Living The Dream
Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2015 5:31 pm
As we have been talking about gold prospecting I have quickly written this while in the mood.
Some of this has no doubt already appeared in other yarns of mine.
LIVING THE DREAM – Starting out
I’ve always been that sort of bloke, quite reckless some would say,
Despite the risk most thought involved, I’d do it anyway.
The whispers had grown louder of big gold being found using metal detectors around the old goldfields. It didn’t take much tempting to get my interest zeroed in to the latest rumours that were floating around.
I soon decided I should visit the goldfields and have a look first hand, and find out what this was all about. But finding a mate was difficult as most wives put their foot down, no doubt thinking this was another one of my wild fantasies.
I managed to get a couple of blokes to do a weekender or two and found a couple of pieces of gold using very inferior detectors – it was enough to whet my appetite. Eventually I talked my brother-in-law John into giving it a go, (he was still single) but first we’d do a short trip to find out all we could about the best way to go about it.
While on that trip we ran into an Aboriginal woman who had specked a handful of good sized nuggets and she suggested if we wanted to find good gold we should go to the place where she had been born as it was a particularly rich gold area.
Back in Perth we managed to buy two of the latest detectors and did a bit of research about areas we hoped to visit. I already had some knowledge of a couple of places having had a go at traditional mining a couple of years before. It was planned we would do a two to three week trip to determine if it was possible to make a living out of it.
Then at last we bid farewell to the city (and in my case wife and Kids – I’d certainly struck gold with Valma) excited at the prospect of having a real go at what would turn out to be a life changing experience. I still recall the excitement of finding good payable gold on that trip, but also the peacefulness of the relaxing lifestyle that has never left me.
We started out at Penny Weight Point and picked up a few nuggets then moved onto Red Castle where I had a really good signal from something that appeared to be beneath a tangle of tree roots. With heart thumping I carefully dug away, then out popped a lovely clean 4 oz nugget, the first good sized nugget I had ever found. A little further on was another one of about ½ oz which was in the perfect shape of Western Australia and I was hooked.
We next travelled further north past Laverton up to Banya station (then abandoned), we didn’t have a clue where we where exactly all the tracks were overgrown with quite large trees growing in the middle of them. While driving on one of these tracks we emerged into an old mine site with lots of dry-blown heaps about and covered in metal rubbish. John Hopped out in the middle of all this with his detector beeping constantly at tin cans etc. but within minutes found a clean 2 oz nugget. We continued on a few klms where John while walking down an old track found a 5 oz nugget sticking out of the middle rut. I can still remember sitting around a campfire at night looking at our gold in almost disbelief.
We ended that two week trip with 22 ounces of gold and never look back after that.
I hastily add we made a reasonable living but no fortune, but as the saying goes, the experience -priceless
© T.E. Piggott
Some of this has no doubt already appeared in other yarns of mine.
LIVING THE DREAM – Starting out
I’ve always been that sort of bloke, quite reckless some would say,
Despite the risk most thought involved, I’d do it anyway.
The whispers had grown louder of big gold being found using metal detectors around the old goldfields. It didn’t take much tempting to get my interest zeroed in to the latest rumours that were floating around.
I soon decided I should visit the goldfields and have a look first hand, and find out what this was all about. But finding a mate was difficult as most wives put their foot down, no doubt thinking this was another one of my wild fantasies.
I managed to get a couple of blokes to do a weekender or two and found a couple of pieces of gold using very inferior detectors – it was enough to whet my appetite. Eventually I talked my brother-in-law John into giving it a go, (he was still single) but first we’d do a short trip to find out all we could about the best way to go about it.
While on that trip we ran into an Aboriginal woman who had specked a handful of good sized nuggets and she suggested if we wanted to find good gold we should go to the place where she had been born as it was a particularly rich gold area.
Back in Perth we managed to buy two of the latest detectors and did a bit of research about areas we hoped to visit. I already had some knowledge of a couple of places having had a go at traditional mining a couple of years before. It was planned we would do a two to three week trip to determine if it was possible to make a living out of it.
Then at last we bid farewell to the city (and in my case wife and Kids – I’d certainly struck gold with Valma) excited at the prospect of having a real go at what would turn out to be a life changing experience. I still recall the excitement of finding good payable gold on that trip, but also the peacefulness of the relaxing lifestyle that has never left me.
We started out at Penny Weight Point and picked up a few nuggets then moved onto Red Castle where I had a really good signal from something that appeared to be beneath a tangle of tree roots. With heart thumping I carefully dug away, then out popped a lovely clean 4 oz nugget, the first good sized nugget I had ever found. A little further on was another one of about ½ oz which was in the perfect shape of Western Australia and I was hooked.
We next travelled further north past Laverton up to Banya station (then abandoned), we didn’t have a clue where we where exactly all the tracks were overgrown with quite large trees growing in the middle of them. While driving on one of these tracks we emerged into an old mine site with lots of dry-blown heaps about and covered in metal rubbish. John Hopped out in the middle of all this with his detector beeping constantly at tin cans etc. but within minutes found a clean 2 oz nugget. We continued on a few klms where John while walking down an old track found a 5 oz nugget sticking out of the middle rut. I can still remember sitting around a campfire at night looking at our gold in almost disbelief.
We ended that two week trip with 22 ounces of gold and never look back after that.
I hastily add we made a reasonable living but no fortune, but as the saying goes, the experience -priceless
© T.E. Piggott