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We camped on LakeWays Station after calling the owners advising them that we were coming. After my quick visit with Jacko I was looking forward to finding heaps of gold. Mostly it turned out to be one piece every second day with the highlights being one at 3 grams, a patch where I found two pieces of gold and the quartz photoed below which has 3 to 10 grams of gold in a small part of it.

I took to wandering around the bush and found some of the pieces away from the dryblowing areas and other detectorist holes which was exciting but except for one place there was only one piece of gold to be found at each location I detected. You would think if there was one piece of gold there had to be more in the same area!

After finding a quartz reef, which had spread over an acre down an incline, my detector screamed and looking down I could see a gold vein glittering in the sunlight looking back up at me. Just think, no prospector had ever walked over that piece waiting to be picked up. I was so excited as 2/3 of the rock was covered in mud, buried underground. I hoisted the 4 kilo rock onto my hip and walked the kilometre back to camp. I whooped for joy and told Sandy that we had just paid the detector off but she didn't believe me until she looked at the rock with the gold shining brightly! After washing the rock we found that the gold was only in a small part of the rock but it was still so exciting to find. I will have to get a dolly to crush the quartz/gold to be able to pan the gold out of the resulting dust. This will give me something to do next month at Ningaloo.

GOLD!!!!

After leaving LakeWays we stopped at Wiluna to stock up on food. The veggies were fresh and Sandy had a ball. Much better than Meekatharra which had a limited range of everything.

From Meeka we headed towards Mt Augustus crossing over the Gascoyne and Murchison River

Murchison River crossing

Just before Mt Augustus Station, another flat tyre. Every car that came into the station, no matter which direction they came, had a flat tyre!

Mt Augustus

The next morning we climbed to the top taking lunch with us taking 2 1/4 hours to get to the top. 2 1/2 times bigger than Ayres Rock and 858 metres higher than the surrounding red sandplains. I think all the gold detector walking has made me fitter as it was a 6km trail to the top, almost all of it going up! Sandy made it easy but I needed a couple of rest stops. When we got down a couple were waiting for us as they had a flat tyre and their jack broke. Later that night I fixed the puncture for them so that at least they had a spare tyre.

Scroll right for a 360 degree view from the top of Mt Augustus

On the way down I made a mistake and took the Gully trail at the junction. This involved following a boulder strewn riverbed all the way to the bottom. On a lot of the boulders Sandy had to sit, then slide down, as her legs were just a bit short. 3 1/2 hours later we made it back to the carpark and the Gully Trail was worth it to see the beautiful rock formations eroded by the water.

Gully trail on the way down

Cattle Pool near Mt Augustus on the Lyons River

On the morning we left we stopped out on the main road to take a photo and I noticed the van's watertank was falling out, a bolt had snapped off. Back to the caravan park and a few tekscrews later we were back on the road.

At Meekatharra I picked up some Mining Tenement maps for Cobra Station so back to detecting we go. We arrived at Cobra and chatted to Keith and Joan who were caretaking the property for CALM. Cobra is about to be leased to a private group who are supposed to be updating the accommodation and as they own a lot of the mining leases on the station they will be allowing visitors to detect on their mining leases. We met Bruno who 4 years ago found a patch of gold and subsequently pegged a lease. He detected over 200 ounces of nuggets!!! All this within 400 metres of the existing mining leases which have been going for over 20 years.

Bruno has been driving, walking and camping for many kilometres around this area over the past 4 years. He found another patch of gold of which he recovered 50 ounces of alluvial gold and uncovered a rich seam of gold about 1 foot below the ground. He believes this is the same reef that was found then lost many years ago. The story goes that Matt Newell who died of cancer in Carnarvon hospital in the 30's told a truck driver before he passed away that he had found the mother load. He described the find as about 6 miles out and said no one would find it as it is not where they would expect it to be. The truck driver later asked the publican if Matt was bringing in any gold. He was bringing in alluvial nuggets then just before he had to go to hospital he showed the publican specimens of reef gold that made his eyes pop out. Bruno's reef is 10 kms from the road amongst some large square boulders on top of a small hill, not where you would expect gold to be and 6 miles from the road! Good luck to him.

I found two lovely 5 gram nuggets whilst I was there. The first one just after we arrived at 3.30pm and the second one first thing the next morning. A week before another person found one nugget over 2 ounces!

Time to pack the detector away, I have found around 1 ounce of gold over the past few months which will pay for the petrol to get here, with the most expensive being $1.40 a litre at Mt Augustus.

Next stop Kennedy Ranges.

Kennedy Ranges

Sandy in front of the bright pink/red sandstone

The ranges were smaller than expected being only around 100 metres high but they were still nice to see. A couple of hikes up the gorges took us past dry waterfalls and green pools of water.

We headed towards Carnarvon but decided not to arrive until Monday so we dropped in to Doorawarrah Station where Brian allowed us to camp at Cathada Pool. When I told him I had been detecting he told me that the Afghans used a well near where we were to camp and I should try detecting around the well. One of his aboriginal station hands came in a few years back with a small clay pot stuffed with rag, a parchment with foreign writing on it and around 4 ounces of gold nuggets inside! Unfortunately all I found was lots of cans, wire and rusty steel.

Next stop Carnarvon for supplies. Had to replace the tyre we damaged at Mt Augustus as it was unrepairable. Three days here packing the van with heaps of food and filling the water tanks up. Travelled all the way to Ningaloo Station by 2.00 pm then slowed for the track in then the last 30 kms were done at walking pace as the corrugations were bad. Arrived at our camp by 4.30pm and set up the annexes the next day. Met up with old friends and have caught some fish for tea to keep Sandy happy. Still very windy but hopefully it will get calmer in a few weeks allowing us some good diving weather.

That's all for this month.

Too roo

Fisherpersons

Peter and Sandy