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“Cuppatee sir?”
“Excuse me?”
“A cup-of-tea sir, would you like one?”
“Oh, no thanks,” I said feeling embarrassed
for not understanding her accent the first
time. The stewardess gave a small smile as
she rolled the overworked beverage cart down
the aisle. I twisted in my seat letting my
head rest again on the window. I flattened
my nose against the scratched plastic for a
closer look below. Clouds, lots of
water…more clouds. Not much to see just yet.
I turned to my right; a woman in her late
30’s was sprawled out across three seats
snoring away. See had gotten a whole row to
herself while the rest of us were packed in
like cattle, ‘Lucky’ I thought.
What little sleep I had gotten was
accomplished by wedging my head in the crack
between the seat and window so I didn’t get
whiplash every time I nodded off. I glanced
over at my father sitting beside me. His
eyes were closed as he rubbed the bridge of
his nose. It had been a long haul – really
long! With actual flight time and layovers,
we had spent the better part of two days in
route to our destination. I felt a poke in
the arm. I turned back to my father who
smiled through bloodshot eyes. He pointed to
his watch and held up three fingers.
Salvation was at hand! A few more hours, god
willing, would see us safely to Perth.
I despised these long flights, but I
couldn’t keep myself away from Australia.
Actually this was my eighth trip to the Land
Down Under. My first experience in 1995 took
me through New South Wales and further north
along Queensland’s tropical coast. No gold
for me that trip, but I met a lovely woman
along the way whom I eventually married nine
years later. In ’98 my father Steve and I
decided to tackle the Outback together and
spent six weeks living out of a tent. Using
our metal detectors, we prospected some of
the most remote regions of the country
getting as far as the jungles of the
Northern Territory. The gold had been
wonderful, in fact, the first nugget Steve
dug weighed over an ounce! We brought home
nearly 200 pieces including 3-ounces worth
of crystalline gold we chipped from a
shallow vein.
We had high hopes for this trip as well. We
would be meeting fellow prospector and
friend, John, for several weeks of detecting
around the remote mining town of Meekatharra
in Western Australia. Located on the Great
Northern Highway, “Meeka” is the largest
center in the Murchison region, and is
accessible by road from Perth in the south,
Geraldton in the west and from the Pilbara
in the north. As far as gold goes, it has
been an incredible producer of alluvial (or
placer), with some nuggets weighing in
excess of 150 ounces!
Once in Perth, we chose to catch a small,
twin prop plane cutting the travel time to
Meeka from 12 hours to only 2. These
aircraft are used almost exclusively for
transporting miners back & forth from the
open-cut gold mines. A private individual
can book a seat if they are willing to pay
the fare; which isn’t always cheap. It was a
quick flight and offered an impressive view
of the landscape below. The first thought
that came to mind as we soared across the
vast sea of red dirt was, “So much ground to
detect, and so little time…”
As the tiny plane taxied in, I spotted
John’s rig parked just behind the one room
building that served as the entire airport.
The “truck”, as John calls it, has been
customized especially for prospecting in the
bush. It resembles a semi truck built for
off-road travel. He has equipped it with
larger tires, extra fuel tanks, 1,000 gallon
water tank, solar panels, room for a quad,
internal storage for detecting gear, and a
slide-out kitchen complete with stove! The
biggest drawback to this otherwise flawless
prospecting machine was the fuel
consumption. As you might imagine, when
fully loaded down the truck’s engine drank
gasoline like a man lost in the desert for a
week! There was a nice motel in town, but
with the price of fuel running nearly $5 US
per gallon; it was pointless to commute
everyday. Any profits made on gold would be
quickly chewed up in gas, so we headed out
bush to camp.
For a gold prospector, the location we
picked to call home was prime real estate;
lots of open spaces, plenty of dead Mulga
trees for firewood, and best of all, nuggets
within a stones throw away! I’m not
exaggerating; we actually found a small
nugget about ten feet behind my father’s
tent! With good prospects so close to home
we decided to hang around local for the
first week. The ground here was
predominantly flat, most of which was
covered in tiny brown stones called laterite.
Our Minelab GP3500 metal detectors had very
little trouble with the ground
mineralization. Occasionally when we
ventured into areas with higher salt
concentrations we opted to use the Nugget
Finder XP Double D coils, but for the most
part we were able to run the Nugget Finder
Monoloop coils.
The first weeks take was slow; yielding only
about an ounce of small bits. Then our luck
changed for the better when the three of us
decided to revisit an old patch. It had been
worked and reworked by detectorists, but we
figured any spot that had given up 80+
ounces was worth another look. Instead of
spending a lot of time on the main run which
had already been “pushed” with machinery, we
concentrated on the fringes. Not even
fifteen minutes into it I began finding a
few tiny nuggets on the slope of a long,
laterite covered ridge. My father Steve
hiked his way to the top of the ridge while
John wandered further in the valley where
the overburden became deeper. Not long after
a voice came through on the radio. It was
John calling to let us know he had found a
target which sounded deep and possibly quite
large. Our luck had slowed up, so we walked
over to have a listen.
