3/9/23 Murrin Murrin

 

     Camping at Gwalia for a couple of days while we decide where to go next . Here's some of the old buildings where the miners lived .

    The old garage is a classic , as well as the Royal Hotel in the background .

    Decision made , we headed out to Murrin Murrin for a week , to some pending leases that we could get onto . More different ground to look at  and again lot's of it . 

    The gold was hiding well , we didn't find any in the week we were there , fortunately there were some wildflowers to checkout .

    When the flowers come , they are usually en masse .

      These ones are tiny .

     They're only about 10 - 20mm high , but there's thousands of them carpeting sections of the ground .

     The ground is colourful when viewed from above , whites , reds , oranges and green .

     Not far away as the crow flies is Murrin Murrin Nickel Mine which has spread itself across the landscape here , it makes the King of the Hills gold mine look small !! Check it out on the map link .

    After a week of not finding , we headed back to Leonora again to decide our next step .

 Here's map link :- https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1oYIgDLdHmFoRie-KSrCFjDZrfOFkFkM&usp=sharing

1/9/23 White Well

 

   Back into the big smoke of Leonora for a day , before going to our next destination - a place called White Well . It was named after the white dirt that's below the tank near the well . We picked our spot and set up camp for another month . Here we are in the stoney desert again , with several thousand acres to go detecting on - a daunting task in itself , just trying to find some gold !! 

   There's all sorts of different ground out here , we checked here , we detected there , and there , and over here and over there , but couldn't find anything .  Here's some of the scenery .

   Sunsets were worth looking at , it was the only gold we were getting !

    Another day and some different ground , but still no gold , Hmmmm.

     Storms came and went , dumping some rain on the parched ground .

     A few days were spent on some other leases that we also had access to , but still none of the precious yellow !

     Walking around is sometimes harder than other times due to the rocks .

    Here's some aerial shots of where we are - we found a small nugget in this area - finally !! It was across the highway and on some crown land - not on the leases we had access to !

    There's a large gold mine about 5klms away " King of The Hills " - it's huge , going from one side of the photo to the other - that's about 10klms across .

     Here's where we're parked up , no neighbours anywhere near us .

    We finally found a section that had some small specimens in it ( gold in rock ) , so that relieved the pressure of not finding anything . Gold detecting can be very emotional , if you're finding some , all is good . If you're not finding any , it gets a bit depressing - an emotional roller coaster !! 

    After a month here , we headed back to town again , to decide on our next step .

 Here's a map link :- https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1oblgsM1qrujxxhPDQ2sfFkivoc9jct8&usp=sharing

24/8/23 Old Agnew Rd Leonora

 

    Our next adventure started as we head out of town to a friends lease about 60 kms out of town , where we will stay for a fortnight before moving up the road a few kilometres . There was a pending lease that we could detect on while our friends were busy on their lease .

    We had an interesting sky one day as a storm front moved through , didn't get wet in this one however .

    Sunsets are pretty cool out here .

   On one of our expeditions , we found this old well - it's on a mound of dirt & gravel which is located in the creek bed ???

    After a couple of weeks we moved and set up camp for a week until we move onto another lease that we've paid to detect on for 9 weeks ( only $104 to the Dept of Mines ) . Not the greatest photo of our friends Terry & Robyn , but we can spend time with these guys easily . This is one of our many campfires we had .

   Here's an aerial shot of our temporary campsite .

    And this is looking the other direction , yes we are remote !!

    Another great sunset before we shift camp again .

      Our access to the other lease for 9 weeks came through and we shifted again - all of 2 kilometres 😆

  Our gold detecting was a bit slow , all this ground has been previously been worked over during the gold rush in the 1970's & 1980's , so we are just mopping up the remnants they missed and everyone else has removed since . We headed to one spot and found a few small pieces of gold , then at the base of this tree we got a signal on the detector and started digging - there was a 2 gram nugget about 80mm down - our biggest so far - we were suitably impressed !!😃

    Another spot we found another small nugget right between these 2 trees - it was just wide enough to get our detector in between .

    There were some interesting days with the weather , we had to take shelter in between storms this day , but the rainbow was worth it !!

   Here's a few of the small nuggets , and 2 specimens - where the gold is still in the rocks 

   One of our great fires that kept us warm as the temperature dropped - we know why we haven't done a winter for 8 years - it's too bloody cold !!!!🥶🥶🥶

    This rainbow appeared one day after a light shower came through , so we went and had a look at for the bucket of gold at the end of it - seems everyone else had already emptied the bucket and only left one - it weighed a whole 0.09 gram - very small !!

    The rain looked great on the bush near us .

   We headed up tp Leinster one day , about 70klm away , going past the old town of Agnew that doesn't exist anymore . It does have this old gold stamper on display though , as well as a selection of old car bodies & other equipment used back in the days of the gold rush . The old stamper is certainly a great construction . 

    The large wheels on each side were constructed of timber and wrought iron , as they turned they lifted rods up and then they dropped , crushing the gold ore & rock to release the gold from the rock - quite an impressive piece of machinery !!

