Headed For The Land Down Under

[Lanny]

You're having a great adventure, and I'm sure as you keep swinging that coil and continue nugget hunting, you'll find the gold, whether it's the memories that will last a lifetime, the new and unfamiliar scenery and animals, the flashbacks you're having to better days in the USA, or the great people you'll meet.

All the best as you're out there living the dream,

Lanny

[mn90403]

Good one Phrunt!

Many of you may not know that I give pool/snooker lessons on occasion.  It is a sport I've been doing all my life.  I'm trying to draw some analogies to that and looking for nuggets and this is what I come up with.

When I instruct a new student we have to spend time on the basics.  The swing, the eyesight, where to hit the cue ball and where to aim at the object ball, the rail, so on and so forth.  Similar basics have to be learned about nugget detecting before you can 'play the game.'

Once you get the basics out of the way then you begin pocket balls (unless it is billiards).  Then you start to develop favorite shots and learn how to use those in making runs (making several shots in a row) and then you develop some sense of gamesmanship rather than it all being luck.  (Stick with me here I'm almost to my point.)  You become a skilled player and not just an amateaur.

The next level of progress has to do with being able to perform and go back to basics and produce shot after shot accurately.  Some days this is easier than others.  Some days the head wants to take a 'walk about' rather than concentrate.  I refer to this as General Direction Shooting.

I feel like I am General Direction Detecting right now.  I know the basics and I know some of the game theory (find gold where it has been found before) but I don't know the geology that lets me get to the next level.  (Next level you say ... how about just finding A NUGGET?)

Nugget hunting does have a bit of competition involved.  I'm trying to 'beat the earth' and find a nugget that the other expert detectorists before me missed.  I'd like to repeat a pattern and 'shots' but some shots I don't see and you never see the same shot twice in nugget hunting.

Somehow the oldtimers found lots and lots of nuggets.  I need to tap into that gamesmanship.

Time to swing.

 

 

[mn90403]

I have a low tire and I'm waiting for the shop to open to fix it. 

[mn90403]

Maybe they will tell me where to find a nugget because the guy at the gas station couldn't. Haha

[mn90403]

Fixed. $30. 

[afreakofnature]

Take a Gold Safari/Excursion/Expedition/Tour.  Its worth it when on a trip like this!

[Andyy]

7 hours ago, mn90403 said:

Many of you may not know that I give pool/snooker lessons on occasion.  It is a sport I've been doing all my life.  I'm trying to draw some

Well, I had completely forgotten about that, Mitchel.  My brother is a professional, in New York.  Commonly hits the open circuit.  Let's just say I am a very good racker.  I'll have to swap stories with you sometime.  Snooker is a great game.  I wish we had more of those tables around Arizona.

In the meantime, keep your eye on the ball!  Errr… on the gold!   Remember Pre-Shot Routine …. or detecting routine … 

ok.. I got nuthin.

Oh yeah  …  BE THE BALL!!!  (Always loved that one!)

[mn90403]

Ok pals, I'd like to tell you that I had a breakthrough on the gold finding but I'd be lying.  I've been here over a week on good workings and still haven't found a nugget.  My first week here has me completely baffled.  I even tried some of Fred's roadkill techniques on bedrock late today to no avail.

I should be telling nugget stories and sharing nugget pictures but maybe later.  I still expect good things.

My thoughts runneth over but I'll try to add some humor to a rather bleak assessment of my first week here.

What is worse than solitary confinement?

Hunting for gold nuggets and not finding them!  (Why you say you are out in nature, enjoying the fresh air and the roos and so on and so forth ...)  That works for the first few days ... haha

The reason why nugget hunting is worse than solitary confinement is that in solitary confinement you don't have any EXPECTATIONS!  You MUST expect the next target to be gold when nugget hunting.  

We all know the definition for insanity, right?  Insanity is when you do the same thing over and over again and you expect different results.  This nugget hunting is driving me insane.

So let me step it down to what actually happened today.

When I left here going to go behind the caravan park I got a coffee at the gas station.  This is coffee from a late machine not a drip coffee.  The fella working there was friendly and I asked him about nuggets.  His store is half a mile to where I'm going.  He tells me he has lived there for 6 years and never looked for nuggets!  We chatted a bit more ... coffee was $4.50A and I went back out to the car.  I did an inspection and saw the left front tire low and I found out from him where to get it fixed.

I got to the Tyre place before it opened but when it did I asked the guy working there about nuggets also.  He doesn't hunt them either.  We found the leak and while it was being repaired a local guy came in and said "I see you do what I do!"  He was talking about detecting.  He said he has a 2300 and is doing pretty good with it.  He told me I should have brought mine rather than leave it in California.  He was getting some tyres and I asked if he was going out later today thinking I could tag along.  He said he wasn't and he didn't offer to tell me where I couldn't find nuggets with my 7000 so I left and went to the workings.

While at the workings the thought occurred to me I should have made a deal with him.  It was too late ... no way to hire or bribe him now!  haha

I began working the location by looking at the deep holes and following them out until they became more shallow.  It was a wide area and it looked like sources for the workings came from several directions.  I followed one run up to a reef and work that.  I did this for about 4 hours without finding nuggets but finding bird shot.

Yesterday I found a button and I knew I could go to a shop in Inglewood 20 minutes away and have an expert tell me something about it so it is just after 12 and I do it.  The husband and wife tell me the button is not so valuable but it is from around 1880s.  Cool

I left them and went back to a place JR had sent me to earlier in the week.  This time I went back with his recommendations in mind but came up short there also.  It was much easier to find my way around this time.  I know the roads and all the kangaroo bones.  This was 3 hours of hunting.

When I left I saw a lamb outside of the fence and I stopped at a farmhouse to tell them.  The guy I chatted with was very nice and we started talking about nuggets.  He doesn't hunt them but he told me about a couple of places.  One was just across the field from his house.  There are scrapings he said.  Another one was behind the schoolhouse at Kingower.  He and his wife said someone in their family had found a big nugget there many years ago.  He said the finder was not allowed to keep it.  It had to be sold to the government.  I asked when this law was changed and he didn't know for sure.

He also told me about a big nugget that had been found in the last couple of weeks around Wedderburn.  The guy at the tire shop had mentioned it also and I said the Bendigo nugget and he said no ... different nugget.  I'll have to hunt for that story when don't with my saga here.

I left the farmer to go look at the scrapings he was talking about and they look just like all other workings I've seen in the last week.  All have potential!  What a also saw was a mob of about 200 kangaroos that were in full flight from my car.  They don't let you get very close before they break and run and jump fences and sometime trip on them.  It is hard to get a phone picture of scenes like that.

At the end of the day I found a road that goes through the middle of workings on the Stone map and it was bedrock.  I got the 800 out and detected these roads for about an hour.  Some bullets, shotgun shells and iron but no gold there either.

I'm sure there will be a few detectorists around this weekend.  They'll be busy so I don't think I'll go to them but if they come to me we'll share a bit of info.

I've got some specific spots and gullies to around here for the next couple of days and then I'm ready for a beach day.  I'll probably get up early and go to Ocean Grove on Monday morning.  That is subject to change.  A week from today I'll be in Maryborough doing some comparing.

Time is flying.  I'm trying to keep it one day at a time.

These pictures are loading in reverse order.  That is a moon rise, almost full with the sun setting behind me.  Australian football is on the TV.

 

[Guest AussieDigs]

Keep at it Mitchell. Persistence pays as they say.