Warwick Prospecting Trip..

[Erik Oostra]

My son Cameron and I have just returned from a six day prospecting trip at the goldfields around Warwick, Queensland.. He was using a GPX 6000 which he bought in a pawnshop for Au$5700 (around US$3700) with 11'' and 14'' coils and I had a very bad feeling the thing was going to be a dud.. But it turned out to be a trooper, running smoothly and hitting tiny bits of metal and bird shot at very impressive depths.. I think the dude in the pawnshop might've mixed up the 5 and 7 on the price tag, but even at $7500 it still would've been a bargain.. At first I was using a Goldmaster 24K but the ground in most places was too hot for it to run smoothly, so I ended up using the Equinox 800 instead.. Needless to say using a VLF detector on this sort of ground was always going to be a struggle and Cam was digging a lot more targets than me.. In the end he took pity on me and we ended up swapping detectors for a few hours a day.. This gave both of us a chance to learn another detector, but he was always glad to have his back.. 

Cam's normally into panning and sluicing but he's recently been struck by detector fever and digging every target was an adventure in itself.. It was a subtle reminder of the thrill I first got when hitting upon a likely target.. Even digging no end of shotgun pellets didn't curb his enthusiasm one bit.. I once jokingly told him that he'd be digging 1000 bits of crap before his first nugget, after that it's 1 in 100.. This seems to have stuck in his mind and he's now counting down to the big moment.. We were out of luck on this trip and didn't find any gold.. This was mainly because most of these goldfields are now public fossicking areas and their proximity to Brisbane (about 2 hours away) meant that they've been well and truly hammered to death.. But somehow none of that mattered as it was the adventure of it all that kept us going.. Also camping out in beautiful country and the chance to hunt gold with my son (and his dog) made the whole show an awesome experience.. It was another reminder that prospecting is not always about finding the yellow stuff..  

[phrunt]

Do you think people have been digging out under that bank to look for gold, there was a spot around here that was very similar to that, I kept smashing away the edge of the bank and finding gold in the collapsed soil.  I kept going and going until it ran out.  Prior to smashing it up no gold was detectable in the soil.  Mine was a lot rockier than that though.

[Erik Oostra]

1 minute ago, phrunt said:

Do you think people have been digging out under that bank to look for gold,

I don't think so, it seemed to be washed out by the little creek.. I didn't think to smash away any more of that bank, now I wish I had.. Thanks for the tip! This was on milder ground where the GM24K was still behaving itself, but just a few metres away it was hard going.. Cam also ran his GPX over the same gully and also didn't hit any targets.. 

[geof_junk]

Next time Durikai Fossicking Area near Karara in the early days some good finds with detectors.