flakmagnet

It looks like an intriguing area and as you make very clear, it's not the easy pickings we tend to hear of so often. Jackhammering into the cap rock for gold is no picnic I'm sure. Nice gold and hopefully more is coming.

An outrageous find... and hard work behind it.

Duly noted...

After seeing 2 and 3's work in Arizona, I'm not surprised they are doing well.

I agree Cobil, the people who buy a 7000 are generally not novices. It stands to reason that deeper information beyond the set-up manual would be a huge head start to understanding the true measure of this detector. JP's dedication to providing his detailed and hard-won knowledge to a huge segment of the detecting population is well documented - I suppose it is asking too much to hope MineLab would contribute to help fill this information void.

Welcome home.

A very tantalizing thought and I agree...focus is all.

I am going afield here but I noticed with the Eq 800 that going from water to beach and back I would get a fair number of hits in a good area, but to my shock when I ran parallel to the water I got an entirely different set of very good hits as well. Crazy...

beautiful pictures of a great looking area

I am betting your best gold is waiting for you on these last days.

Nice hunting - especially with a Nox. That is no picnic up there and you have done well. I fully sympathize with the distances that have to be covered to get to good areas.

It's good that you are getting all your bad luck out of the way now. That can only mean great success once you get to Meekatharra (a great choice of destination imho). You guys will have a huge cheering section during your travels.

I envy Mitchel for planning and carrying out this wonderful trip. I don't envy him having to make where-to-hunt decisions on the fly in strange (to him), areas. That is difficult no matter how much experience you have. I don't have any advice except to echo Fred (focus), and everyone else who is saying enjoy your surroundings- which you seem to be doing. There are a lot of people willing you onto your next nugget.

Yes, it's a rock. (Not being smart-ass, just meant it's not a meteorite or anything)

What a beautiful daughter. Nice teamwork dad.

Jim was a mentor either personally or with his writings to a huge number of gold hunters. 'Follow the Drywashers' is an enduring classic for anyone interested in metal detecting and prospecting. Thank you Jim, God speed, you will be missed.

Relief! Good going Mitchel, you have a bunch of posters smiling at your first gold. The skunk has been banished. Keep it going...

Bon voyage and continued good hunting...

I agree about the weather being a critical factor, for sure...good point.

I also love rumor threads, you get to hear lots of varied thinking - and some amazingly tantalizing conspiracy theories. While I love the idea of a new gold detector I'm also firmly on the side of those who feel it will have to be a hell of a jump in capability to get me to pony up for a new machine.

Wow Condor that was some test run. Makes me wonder why you would leave a place like that to travel so far, but I would do it in a heartbeat too. It's going to be an amazing adventure.

Nice work both...that stuff isn't easy to sniff out. Keep it up.

Night hunting, taking all the smart precautions like not falling down mine shafts etc, is really fun. We put a small light on an antenna close to our camp so we could see how to get back.

It's also easy to dial the iron bias back in Park 1.

Hilarious...