After years of wanting to buy a detector and head down to the Victorian gold fields, I finally pulled my finger out and got a 2nd hand Eureka Gold. (thought I would start basic before going for a GPX 5000). Anyway, packed the camper trailer and off on my road trip to Bendigo. Took me 10 days to get there (I stopped a lot). Awesome town with lots of history. So, off I head towards Dunolly to a shop as a friend suggested to get some pointers on how to use my new toy, but also, got lost down a dirt road.
Decided to hop out and try the detector any way as the bush looked pretty clear after a bushfire. Played around for a hour, not really knowing what I was doing, I just walked around in no pattern, just swinging away. All I found was a old can. Came to my senses and realized I was kidding myself and needed to get to the shop and talk to an expert would show me how to use it properly and tell me where his secret area was so I was sure to find some gold. as almost back to the car when suddenly "Uki", yes, I named my new baby, zapped my ears with a load BEEEEEP, oh, I forgot to turn it off.
I was right at the edge of the road so gathered I was about to dig up a bolt from the grader that had recently been over the road. Dug down a few inches and then waved Uki over the hole again, still down there, dug a few more inches and pushed aside the ugly chunk of iron ore slag. Waved Uki over the hole again and nothing. Well, must be a bloody small nail or something as I didn't see anything. As I was getting up to go back to the car, Uki waved over the dirt pile and beeeeped at me, so I decided, bah, may as well look. Dusted thru the pile and again, pushed aside the ugly chunk of iron ore slag but this time pushed it to the coil and BBEEEEPPPPPPPPP. Hmmm, I thought, that "slag" is annoying as hell so picked it up to throw it out the way when I saw what I thought was gold. Heart starts racing, hand starts shaking as I poured water over it from my bottle and realized GOLD! I'm sure I had a smile from ear to ear and was about to wet my pants from excitement. Packed up and finally found my way to the wee village of Dunolly and the miners shop. Showed the guy at the counter and as soon as he said "Dam, now that's a nice chunk", I knew I did ok. He told me it was a gold/iron ore specimen. He also said that it was quite rare to find iron ore gold specimens and could be worth very good money to a collector. The best part was hearing that the Ugly chunk of iron ore "slag" contained over 70grams of gold!
That night, as Uki and I sat at the bar having a celebration beer, the words "beginners luck" just kept flowing thru my head. (oh, while I was in Ballarat, I went to the "Gold Museum" and they don't even have a Gold/Iron Ore specimen in the museum, so yup, its rare.
Rob S. - NSW, Australia