Jonathan Porter

 A slight hammering interrupted my reverie, not quite a jolt as such, more of a drone manifesting itself into a constant vibration felt through the core of my subconscious. I’d been prospecting an isolated gully in the Kimberley country of the North West of Australia, the signal beneath my coil was heralding the find of a lifetime, pulse racing, thoughts scattering like chaff before a hot breeze, I prepared to excavate my new found treasure.

Yet that damn hammering kept tugging at me, insistent, persistent, demanding! As if to taunt me there was a sudden flash of light followed by an amplified voice echoing over and over crashing into me like waves of the Pacific Ocean after a violent storm. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Captain speaking.” “We are presently cruising at an altitude of 30,000 feet with a little over an hour and a half flying time to our destination. The weather in LA is a comfortable 70 deg F. Breakfast will be served in the next few minutes, I hope your night was restful.”

All sleep instantly left me as I slowly realised after nine hours of flight I was still suspended over 10 kilometres up in the air above a vast ocean of water. With the outside temperature well below minus 30 degrees C, this flimsy aluminium capsule was the only thing between me and a watery grave. Visions of what might have been, resting in the blood red Kimberly soil still pervaded my thoughts as I tried to come to grips with my immediate reality. I was on the final steps of a journey that began in Nullagine 2001 where Frieda, myself and our twin boys were camped just out of town waiting on some mail to catch up, doing a spot of quiet detecting on an old favourite gold area.

Looking up from the hot, red, quartz-strewn ground, I glimpsed a flash of white inter-mixed with a puff of Pilbara dust as a Landcruiser Troopcarrier pulled off the Newman road and headed up the rough track to our camp. Peering at the driver in the late afternoon light I recognised my friend at the wheel, next to him was a young bloke who was twisting his head around trying to look at a thousand things all at once. Dodging spinifex and boulders the Troopy pulled up beside me, causing my headphones to squeal and complain loudly as the vehicle’s alternator came within range of my GP extreme.

“G’day Jonathan,” says my mate with a comical grin, “got someone here who wants to meet ya.” Mixed with the pandemonium of billowing dust, over-zealous welcoming dog and screeching kids, a young guy steps out of the 4WD and offers an extended hand which later typifies every other encounter I have had of the American kind. He flashes a row of perfectly straight, white teeth and says “Gooday”, trying his best to mimic the typical Outback Aussie greeting but not quite carrying it off! “How ya going?” I remark as I made a mental check of this young fella. The huge grin and open friendly face soon put paid to any discomfort of meeting a stranger, the location of our meeting helped with the rest. Chris Gholson was all questions and ears, he was in his element and I suppose when I look back on it so was I.

We swapped yarns at an ever increasing rate as our time for talk was short, I think we both recognised a kindred spirit in our chosen past times. Often when encounters with strangers happen out bush, there is little time for the small time-consuming pleasantries. Chris knew he only had minutes to make my acquaintance, and I for some reason instinctively understood this, within minutes we were talking like old mates. Bob just stood back and let us go for it, trying not to seem too worried about the advancing clock and the hard drive back out to the bush camp were others were waiting for food and water.

A little over a year later Chris had once again visited Australia along with his dad Steve, I had only missed them by a matter of weeks. As they were winging their way back across the Pacific, I was rumbling my way across the Barkley Tableland not far from the Northern Territory border on my way to meeting up with Bob for a head on assault on the Kimberley and Pilbara gold fields.

When I returned home later that year, Bob gave me a call to inform me Chris had set up a website along with a public forum in association with his new business venture called Arizona Outback, (AZO.)  It turned out that Chris was a dealer for the Aussie made Minelab detectors and these machines were taking the US goldfields by storm. From that humble meeting in a tiny town in Outback West Australia, I have managed to make some amazing friends and travel some incredible miles all in the name of gold.

