I had travelled to Windeyer, New South Wales, Australia to go on a gold detecting tour run by NSW Gold Tours on a private property that had Spicer’s Creek and Married Man’s Creek running through them. I had left home, Maryborough Victoria, at 430am to start the 10 hr drive. Due to the massive amount of rain overnight and flooded roads it took nearly 3 hours just to get to Bendigo (normally a 70 km trip) and I was on the verge of chucking it in and going home. Thankfully I made it through and after nearly 15 hours in the car I made it to Windeyer. I was picked up at 730 the following morning, along with 2 other prospectors Dave and Chris, and off we went to the property. I chose to work on a gentle slope running down to an old creek line on which I had found gold previously. The ground was seriously boggy but only covered in light grass which made getting the coil low very easy. First target was a lead shot closely followed by .44 cal. pistol casing. On the next pass I hit a nice sweet tone that brightened considerably after a scrape back. Pinpointing with 17x11 Elliptical is that easy I made short work of the excavation and just 10 inches down under a piece of crumbling quartz was a nice 24g chunk of gold. I was stoked; it was the biggest nugget I had ever found in the 2 years I have been detecting. After a quick break for a coffee to calm my nerves I was back into it only to discover that power lead had taken that opportunity to fail. Thankfully the tour guides had a spare that I could use so I was back on the hunt. I carefully worked my way around the area of the find for the next couple of hours digging every target no matter how loud or junky they sounded but with no further joy. After a short stop for lunch I was back on the hunt. Not 2 metres further up the slope I was cleaning a patch of lead shot when I got a target signal that sounded very much like shot but just a bit deeper. I quickly had the top layer of grass off and the signal was the same. I next pulled the 4 inches of topsoil to expose the grey clay and broken shale and the target was still there and fractionally louder. Not wanting to get hopeful I widened the hole and pulled out most of the clay to get into the broken quartz layer....the target was still there!!! It had to be gold down this deep surely. I stripped out the last of the quartz and broken shale and got into a layer of red gravel but I was starting to fight a battle against all the water seeping into the hole. I was down over a foot now and the target was absolutely screaming in my headphones. I pulled out another pick full of slush and gravel and spied a sliver of yellow about the size of my little fingernail. My pulse quickened but then I thought it was just yellow shale. I reached into the hole to pick out this piece of “shale” but it didn’t come out just some mud smeared off it and it got bigger and shinier!! I grabbed my trowel and gently dug under it before waving it over the coil just to make sure. It screamed in my headphones. Grabbing my water bottle I rinsed it off to reveal an absolutely gorgeous 3.875 ounces of beautifully water worn gold still clasping some of its host rock. I was stunned, speechless and over the moon. What a find!! 16 inches down through wet clay and broken rock and I had come up trumps. I had 4.5 ounces in 2 targets not 2 metres apart. I could not have asked for a better day out detecting.
Alex – VIC, Australia.