The signal sounded sweet. All of us agreed
it had to be gold, but from the surface it
was impossible to tell just how big it would
be. Using a pick that more closely resembled
a battle axe, John quickly opened the hard
packed ground. With several inches of
material off the top the signal strength
really improved; we all giggled like
children in anticipation. The hole continued
to get bigger until the detector alerted us
that the target had been moved into the
freshly dug pile. A bystander would have
thought we hit the Lotto from the round of
cheers that went up when Jonathan held out a
solid 2-ouncer! A nugget this massive on a
patch that had been hammered to death was
indeed testament to the capabilities of the
Minelab GP Series. “If this piece had been
missed, what else could be left?” we all
wondered. This discovery kicked us into high
gear and we spiraled out from the hole,
picking up an additional ounce of smaller
nuggets. We lay to rest a few beers that
evening as we celebrated around the fire;
satisfied with a bit over 3-ounces for the
day.
We came upon another productive, but labor
intensive area a few miles away. This patch,
much like the one mentioned above, must have
been incredibly rich in its heyday. Someone
had brought in a piece of heavy equipment
and removed the topsoil, taking the entire
area down to what I initially thought was
bedrock. When I started to dig out a gold
nugget the previous hunters had been
overlooked I quickly realized how wrong I
was. This was not your normal
run-of-the-mill bedrock it was CAP!
If you’ve never had the privilege of working
caprock consider yourself lucky. Caprock is
a conglomerate consisting of sand and gravel
cemented into a hard mass by precipitated
calcium carbonate. There are similar
formations called caliche or
calcrete found in the southwestern US,
Mexico, Peru, and Chile. Regardless of name,
this stuff is hard! I’m not kidding in the
least when I say I would have preferred
digging gold from concrete. BANG, BANG,
BANG!!! I slammed into the impervious layer
with my pick over and over, yet the tiny
divots I made in the rock only taunted me. I
kept this pace for a better part of an hour
until my fingers hurt so badly from the
vibrations that I was forced to take a
break. Feeling beaten I rolled onto my back
trying to catch my breath.
Finally John strolled over and proceeded to
say with a smile, “There is an easier way
mate. I’ve got a jackhammer in the truck…” I
didn’t know whether I wanted to kill him or
kiss him. He and my father chuckled as they
wandered back to the rig to fetch the hammer
and generator. Once the hammer was kicked
into action there was little the cap could
do to stop me from claiming my prize.
Moments later I was holding a brand new ¼
ounce nugget. It was a nice lump, don’t get
me wrong, but if there were any more left
they could stay there – I was officially out
of the cap digging business!
The remainder of our time in Australia was
spent doing day trips into the surrounding
country looking for new patches. We covered
miles of juicy looking ground, most of the
time never seeing another soul. We found
lots of “widow” nuggets and those
disappointing 2 or 3 nugget patches that
never really turned into much. As strange as
this might sound, one of the most exciting
days our group had also proved to be the
most disheartening. We drove the truck as
far as the road would allow. Once it had
vanished completely we parked and unloaded
the quad. Three grown men laden with
prospecting gear piled onto the back of the
poor Honda. It moaned and groaned for a
moment, but once in motion, the 4-Wheeler
whizzed us along at a decent pace through
the scrub.
Half an hour later the bike came to a
screeching halt. We had just driven over the
top of a decomposed quartz vein. The color
of the soil, the heavy ironstone present and
of course the quartz all screamed of gold.
We decided to give it an hour then leave if
nothing came of it. Within five minutes
Steve had netted a nugget just behind where
Jonathan had parked the quad. He took
another few steps and hit a screamer of a
signal. He didn’t have to look far; lying
right on top of the ground shining in the
sun was a flat 4-gram nugget! Everyone knew
this had to be the start of a monster patch;
the piece my father had just found was
surely only the tip of the iceberg. The more
we talked about it the more we worked each
other into a frenzy. We tediously gridded
the entire area, sadly three hours later we
still had just 2 nuggets in the bottle. Our
super patch had turned out to be a super
dud, but we all agreed the temporary
adrenaline rush had been worth it. That’s
one of the things I enjoy most about metal
detecting; when you hit that first nugget
you just never know where it’s going to lead
you…
We didn’t strike any bonanzas this time
around, but the three of us managed to kick
up approximately 7-ounces of buttery yellow
Australian gold in less than 3 weeks. I
always enjoy my trips Down Under and this
was no exception. I am thankful for being
able to make such a wonderful expedition,
and of course for getting to spend quality
time with my father. Each year it gets
harder for the two of us to coordinate our
schedules to allow for big trips like this.
So in reality, even if I hadn’t found a
single nugget the trip would have still been
worth every penny.
If you are as fanatical about metal
detecting as I am, and craving a true modern
day adventure, the goldfields of Australia
won’t let you down. I have visited many,
many places in this sun burnt land and all
are unique and beautiful in there own right,
however my favorites are those found out
west. This is the region most Aussies call
the “Outback” and for nugget hunters this is
as good as it gets. Mostly flat ground,
widely scattered patches, and very little
trash; it’s almost as if this terrain was
made to be detected!
There’s also plenty of space to stretch out
and take in the vastness. Western Australia
is not merely big; it is humongous! It takes
up about one third of the continent and
encompasses an area of nearly 2.5 million
square kilometers – that’s three times
bigger than the state of Texas! Yet within
all this space dwell a mere 1.5 million
inhabitants; most of which live in Perth.
With this in mind, I would suggest that all
would-be travelers plan ahead; pack plenty
of supplies, bring spare parts for your
vehicle and check in with the local shire if
you are traveling alone. Preparation and
common sense will see you safely through
this corner of the earth that still remains
largely untouched by the hand of progress. I
hope all of you have a chance to visit the
Outback one day; it is truly a wondrous
place. |
