Eight people in eighteen years

Hi
Heres some stats.Just asked the missus how many people weve seen in the Moliagul to Talbot region goldfields. Bird watching 2 , bike riding 4 , dog walking 2.Thats the total.Now obviously we can only comment on what weve seen in the area we have been in .Now if we correlate that to the number of detectorists weve seen that figure would be ten per week.Weve heard gunfire quite a few times and also trail bikes.
The above is over an eighteen year period.7 years we detected 5 days per week.1 year full time Tarnagulla.The remainder partime.We have never been to whipstick near Bendigo, perhaps its different there.The free camp in Paddys Ranges has become quite popular over the years.But what I can ascertain is that they are mostly overnighters.
It annoys me that academics and politicians that dont live or even come to these areas think they know whats best.My gut feeling is that they are going to win the first battle.But the thing is a little thing happened at a stockade many years ago.It will happen again and we be thousands strong.We are an apathetic mob till pushed.
Cheers Dig

Hi Dig,

I hear where you are coming from about the apathy and losing the first battle against these govt investigations.
If this does happen I have always thought that we will need organised civil disobedience in our numbers, in our back yard.

MacRob

Geez, Dig. We have been detecting Victoria since 1979 and we have never seen that many people in all those years. It must be getting crowded out your way.

Cheers, Jim

Hi Jim
Youve got me.Ive exaggerated, Looking back I think the 2 people walking dogs might have been the same person.
Cheers Dig

There's a lot of motorbike riders and people who grow drugs that I've seen here in the nsw forests and 4x4 drivers.
We also have a bush users walking group, doing bush walks every week and not to mention the abolone black market groups cleaning their illegal abolone in their hundreds.
Don't forget the farmers using the forests as well.

I have been metal detecting for gold since 1960 and spent quite a few of those years doing the triangle areas. I never saw a single other metal detector operator although in the 70s I heard the bellow of the occasional Deep seeker during mode changes and retuning.
The only holes I filled in were those dug by myself. and later in the 80s there were quite a few bull dozed areas that were huge messes and done with zero regard for the environment. I believe 100% that theses scrapes were left by local property owners who figured it was fine to trash their own property hill sides. I did find a few excavated bottle Dumps.

Since migrating to beach detecting the number of detectorist encountered on the same beaches as myself could be tallied on one hand and normally it is a rare day that I see more than one other detectorist.

So who these people are who are leaving all of these unfilled holes all through the gold fields is a bit of a mystery to me.
I doubt that it is a hoard of people from the cities and that in reality it is more likely to be some locals

Dig24crt wrote:Hi
Heres some stats.Just asked the missus how many people weve seen in the Moliagul to Talbot region goldfields. Bird watching 2 , bike riding 4 , dog walking 2.Thats the total.Now obviously we can only comment on what weve seen in the area we have been in .Now if we correlate that to the number of detectorists weve seen that figure would be ten per week.Weve heard gunfire quite a few times and also trail bikes.
The above is over an eighteen year period.7 years we detected 5 days per week.1 year full time Tarnagulla.The remainder partime.We have never been to whipstick near Bendigo, perhaps its different there.The free camp in Paddys Ranges has become quite popular over the years.But what I can ascertain is that they are mostly overnighters.
It annoys me that academics and politicians that dont live or even come to these areas think they know whats best.My gut feeling is that they are going to win the first battle.But the thing is a little thing happened at a stockade many years ago.It will happen again and we be thousands strong.We are an apathetic mob till pushed.
Cheers Dig

Hey you old bugger, what’s been going on? Long time since we’ve talked, hope all is well. The wife was asking if iv heard from you and was wondering if you were still around vic. Will have to organise a catch up one day.
Cheers
Stoppsy