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Australia - Prospecting In The 1980's


RKC

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G'day,

 

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My dredging camp in the North Queensland rain-forest.

 

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Mitchell river North Queensland.

 

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Another of my North Queensland bush camps ( I can't remember what goldfield it was located on ).

 

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Another camp in rain-forest.

 

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Preparing the ground to be detected on a Cape York Peninsula goldfield.

 

Regards,

Rob (RKC)

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G'day,

 

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Another camp. It looks like I'm camped under a Mango Tree, so, ... it might be Ebagoola Goldfield.

 

 

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I have no idea where this is! It looks like I'm camped in a river bed somewhere (in North Queensland).

 

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Rain-forest camp in North Queensland. I was camped here on private property. However, there was a paper-road where I was camped. I was told about the paper road before going in there and the general consensus was that I could get away with camping there. The landowner came down after I had been there only long enough to start setting up camp. The landowner confronted me by stating forcefully that it was private property and therefore I had to leave immediately! My response was to tell him I knew it was a paper road. And then when I informed him who told me it was a paper road he confessed  that he knew it was a paper road as he was friends with the person who had told me. When we got to talk further he told me he did some gold dredging in the area himself. To cut a long story short, I was allowed to stay. 

 

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Camped under another Mango tree. When camped under a Mango tree at the right time of year, breakfast is picked up off the ground each morning. I'm trying to remember where this was and I'm fairly sure it was well up the Peninsular ... could be near the Starkey Goldfield. I do definitely remember that it was here that a small fire I had for boiling the billy got away from me and all the surrounding grass caught fire. The worst part was that a group of cattlemen working on the station that I was camped on saw the fire and came to investigate. They didn't seem too upset that some feed for their cattle was lost and accepted it was an accident. Oddly these fires would not burn for long even though everything was very dry, and these fires would never burn through the night.

Regards,

Rob (RKC)

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G'day,

 

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Typical Cape York country with ant hills.

 

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The Peninsula Development Road in the mid 1980's, that runs right up the center of Cape York. Its probably a four lane sealed highway these days so the gray nomads in the Winnebago's don't get dust in their giant flat screen TVs. And the road probably has a more PC name these days ... probably something indigenous.   

 

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The Wenlock Goldfield. I took this photo as I was sure my mate was not going to get his Hilux up the same steep section of road I had just climbed with my Toyota. However ... he got the Hilux up with no problem at all.

 

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A Palmer River gold mine in the early 1980's.

 

Regards,

Rob (RKC)

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G'day,

 

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This (Main Creek) camp was only accessible by using the Argo and floating down a river.

 

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Main Creek camp ( http://imageshack.com/a/img836/4981/5svt.jpg ).

 

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North of Cooktown.

 

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If I remember correctly the sign said something about no detecting. 

 

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Camp next to Tunnel Creek, China Camp, Daintree Rainforest, Nth Queensland.

 

Regards,

Rob (RKC)

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G'day,

 

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Site of an old smelter. I dug around the remains of the smelter and got some gold the old timers had lost when pouring a melt.

 

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Typical gold country in Cape York. Probably unchanged today as long as a large mining company had not moved in and started moving dirt in bulk.

 

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Another little grass fire.

 

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Camp on the Roaring Meg river (these days a permit is required to enter this area).

 

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A camp which was only accessable by Argo. This camp was built originally by geologists who flew in all the building materials by chopper. And when they finished in the area they left it for others to enjoy. It was fairly solidly built ... so it might still be standing.

 

Regards,

Rob (RKC)

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Great Stories and pictures Rob!!! I bought a fj40 in 1986, still have it,but is now a lawn ornament,lol. I now use a 1979 hilux as my prospecting rig. Those fj45's are very rare here in the states,and go for a mint. Thanks again for the pics!!

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Thanks for posting the photos Rob , what an adventure you had back then !

Couple of questions ~

 

Did you get enough gold  ? &

how did you manage to post the photos , all I can send are small thumbprint size .

 

regards

Jack .

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Guest Paul (Ca)

Thanks RKC,

 

Appreciate you sharing a part of your adventures with us,  Very exciting learned allot reading your thread.

 

Thanks again,

Paul (Ca)

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On 1/30/2014 at 3:30 PM, Jack and dog said:

 

Did you get enough gold  ? &

how did you manage to post the photos , all I can send are small thumbprint size 

 

 

 

G'day Jack ,

 

I guess I  must have managed to get "enough" gold ...  the only alternative to no gold-getting is a real job. 

 

Back in those glory days of the 1980's I dredged in Summer down in the state of Victoria, and I then spent the winter months in the warmer climes of Far North Queensland. A number of other Australian dredgers did the same thing and we all got to know each other. Of all the small-scale mining opportunities open to the independent prospector back in the 1980's it was dredging for gold in Victoria that certainly payed the best. There were many more people out detecting for gold in Victoria during the 1980's ... but, the dredgers did much better than 95% of those detecting for gold. The professionals who dredged the Goulburn and Big rivers in the 1980's would get between 70 to 100 ounces a season. And, even the dole-bludgers who did little actual dredging would get at least 20 ounces for the season.

 

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Here I am dredging Victoria's magnificent Big River in the 1980's with a 7-inch dredge.

 

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Here I am with 10 ounces of fine alluvial gold I dredged from Big River. There was a lot of hard work involved in getting this 10 ounces after the season had finished, well into the cold winter months ... so I thought it worth taking a photo to remind me how hard gold is to get.

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My first ever camp on Big river, Victoria.

Regards,

Rob (RKC)

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