     On the way back from Leinster , the Goldfields Hwy passes this gold mine - Bundarra , the spoil mounds are colourful .

    Storms rolled in another day , making for an interesting photo of this large lump of quartz just above our campsite .

     This next photo shows just how small a piece of gold my detector will pick up - it's the size of a pin head and weighed a whopping 0.04 gram !!

     Here's a couple of aerial shots of our campsite , we are out in the bush !!!

    And here we are beside our campfire pit and our wood supply -  that and more was burnt over the 9 weeks we were there .

   Here's a map link :- https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=11EAOGUGwLn1wgZsL7XNjqfnHeezWMk0&usp=sharing

24/8/23 To Leonora

 

    From Coolgardie , we headed to Kalgoorlie and found it was flat out , no vacancies in any of the parks , so we went to the free camp , which was also almost full - we got a spot after someone had packed up and left . We stayed the night , then did some more shopping , cooking and organising , before heading north - we were happy to be getting out of there , it was crazy busy .

    Stopping at a railway siding for the night at Goongarrie , we had that to ourselves fortunately . Continuing on to Menzies the next day , we decided to stay for a few days and try our luck with some detecting . We found 3 small nuggets and were pretty happy with our efforts , being very much novices at gold detecting .

   Our friends had gone through to Leonora , not knowing that we'd stopped for a couple of days at Menzies , but we caught up with them again in Leonora . 

   Up to Leonora we found some wedgetail eagles just on the outskirts of town - there were 6 of them , all taking turns in feasting on a wallaby that had an argument with a car / truck and lost .  The crows very wisely stood back when the eagles were feasting .

    We organised our first fortnight of detecting on a bunch of leases - we did a course in February that gave us access to these leases . Finding a camp site was interesting when you've got 20,000 odd acres of ground to choose from . We picked a site on the top of a rise fortunately , as we got some storms come through and dump 20mm in a few hours . This was our view out of the dining room window as the storm built and came through .

   This was out the other side .

   Our personal water feature after the rain had stopped .

    In between times we did get a few nice sunsets - the gold didn't really come to us here , so this is as much as you'll see .

    Another sunset .

    We did find 3 small pieces of gold over the 12 days we were there , this is where we were camped .

   After our days here , we headed back into town ( we were only 14klms out ) for a couple of days to wash & shop and get sorted ready for our next location .

   Here's a map link :- https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1-3ehgnH89cX6KkUB4t36-76Jui37Buw&usp=sharing

23/8/23 Just when you thought we weren't coming back

 

       Here we are again , hadn't forgotten you , just got busy doing other things . We had an excellent Christmas with our family together again , the London contingent had a great holiday as well . 

  We bought ourselves a different present - a gold detector !!! , so that's where we've been for the last 4 months and probably another couple yet !

    First though , here's a recap of our movements , we had to get to the goldfields first . After Christmas we spent some time with Emma , then headed off again , visiting friends and enjoying our time out & about .

Lake Kepwari was a highlight , we stayed there with friends and had a great few days . It's an old coal mine that's been rehabilitated , and is now a water ski lake . The following photo shows the before & after 

    Around the shoreline there are covered picnic facilities , Bbq's etc , very well done !! The shoreline has a sandy beach all round the lake - definitely not there originally , it has all been imported .

    This is the boat ramp area , and a safe swimming area between the island and the beach .

    This is the view from above , there are 2 main camp areas , this is the newer one that we spent our time at .

   The lake is situated not far from the town of Collie , inland from Bunbury . 

We spent a few days at Donnybrook - we found there were old gold mines down there , and there was an area we could go detecting in - didn't find anything except some rubbish and a bent up old silver fork !

  We managed to fill in a couple of months , and before we knew it April had arrived and we were getting a bit excited about heading to the goldfields . All our preparation was complete , warmer clothing had come out of storage - this was going to be our first Winter for 8 years !!! and we weren't looking forward to that part . We left Perth near Easter and made it out to Coolgardie for Easter , spending 3 nights at the free camp , then another 3 out on a lease where we could go detecting . Well we found our first piece of gold !!! we were a little bit excited , the look on Lyn's face was priceless !

  Funny story - we moved out of Coolgardie to another old mine lease , while we were out detecting , the local policeman called in after seeing us on site . I went over to have a chat and next minute he's telling me that there's nothing but rubbish on this lease , but there's a better one not too far away - he gold detects in his spare time , so we chatted about where to go and what to check out - we packed up and moved to this other lease !! Didn't do any good there either , but it was a good camp site .

   This is the main street in Coolgardie 

   Here's some of the bush around Coolgardie 

   Here's some of our valuable finds .

     And here's our first piece of gold !! all 0.50 grams of it !!

   Here's a map link :- https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1hlwhqfOvf6TH6bcIQF6nW1R-7dxbKA8&usp=sharing

   Had to remember how to do all this again 🤣