As we all know one of the fastest growing industries on the planet is the internet, through this medium I have had the privilege of sharing my ideas and hopefully sculpting some of the direction this fascinating hobby will take in future years. I envision a huge growth in electronic prospecting in the foreseeable future if the right seeds are sown for the new blood this industry needs to attract. The world has been running at a very fast pace for the last 25 years and the generation that has done most of the work is coming to an age where some things are more important than just money, it’s called quality of life. Colloquially known as the Baby Boomers these are people of my parents generation and younger who suffered a post WWII childhood combined with the uncertainty of the Cold War along with the horrors of Korea and Vietnam. They are survivors and as a result have succeeded to lift our world into a very bright future.

They’re also reasonably wealthy and as such opt to retire early to escape the constraints of society, travelling our respective countries safe in the knowledge that they may do so in relative freedom. They have sacrificed their younger years for all sorts of reasons and now find themselves in the position where they no longer want to make sacrifices. They have the hunger to get out there and explore the land of their birth, to enjoy the dream that a lot of us take for granted. They are incredibly adaptive creatures willing to learn anything new; looking for challenges of a physical nature, testing their hard-won life knowledge of their youth. Lastly, they are mostly computer savvy; after all they developed the things!

Through the medium of the World Wide Web I have been able the share my knowledge of metal detecting professionally for gold throughout Australia during the past 11 years. Sometimes I have generated some disagreement, other times an overwhelming response of camaraderie as AZO’s readers have followed us around our vast brown land. In almost every case I have seen a common thread, the wish to get out there and see it for themselves.

With this in mind Chris Gholson asked me to plan a trip to Arizona (his home state), one of America’s premier gold nugget producing areas. I had absolutely no idea how much of an interest this would generate until our first night out on the goldfields of Rich Hill, a prolific gold producer of early last century and late the century before. The history of Rich Hill reads very similarly to our very own home grown gold fields: brave men braving a harsh desert; finding colours of gold. Their animals stray, forcing them to go in search, which leads the men to the very top of a nearby mountain. What happens next beggar’s belief as the men start to pick up nuggets the size of potatoes lying on top of the ground for the whole world to see.

This famous patch became known as the Potato Patch and still produces nuggets to this day. Immediately below is an area called Devil’s Nest, another prolific producer of solid nuggetty gold; Chris himself found nuggets up to five ounces in and around these areas. For a good read on the subject, Chris has co-authored a book called “Rich Hill - The history of Arizona’s most amazing gold district.” Many nuggets were found in the early eighties with the VLF detectors, but when Minelab released their famous SD range it turned the goldfields of Arizona on its head.

With the massive boulders of Rich Hill as the back drop and the old gold mining town of Stanton as the venue, Chris organised an outing for all forum members to come and partake of lectures on all manner of subjects ranging from my own on the GP series of detectors to calculating gold content in a quartz specimen to detailed use of GPS systems and mapping. This was a free event open to one and all, to enjoy and learn all about the art of metal detecting without feeling pressured or harassed, an opportunity for those among us who have little or no experience to hang out with those who have, to swap ideas and maybe learn a thing or two.

The incredible response was overwhelming; he didn’t advertise, just mentioned it on his forum and then let people run with it. I was a nervous wreck when it came time for my lecture. When Chris first approached me about doing a talk of some kind he was of the impression maybe 20 or so people would turn up for an informal talk about gold. Imagine my horror when I stopped counting at 150 and still they came rolling in, one after the other beaming smiling faces intent on having a good time and maybe glean a few more ideas on this most fascinating hobby.

Part of me was mortified but another part of me was so proud to be representing my country with an Australian made product, in which I had a hand in helping to develop. Once I got started it was hard to stop and amazingly a couple of hours flew by in the blink of an eye and before I knew it, it was time to sit down and take a deep breath, but not for long because they then started lining up for a more intimate question and answer time. Later that evening we had another get together just up the road at a place called Decision Corner (another productive gold area), with a video of Chris Gholson’s Australian adventures and more extensive talks around a blazing camp fire.

Next day there were more lectures, with once again a large crowd gathering to hear all about Australia and its gold fields. I was swamped by all the requests of who to contact and what to expect by all the well mannered Americans who dream to travel Down Under for a taste of the Aussie Outback. That night an impressive crowd gathered at the camp site to hear Chris speak on his favourite spot “Rich Hill.” Some of the history is pretty hair raising stuff with all the usual goldfields real-life dramas of greed and murder. Once that was over it was back to the camp fire again for some more interesting discussions about detector technique and methods, as well as a few tall yarns to keep the juices flowing.

