I Return To Doug's Gully

Hi guys, Saturday I headed back to Doug's Gully, but this time I did not forget the WM12. I was all rigged up & detecting by 10am. I headed straight to a spot where I had found a little patch with the 4500 about 3 years ago. It was up out of the gully bottom but further prospecting the slope to the top of the spur revealed nothing more outside of the localised wee patch. It was at the head of the gully & I went straight to the spot where I got my first piece there on this wee patch. My back filled hole was still visable. BANG....a faint signal straight off. Probably just a shotty pellet.

Notice the old back filled hole beside the coil. A few scrapes & the signal had moved. Bugger.....was not going to be a bigger deep piece of gold.



But gold it was.



With in 10 minutes I repeated the same process 2 more times with the Zed. All small shallow gold.





I then thought I had better grab the Bug 2 & go back over these shallow digs & there scrape out piles before back filling & moving on. Well......







The Zed does pretty well on small gold & the Bug 2 just finishes things off. A great combination.

I moved on with the Zed back down in the gully floor & got a faint wee signal. Another small bit of gold



Then right in the gully bottom another very faint signal. I scraped away a few inches & the signal was still in the ground & getting better



I got down to over two feet & the signal was still in the ground & sounding good. I was having trouble pin pointing exactly where the target was so I wondered back to where I had left the Bug 2. My pin  pointer & discriminiator. No signal. Deeper down yet.   Then the Bug got a signal. Flick in to discriminate. BUGGER...wasnt going to be gold. Down almost to the control box of the bug





Then the target was out. Now I put these old workings down to the mid to late 1860's.

An old pocket knife



A bit worse for the amount of time it had been buried. Looks like a bone or ivory or deer antler handle. Quite a cool find none the less. Makes you think of who's it was, what nationality, how well he was doing on the gold. But to think I am the first person to handle it since he lost it. Also makes me think of the amount of ground that was dug down, turned over & all by hand pick & shovel.

Then a very similar thing happened. Another deepish hole.




Out with the bug & again it wasnt going to be gold. Damn. But as I do I still dig to get rid of the junk just in case it is masking a gold signal.

Can you see it??





Not sure what it was but it was still very firm in the ground. I didnt bother getting it out. Back filled & moved on.

I kept on going down the gully bottom & I detected up on the top of a sarson stone & got a very faint signal. I scraped away & there was a flat piece of schist sitting on top of the sarson stone. I ended up removing the schist stone & the signal was still there



Bingo....a sassy bit of gold



Re scaning & another faint signal & another small bit of gold



I went back to my last deep hole & got the Bug 2, as I had left it beside the back filled hole. I thought I may as well try the bug 2 on this last little dig. Well bugger me.....4 more little bits of gold from the dig out dirt.

Then nothing for ages. Just on 10 pm & an awesome sunset happening



I got a faint signal. A little quartz specimen piece.



Not 3 feet away another small bit. As there was a half moon I detected until after midnight but got nothing more on the gold front. Still had a 2.5 hour drive home. The things we do.

So all up 17 pieces of small gold for just 1.21 grams    What a long day & many miles of walking.





The old pocket knife



The thing I am noticing on my old haunts is that the GP 3000 & the 4500 have done a good job of getting the bigger deeper bits of gold & there doesnt seem to be any deepr bigger bits for the Zed but the zed is pinging the smaller slightly deeper bits.

Cheers guys.  

Good luck out there

JW  

Good on you JW. Some nice little pieces there and a fantastic sunset.

Regards Axtyr.

You Sir....... are a f*%&$#ng legend!!   , 10PM WTF!!! great picture!, is that a normal sunset time?, good lesson there Kiwi, no doubt a good machine the GPZ but still have a lot of faith in the "old" GPX  

Wayne

Thanks Axtyr & Digginerup, Sorry Digginerup it was closer to 9:30pm. I just checked the time on the camera. We are well past our longest daylight hours & the days are noticeably getting shorter daylight wise. We are loosing about 2 minutes daylight a day. We are just south of latitude 45 South & in the summer do have long day light hours & even when the sun has gone down, which on the longest days is after 10pm, we still have a very long twilight. We have the opposite in winter, short daylight hours & longer darknesss. Go to work in the dark & drive home in the dark. The further south you go in summer the longer the daylight. Antarctica as you probably know has 24 hours daylight during summer. The sun never sets. If you have ever watched Gold Rush Alaska they have the same thing in there summer. The sun never goes down.
My youngest boy has moved to Brisbane to be with his girlfriend. They came here & stayed with us for a few days about a month ago. She was gobsmacked at how late & how daylight it still was. She said that back in Briso it was dark by about 5.30. She couldn't believe it here. Cheers.

JW

Great pictures again JW and some nice gold as well, and I bet your glad you didn't have to dig those deep holes with your old broken pick, because it looks like that new one is doing a great job.

cheers dave

Thanks Dave, Yep...that pick is a weapon & a half Cheers

Good luck out there

JW

Very nice finds and pics there JW. Congrats to you for your nice finds and thanks again for sharing those great pics.

Cheers.

Mike.

 Mike

JW