Find's Treasure Forums

Welcome to Find's Treasure Forums, Guests!

You are viewing this forums as a guest which limits you to read only status.

Only registered members may post stories, questions, classifieds, reply to other posts, contact other members using built in messaging and use many other features found on these forums.

Why not register and join us today? It's free! (We don't share your email addresses with anyone.) We keep email addresses of our users to protect them and others from bad people posting things they shouldn't.

Click here to register!



Need Support Help?

Cannot log in?, click here to have new password emailed to you

Oz Things - Part One

C. Nyal de Kaye

New member
Many on this Forum will never have the chance to see and/or explore for themselves what others enjoy by virtue of their land of birth.

So here are a few pics from various Aussie things observed and photographed whilst detecting. Most will probably never see them, as we won't see yours, so I hope that you find them of interest. There is no chronological order in what follows.

_________________

The first is a view of a gold field in Western Australia. My intent is to show its vastness, isolation and, in some ways, the difficulty of detecting on it. You can see the large lumps of quartz that forces the coil to be well-above ground level much of the time. This creates a loss of detecting depth.

In some places the quartz rubble is so thick, and so jammed together, that there is little red earth to be seen. I spent an afternoon here and found a few small nuggets, but I should have stayed a week.


01Rocky.jpg



______________

This lump gave off quite a good signal and was about a foot down. There was a cold wind blowing, hence the red wind-cheater. The wind was gusty and at times blew my earphones right off. That why they're tied on with the white clothe.


02Conglomerate.jpg



The signal was good, but the result was a bit disappointing being only a one gram nugget caught up in the middle of the conglomerate.


______________


This is a huge quartz blow in the Golden Triangle in Victoria. It is often considered axiomatic that where there is quartz there is gold. That's not true. This photo does not truly indicate just how big this great lump of quartz is. However, it's the only pic I've got that hints at its size. The pic was taken about halfway up the blow, so it really is a large lump of quartz.


03QtzBlow.jpg


______________

Here is the shaft dug right below the quartz blow shown above. I just saw it and didn't dig at all. No gold was found there. What a lot of effort for no result, but that's the nature of the business.


04Shaft.jpg



______________

This is a "guzunder tree", so named because the pot "goes under" the bed. That joke is as old as the hills, but I'm repeating it anyway. This great piece of Australian art may be viewed out from Leonora in Western Australia. You can add to it if you have a guzunder you want to get rid of.


05GoesUnder.jpg


______________


I can't recall where this was taken, except to say it was somewhere in Western Australia. It shows the dingo equivalent of McDonalds.


06DingoCave.jpg



This is the dingo's cool summer dining room. In there they feast on kangaroos that they have caught. The interior is littered with bones and has a fragrance that even a good spin-doctor would be unable to promote. If you look closely at the right hand side you will see one of their victims.

______________

They say that the roads are paved with gold in Western Australia and my wife loves detecting them. It's easy walking and she has a happy knack of picking up good signals. It works like this: she detects a target, sticks in a flag to show me where it is, and I come along and dig 'em up. You can see her little collection of bright yellow flags in the pic.


07RoadDetect.jpg



______________


Here she found a one grammer right in the middle of the road. Yes, I filled in the hole.


08PavedwithGold.jpg



In fact, she found four targets along this little bit of road. They were all small, the largest being 1.8grams. To save me any risk of injury, she kindly and quickly relieves me of any valuable heavy nuggets that I recover. She does the same with heavy (or even light) gold rings that I occasionally find on a beach, or in a park. Little kindnesses like this make for a happy marriage!

______________

This rock wallaby was a bit of a stickybeak. He just had to come out to see who was there, so we gave him a bit of bread and he seemed quite happy with the transaction.

To all the animal activists: Please, no critical comments about giving him one small piece of bread - it was only a tiny bit - honest it was.


09RockWallaby.jpg



______________

On our way home from Western Australia we travelled right through the centre of Oz. Here is a pic of the strange formation called The Olgas.

10Olgas.jpg


______________

The endless road - it really is quite a trip, but we love every moment of it.


11EndlessRoad.jpg



______________


Here is the view of Ayres Rock from our campsite.


12AyresRock.jpg



We walked right around the rock - I think it's about 10 kilometres (6 miles), something like that.


______________


This is in the Golden Triangle in the southern state of Victoria. Despite appearances to the contrary (her big gloves), she didn't dig the hole. The ground here is harder than a politician
 
I spent some time in Fremantle and Perth back when I was on deployment in the Marines, I loved the land of Oz, great pics!
 