A few days later I had the privilege of finding my own American piece of gold, followed very shortly by a second piece to add to the collection. Chris very kindly took me to an old patch he had found a few years back on the other side of the Rich Hill area called “The Bradshaws”. Chris loves these mountains like a mother does a new born babe; he loves the solitary nature of the many gullies, often taking time out from work to hunt alone in their many folds. I could understand completely as I have often sought the solitude of the mountains in Australia myself, to be completely alone as one with the elements just me and my detector and my ability to sniff out the odd piece of the natures heavy little time capsules.

It was a pleasure to finally catch up with an old American mate who Frieda and I met on our first year to West Australia, Bob “Montana” Dansie. I’ll never forget the day he putted up on his old clapped out motor bike and said “I don’t know where the hell I’m at”. He knew all right, it was in the middle of a patch he had found the year before with his trusty Fisher Gold Bug. We had some good laughs over that little pearler when I mentioned it to him during my stay. Bob was right with me when I pegged my first Yank nugget, but didn’t seem all that enthusiastic when I started yelling and cooeeing at the top of my lungs, so I slinked off to find Chris so I could find more appreciative company.

Arizona Outback is going to be a force to reckoned with as time goes by, Chris has secured the distributorship for Australian Gold, Gem and Treasure magazine with a very healthy subscriber base growing by the day, he also imports another well know Aussie product, Nugget Finder coils which have taken off in the US in a very big way as well as the Lithium ion battery systems made by Reeds Prospecting Supplies in Perth. While I was at Rich Hill, just about every prospector was swinging a Minelab machine coupled up with either a Coiltek or Nugget Finder coil, my heart nearly burst with pride to think about the impact our innovative Aussie inventions are having on goldfields so far away.

We prospectors have so much choice these days it nearly boggles the mind, so many quality choices available is a sure sign the industry is in a very health condition. I look forward to more innovative products in the future as more and more business people begin to realise the growth potential of this rapidly expanding industry.

It might seem strange a professional prospector like myself actively promoting competition in his field, but my logic is simple. Gold is not a renewable resource, in other words it is not finite; every time I remove a nugget that is one less nugget to detect. Fortunately there are vast amounts of areas available to us which will keep producing the goods for a long time to come, however for a company like Minelab Electronics to prosper they need new blood to be attracted into the industry. 

Those of us who experienced the glut of gold first available when the SD series became available have been spoilt, this means we soon become bored if there isn’t a beep in our headphones every few minutes or if our season pegs out below our expectations. What we need are the people who don’t have high expectations, the people who will relish even the smallest piece of gold regardless of its monetary value just because it represents a milestone in their quest for something real. Those people who are looking for more than just wealth will be the eventual winners, satisfying the urge to escape the confines of the modern world we have all created. My role in all of this is to encourage and help train those people to be better prepared for the large learning curve that intimidates every new chum to the art.

By doing this I am injecting life back into what I hold most dear, I feel rewarded when someone comes to me and thanks me for helping them through that learning curve. But ultimately I do this for one main reason; a healthy industry attracts companies like Minelab to invest in research and development which will then in turn help me to remain actively involved for hopefully many more years to come. The net effect then passes on down to all the satellite industries like after market coil manufacture and other accessory products which then enables people like myself as well as new chums to have access to the best the industry has to offer.   

Australia is a very large place with huge amounts of untapped potential still out there somewhere just waiting for an intrepid prospector with enough courage to conquer the hurdles thrown in their way. The easy gold is gone, that’s for sure, but like all prospectors I am the eternal optimist. If you have a yen for the Outback, if you would like the adventure of a lifetime, if like me you want to stay in touch with this vast brown land of ours then get yourself a metal detector and head on Outback and try your luck, you never, never know!

If you have a computer then drop on by www.arizonoutback.com, head to the Forum and say G’day, there will be heaps of happy, healthy prospectors to help you on your way.