pleasant read and some good pics.
Regards

chopppacalamari wrote: My wife hid the camera on me this past weekend because I never find gold when I take my camera. Dicko..

Hey Dicko, that might be the problem I'm havin'....I'm leaving all camera's home next time.

Hi Nero,

Something isn't right with your pics. Rena found the gold with another detector to the one she was holding with the nugget. Was that a production error?
Anyhow nice story and pics, thanks for sharing.
PS Rena looks pretty hot after loosing those excess pounds.

Undertaker wrote:Hi Nero,

Something isn't right with your pics. Rena found the gold with another detector to the one she was holding with the nugget. Was that a production error?
Anyhow nice story and pics, thanks for sharing.
PS Rena looks pretty hot after loosing those excess pounds.

Not quite, Undertaker... she found HotRocks and Shotgun shells with her detector when I was showing her how to use it but when we moved to our dig, I changed the control box cover to match my detector (see below)... Both sport the same Gerber knife and tritium glow-tube on the side (her Tritium tube is Pink of course). Think of the one with the Aussie Cammo as being the one with the play-clothes because i knew it would be muddy. I had Bill at EurekaWORX in the USA make me the matching Digital ACU cammo Control Box Covers with arm rests and matching straps. They cost a little but they're heavy duty and they kind of look appealing. To me at least. I'm not going to pass on the comment about the Excess Pounds because she's self conscious about her weight as it is and blames my cooking for the gain.



I'm having a bad week/month etc guys and it's been super stressful trying to get things done this month so I really appreciated that my wife actually asked to help me detect this weekend (she usually prefers to surf the net or read a book). Your responses were all really polite and I want to thank you for your kind comments. I know what it's like seeing people out and about in pictures of the various forums and I really enjoy reading about everyone else's dreams and adventures looking for gold. Something I've noticed recently is that the quality of photographs from the other members has increased dramatically over the last three years and I know that it's not just the fancy new cameras available because it takes a keen eye to snap a nice shot and you've all been taking very impressive pictures lately. I recall the pics from MadTuna and Freshwater's recent visit to Tibooburra as perfect examples that made me wish I was there as well as admire the composition of the shots.

I was just thinking that I wish I had taken video as well but you find yourself distracted when you have to stop detecting (or panning) in order to compose some footage. I'm not using any special cameras when I go out. I always have my little Canon IXUS 870is with me on my belt every day (including when I'm detecting) and when possible, I carry a slightly larger Canon Powershot G11 which is a medium sized compact digital with a clearer lens. The pics from this weekend were a combination of the two cameras. The ONLY touchups I did for the pics were cleanups to cat fur on Rena's hat and some skin clean up (she's younger and still eats candy like I sometimes do).


Here's the Canon G11 and the IXUS 870is alongside Rena's bright pink IXUS 95is

Johnathan, that nugget weighed 53.2 grams although it looks smaller in the picture without the fish-eye effect of a nice closeup. She was backlit by the sun so I put the camera on Manual mode and fired the flash which gave her a nice glow and prevented her from looking like a silhouette. Those larger bits of gold are fairly rare to come by these days down here in NSW although the little ones are common enough ...and they sure add up. I'd trade everything in for a simpler life with less hassles and no more worries.

Hiya Marco

Absolutely great read. As for the photos, well being a bit of a happy snap household, i really enjoyed them!
I went to Sofala once and you know what, i had no idea where we were because we got geographically embarrassed. As we drove down the hill, I thought i was driving into a movie set of the old west, lol. We only stopped there long enough to snap some shots then took off.
Oh and one more thing... i was born and bred in the aussie bush yet i dont handle spiders and snakes as well as you both seem to. So whats your secret, lol.

Happy Holes

I use to stop off in Sofala every Mondy arvo on my way home from Bathurst teck, untill the movie Sirens was finished, then I never stopped in again till, about 4 months ago.
Lived at Hill End when they were shooting a movie, but for the likes of me i cant remember the name of it, may have been My left foot/feet or something, dunno?
Women were of more importance to me at that time and the pub.

G/day nero_design

that's a very nice piece of canadian gold you have there, I wouldn't sell that for Spot price, looks like a keeper to me
Oh! almost forgot; Nice photo's

Great to see a couple getting outdoors and enjoying similar things, good on you both,,, thanks for sharing your story and great pics, totally enjoyed the read and for a newbie like us it is also inspiring, thanks again guys
take care and happy prospecting
the hood and the hoe lmao

Great post Marco with great pictures to boot! This reminds me of what my wife and I used to do before we were married. Ever since marriage, we havent.

nero_design wrote:Golden Gully was named for the color of the soil there rather than the amount of gold that it gave up but it attracts visitors all the time for the name alone.

This part of your post caught my eye cause in "The Glint of Gold" it reads that Golden Gully was named because of the Wattle that was there in full flower at the time. Makes you wonder about the other 200 Golden Gullies in NSW?
Good post, cheers.
Curley