this year gold detecting

I don't know about you but I feel it hard to get motivated to detect this year if next time I go I feel it will only take a very small gold bit to find that's the only thing that will get me motivated to go that's all currently im on a long drought its now 5 years I feel between drinks plus I live in melb so its a 2 and a half hour drive too any one got any tips hints please let me know thanks

Tim, like you many live a long way away from gold ground. But if prospecting interests you, then you travel to enjoy your hobby. 
Just travel when you have some time to known gold areas where you are legal to detect and enjoy the time. If you find some yellow then that is icing on the cake.
Not every body find gold every time and we know some that have been very unlucky for many trips. That is just how it is. If gold was easy to find, then every second person would be out collecting it, and the bush would be like the footy finals entry gate.
Don't give up, just get out there and detect, and do not doubt  yourself. 

I don't go out anymore, age has caught up with me, but when I did I would travel any distance that was required and living in W A that was often
a long distance. You have to also enjoy being in the bush, camp fires etc and use the detecting as the reason for being there. If I found gold that was a
bonus. The same with fishing, being out on a boat was great and once again the fish were the bonus and like fishing the more time you put in the
luckier you become.
Cheers and enjoy it while you can

Well, I have to take my hat off to you for sticking with it for so long. From what I can gather from your post, it's been five years since you last found gold, or perhaps your first bit, I'm not sure which.   In any case, five years is a very long time to go without gold. Most “normal” people would have given up long ago. I would say its well and truly time to take a long hard look at what you are doing wrong, or more likely the combination of things you are doing wrong.

The internet can be a great place to seek advice, but it's also full of bad advice and if you don't have the experience there is no way of knowing which is which. The posters often don't know themselves. Some prospectors may only find three pieces a day, while others perhaps three grams a day. Then there are others who find 30 grams a day. For someone in the latter group, its not likely they are going to brag about it since we all know silence is golden when it comes to gold. But the one thing they all have in common is each believes they are doing it right by the simple fact all are finding gold.

Don't take it for granted that everything you are doing is the best way. Some prospectors, even though are finding gold, are using outdated methods that one day soon will catch up with them. Gold doesn't grow back and as less and less is left in the goldfields to be found, people will have to find new and more resourceful ways of finding it.  

A good example of this goes back a few years when nearly everyone was swinging big coils and if you happen to be one of few swinging small coils you were considered to be wasting your time chasing micro nuggets or had no clue what you were doing. Well, times have changed and the same people are now harping on about how good the latest overpriced micro-nugget sniffer with the right logo is, even though a GPX 5000 with a sadie would have picked up 85 per cent of the same gold given the right conditions and skill level of operator.   What I am trying to impress here is that it's not about the gold you pick up, but about the gold you walk over without ever knowing it, much like the Asian mum with 2.2 kids (or is it 1.8 now) behind the wheel of a four-wheel drive oblivious to the trail of near misses in her wake after picking up the kids from school.    Most never recheck the ground they walk over just as the mother never checks her rear vision mirror, so how would they know? My guess is this may be one of your problems. You are simply walking over it and not knowing it. It's always better to cover less ground carefully than a lot of ground hastily. This is especially true if you are working in known gold country.

I would suggest you start from the very beginning all over again. Start with the detector. Is the detector suitable for gold prospecting? If so, do a factory reset to make sure that the settings have not been adjusted outside of usable range. If you are new to prospecting, stick to areas known to have produced alluvial gold in the past. Slowly work your way around the workings in ever expanding spiral pattern up to a distance of a hundred metres or more. Don't just walk around bushes and other obstacles. Check carefully under them and remove any obstacles in your way. Keep the detector coil as close as to the ground as possible at all times, paying particular attention to any faint signals. Work slowly and methodically. See if you can hook up with someone who has experience, even if only for the day. You will be surprised at just how much useful information you can pick up in just a few short hours. After five years of waiting why not pay someone to take you out and show you the ropes. If none of that is possible, then try the few pointers below listing some of the more common reasons why people don't find gold, which I borrowed from my latest book, Nullagine Gold.

1) Lack of confidence.
2) Wrong detector settings.
3) Poor technique.
4) Swinging the coil in the wrong places.

When a person's confidence wanes, common sense goes out the window. The old mantra of going “low and slow” are soon replaced with haste and carelessness. Eventually the person becomes totally disillusioned, blaming everyone and everything for the debacle except themselves. Do not let stray thoughts cloud your judgement. Slow down your search and stay focused. The chances of finding gold are far greater when searching at a slow and steady pace.

Make sure your detector's settings are suitable for the area you are in. If you are new to prospecting and unsure what settings to use, the first step would be to restore the detector to factory presets. Most detectors perform just fine at default settings. Using settings found on the internet without knowing the reliability of the source is simply looking for trouble.

Hope this helps and good luck.