Some great photos there! Certainly a very different detecting environment then mine here in Florida. If I was to find a 150 year old coin around where I hunt I'd be doing the happy dance for sure! I found a 1903 quarter last month and it took second place at the club meeting. That's how rare old coins are in central Florida.

Never know where I might show up, maybe we'll bump into each other on a beach there one day....
 
Thanks for sharing your pictures! It sure looks a lot different from the area I live in. I live in Alabama (USA), and depending on what part of the state you are in, you find that the scenery can be quite different, Hank & Graw are pretty much on the other side the state from me, and when I pass through their area I find it has many different characteristics. I travel south and find that it is very flat and sandy, and of course has the beaches and Gulf of Mexico. My part of the state, the northeastern quarter, is very mountainous as it is the southern tip & foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. A lot of rugged terrain, wilderness areas with lush forests & waterfalls. Lots of greenery & vibrant colors (flowers, plants, etc). Rural, for the most part, with small to medium sized towns scattered about.

I watch a lot of nature shows on TV and see information about the deadly snakes in Australia. Do you see many of these snakes while out detecting... or at other times? Just wondering how, or if, this affects your detecting. We have an over abundance of snakes in Alabama, but only 4 are poisonous. The rattlesnake (different varieties), copper head, cotton mouth, and the coral snake (found mostly in the lower part of the state). I do NOT detect in the warn or hot months here; I'm sure Hank & Graw might, but I want NO PART of snakes... poisonous or non-poisonous!!!! I also want no part of the hot weather!!!! I do my detecting in the winter. Our winters are usually mild.

Lisa
 
Thanks for all the pics - it's like being there. Your land is like the desert here in az - flat & lots of open space. Looking forward to the next travelog , Steve in so az
 
Cool pics!!
I thought it was always warm there but see your in coats. Does it ever snow there? If not I could send you some we have more then enough
Greg
 
Love your pics and stories to go along with your gold hunting and camping! In the one pic ya can see who wears the pants in your family! :thumbup: :biggrin: Would love to have visited Australia and hunted years ago if I had been financially able to but couldn't do it now at all....soooo Thank you for the posting trip to your great country....Still would be scared of all those poisonous snakes and things...but America has them, also, just have to keep a watch out when in areas where they would likely be! May God Bless you and yours to find the gold and continue a great time being together and enjoying life in God's great outdoors! Amen! Here in Missouri we have huge limestone and granite rocks instead of the Quartz ones you have there! Looking forward to Part 2! :angel: Ma Betty
 
Thanks for your kind words folks.

Hank, whilst in WA did you ever get out to the goldfields?

Sailorman, if you ever come here I will show you a few great beaches, and we have hundreds of them.

Lisa, I have been to the US and in your area too. I'm a very poor banjo player but love the old time music of the southern states and have travelled quite a bit through them, but some years ago now. We do have many poisonous snakes here, some reputed to be the most deadly on earth, but mostly snakes will avoid you. People do get bitten here, but usually because they accidentally step on a snake or are harassing it. One of my detecting friends did get bitten, but he survived being able to get prompt treatment as he was detecting with a doctor! I have never seen a snake whilst detecting in winter, but I have seen many snakes and even had a red-bellied black snake crawl over my foot one day. We always detect for gold in winter. Summer heat in outback Oz is deadly. You talk about "lots of greenery and vibrant colours" in your state but that is not outback Oz. The Australian bush has its own beauty but generally with more muted colours. It's all lovely. The Lord somehow could make it beautiful even if it was only black!

Ma Betty, we have limestone and granite and probably most other types of rocks here too, but my geological knowledge is a bit scant I'm afraid. The goldfields in WA have huge deposits of ironstone as well, hence the red soil. I've not been to Missouri.

Anyway folk I've got a bit more to come and endless stories, so be warned.
 
Thanks for sharing! Now I want two things. To see a pic of some gold nuggets, and to come over there and go digging with ya!
 
I missed a few people in my reply, sorry.

Steve, some of Oz is like that shown but not all. Many in the US don't really understand how big Oz is. It is almost the same size as continental USA, so it's no small island and has a multiplicity of climates including tropical and snow in some areas. I've not been to Arizona.

Greg, it does snow here but not in WA or where I live. However our snow season is fairly short. I have only being skiing once in my 74 years but my second son goes often. The pics of us in coats was mainly due to a prevailing wind that cut right through you, not the cold. Those pics were taken in mid-winter.

Mike, keep watching. You'd be very welcome here and there's a lot of digging to be done. You may like to start in my back yard as I need a new rubble drain dug!

I think I've covered everyone now. If not I'll sort it out.
 
I didn't get out to detect when I was there I wanted too the beaches were beautiful !
 
Top