hotrock
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My "Golden" trip to the W.A. Goldfields.
I haven't posted for quite some time but since Angela has created this new forum I felt I should do my little bit as I enjoy detecting for gold.
Last year I traded my old detector for the Minelab GPX4500 and headed for the the W.A. Goldfields
We stayed in the caravan park at Sandstone for eight weeks. It is a small park with excellent toilet facilities, plenty of hot water for a dirty detectorist. The park has a small lawn, the only green for hundreds of kilometres, the kangaroos come in every night to “mow” the lawn and fertilise it at the same time.
Sandstone is the remains of an old gold mining town and to say that it’s isolated is an understatement, Perth is 724 kilometres away, the nearest towns are Leinster 156 kilometres to the east and Mount Magnet 152 kilometres to the west, Menzies is 267 kilometres to the south and Meekathara 196 kilometres to the north.
During the gold mining boom in the early 1900’s Sandstone had a population of about 7,000 but as the easy alluvial gold ran out so the population dwindled, the miners simply moved to new finds.
Today there are only 119 residents in the entire shire (council area) which covers 28,280 square kilometres.
There are no trains, no bus service, the only way to get there is by car or chartered aircraft.
There are no police, no hospital; the Nursing Post operates one day a week with a Flying Doctor Clinic once every three weeks.
This building was once the “Post and Telegraph Office” it now serves as the general store, with the Post Office Agency, mail arrives and leaves twice weekly, groceries, fresh bread and vegetables arrive on Thursdays. As you can imagine things here are rather expensive, Lorraine bought two loaves of multi-grain bread and a Raisin loaf (all Tip-top) which cost $14.30; a 500 gram tub of margarine costs $4.65, a kilo of apples cost $2.45 at Kalgoorlie the same type at Sandstone cost a whopping $7.10.
The only other brick building in Sandstone is the National Hotel which was also built during the
Gold mining era when the good times were expected to last forever.
As you can see the fuel depot is an all weather job. Here they only supply petrol and diesel and bottled gas.
I spent most days detecting and was lucky enough to find at least one piece of gold every day, my best days total was 15 pieces. I finished up with a total of 408 pieces (mostly small) which altogether weigh a little over 9 ounces; some of the tiny pieces are less than a tenth of a gram. I also detected in an old open cut and found several pieces of specimen gold; unfortunately they are only suitable for crushing.
In July I had my best gold nugget find, ever; it looked pretty ordinary at the time I hoped it would clean up better when we got home. The signal was very unusual and I almost left it there, I scraped the soil away to find a layer of Calcrete, a conglomerate of rock, quartz and iron stone, this is the equivalent of concrete, not convinced I walked away ….. Some time later I thought I would have another look, scrapped a bit more away and walked away again, and then I decided to remove a bit of the rock, I got out the heavy equipment. With a mash hammer and gad I took a couple of inches off of the top, the signal sounded better, but I still wasn’t sure. It took well over two hours to dig through 13 inches of calcrete finally releasing the nugget, I thought it may weigh three or four ounces and was anxiously waiting to get back to the caravan to weigh it. What a pleasant surprise, 9 ounces!! .”You little beauty”!!!.
The nugget before and after cleaning in acid, my wife named it “The Golden Arm”
Some of the small pieces.
Regards, Brian
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6/14/2009, 12:07 pm
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angela3
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Re: My "Golden" trip to the W.A. Goldfields.
WOW!!! :clap: Fantastic post Brian! What a great holiday you had and thankyou for the story and pic of the old town! Makes it all the more interesting to read about it. You've found some amazing gold too! I've never been to WA, althought it's a place I'd like to visit some day, so you never know.  I also love the gold specimen you found...nice bit of gold laced through it. I reckon it's more more as it is than the gold you'd get by crushing it. What do you think?
Great post once again, thanks for sharing!
Angela
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6/14/2009, 3:31 pm
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madmax800
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Re: My "Golden" trip to the W.A. Goldfields.
Hi Brian, we have never met as I have only been coming here 6 months or so.
Great post. I have just had a few weeks in Laverton but didn't find any 9 ounce bits.
Will get back over west again 1 day when I have had enough of work (sorry for saying that word)
Regards
madmax800
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6/14/2009, 6:52 pm
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hungry1
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Re: My "Golden" trip to the W.A. Goldfields.
It was certainly a golden trip, Congratulations.
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6/14/2009, 9:15 pm
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slak jak
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Registered: 08-2008
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Re: My "Golden" trip to the W.A. Goldfields.
hey ,brian , looks like a successful trip .
so there is still gold in wa , them that know what they are doing gets the gold , & those that say there is none left dont know how to use a detecter .
good result & a great article , thank you ,
h h jack.
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6/14/2009, 10:46 pm
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neilo
Grand Master Relic Hunter
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Registered: 11-2005
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Re: My "Golden" trip to the W.A. Goldfields.
Well done Brian I have just come back from 5 weeks in Victoria using a 4500 around Dunolly, Talbot and Avoca area. For a grand total of 6.5 grams. On the first day I found 4 grams the remaining 2.5 grams took five weeks to find. The biggest piece I saw found over the period was a 51 gram piece found by a guy in the caravan park who was a learner (Typical) using an early SD2100. Good one seeya Neilo :thumbs:
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6/14/2009, 11:46 pm
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hotrock
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Location: Adelaide
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Re: My "Golden" trip to the W.A. Goldfields.
Thanks folks for your kind words, I had a great time.
If anyone is going to the West for the first time I would be quite happy giving some details to get them started.
Regards, Brian
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7/17/2009, 6:52 pm
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coinshooter
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Location: No fixed address....
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Re: My "Golden" trip to the W.A. Goldfields.
:kewlpics: Brian, love seeing the gold on the scales especially..... must be a great feeling unearthing a multi ounce nugget :thumbs:
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7/17/2009, 11:08 pm
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