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Headed For The Land Down Under


mn90403

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Fred,

They must have gotten them all!

I saw a few ducks, a few geese but in the area of the workings I didn't see anything I wanted to hunt ... well just a few 'dove type' birds but not enough to explain all the shooting.  Just like the nuggets, there must be something in the trees I missed.

JR has said that anything that moved was shot at but they must be extinct now.  Target practice with a shotgun isn't much of a sport.

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1 hour ago, mn90403 said:

anything that moved was shot

Rabbits, kangaroos and wallabies. Anything they could eat. Not just in gold times but through the depressions and probably right up until the 1970s. 

You don’t see many rabbits these days though due to calici (spelling?) virus.  Any small populations that do pop up seem to hit a decent number, become infected and are decimated again. Hardly see a rabbit nowadays in the places I visit. Others may have a different experience. 

Still plenty of ‘roos and wallabies around.  

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Hi guys, just wanted to say it was a pleasure meeting up with you Mitchel and sharing your company along with Northeast. Had a great couple of days sharing stories and looking for those yellow lumps. Was great catching up with you too Mop, thanks for the pointer and giving us a different area to have a look at. I Was lucky enough to be running the SDC a few times over some mullock heaps and managed to snag three tiny little pieces for my troubles. A bit of colour is always a positive though.

The allure of gold always keeps you keen, I hope you had a great time Mitchel and get the chance to come back again with better success.

Will try and get a pic up later.

cheers,

Elusive

 

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Thank you for the meet up also and the 'lesson' with the 2300 on mullock piles.  Two of the 4 pieces I found were on those things!

I never did figure out where to find the real gold that fed into those workings.  I tried the fringes and the up channel spots but no joy.  Not finding more gold causes me to downgrade my trip a bit.

What I did seem to find is a billiard stroke.  I've only lost one game (the first one) since I've been back out of 8.  Being away from the game for that length of time allowed me to 'forget' some bad stroke habits and make the stroke simple again.  I hope this same thing happens when I go again for gold in my local areas.

Listen for simple.  We don't have as many bbs.

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Guest AussieDigs
On 6/4/2019 at 1:44 AM, mn90403 said:

Oh, now I remember the question I wanted to ask about bbs and shotguns.

What the hell were they hunting with them?  Is there a tasty bird that everyone just had to have from all of the gold areas?

Some of these are more modern but I'd have to say that the shells were very few and far between.  Maybe they were found by the other detectorists?

“innumerable volleys of fire-arms (for all go armed here) and bands of music of every variety soothing to rest the wearied labourers of the day.' 
This is one of the many references to the shooting off of fire arms each night around the diggings and helps to explain the very many pieces of lead
shot, of every shape and size, and the occasional ball making moulds and guns that the relic hunter finds in the 1850s goldfields. A gold buyer on the diggings in 1853 wrote:
'We have to be very watchful, as our tent must be known to all as the repository of treasure. We have three black-fellows as a body-guard, and three good watchdogs, besides lots of arms. Every night we fire off our revolvers etc., and reload them, in order to keep them clean; this is done all over the diggings. A stranger coming on the mines at night would fancy that he was approaching a battle-field. The numerous groups of armed men congregated around their camp fires, and the incessant rattle of discharging arms for hours together, form no bad emblem of a war-scene”

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