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