Newbie - Southern Cross to Coolgardie Prospecting

Hi All,

Have been lurking in the shadows, reading and learning as much as I can. Thanks for all those that post, your efforts and information are much appreciated.

Spent a weekend with my old man a few weeks ago, and we hit Coolgardie and Kal for a few days prospecting (with my 11 year old son in tow). My father has a GPX5000 and GP-Extreme, and my son has a pick. :-)

Needless to say, we had a blast, and the grandfather / Son / Granson time was good value.... but we all have gold fever now. :-)

I am looking at heading out for weekends with my son next year (from Perth), and was enquiring as to any sites around Southern Cross worth looking at? We can push for Coolgardie, but at 3 to 4 hours drive, Southern Cross region is a good weekender. I have been researching a fair bit, and there seems to be little info on the viability of metal detecting around or 30 minutes east of SC.

Any info would be much appreciated.

Oh... and here was the first nugget my son dug up near Kal (about 1.7g) :



Many thanks,

Bushy69

i live in merredin, 1 hour to southern cross, my first detector is coming in the mail, its good for coins and relics but average for gold hunting yet have heard that it can pick up nuggets from 1gm in size at 8 inches. its a garrett ace 350. anyway i want to check out two locations near southern cross, one is the golden valley or knutsford near bullfinch north of the cross and the other is mt palmer which is south of the cross. closer to merredin we have several small gold shafts from 1890's next to merredin peak and we have westonia 50km east of town, this has edna may gold mine and was a heavily shafted and mined area up until ww2. so is literally 30 minutes from my home and will go their often.
happy to have you tag along if you want.

Merredin is nice and close to gold fields, will be interested to know if you find anything.

I am heading to Paynes Find then Cue next week for a 1 week trip, but am keen on something closer that can be a good weekender. I did a weekend at Southern Cross, but came back empty handed.... so keen to see how you go.

I think since you are in Merredin, I would be doing the 2hrs to 3hrs to Coolgardie region, I have heard they are having some luck around Bonnie Vale at the moment.

Cheers,

Justin

yes justin i have joined the coolgardie gem and mineral club, they have access to 4 focus mineral gold mine sites. so you can camp on the focus mineral company land and prospect their. will go to coolgardie once a month and try those sites, meanwhile westonia gold mines that stretch to bullfinch to southern cross down to marvel loch back to westonia all these areas are 50 to 140km from home, so will go their as well. so far i finding coins which are from 1913 to 1961 in my detecting areas around merredin. am happy while touring their area around southern cross to take people with me, just let me know when u coming to merredin and we can go relic or gold hunting

Southern Cross has been done to death and you will be very very disappointed with a lot of the ground out that way.
A lot of the gold comes from reefs that have been dug to by the old timers via shafts, southern cross isn't really known for its rich alluvial gold.

You will find pretty much everywhere you go in southern cross will have huge amounts of trash, it is literally like a rubbish tip out there.
Just down from southern cross is Yellowdine roughly 30km east then 11km south, this is probably one of the richest alluvial fields in the yilgarn area but again rubbish everywhere not to mention the salt lake.... North of Southern Cross there is a spot called Golden gulley which also had good alluvial come from it.

If you don't mind digging tones apon tones of rubbish for the potential of finding maybe a few bits if you are lucky than you should be ok I find the area absolutely infuriating.
You could try the local pub there, someone might be willing to share a spot that doesn't have rubbish in it or has been recently scrapped.

You're only other option is to explore random areas where old timers haven't been digging and hope you stumble onto something, Find yourself a good geo map and maybe look for a clean spot.
That's what makes a good prospector vs a metal detector operator.

I wish you the very best of luck out there mate

Cheers

do tend to agree with you lots of junk in the area of southern cross. do need to find a good alluvial field somewhere.
anyway went to mount palmer last saturday, i did enjoy the area, nice tourism camping spot. i also tried gold detecting around bonnie vale and found a hot rock or two but no gold. below is videos from mout palmer and karalee from last saturday