Hi guys, I have been a bit quiet on the posting front lately but have still been getting bits of gold on each visit to these sluiced workings. All be it quite small & on occasions only one or two pieces. My last full day there had me only get two .11 gram bits. One was in some old workings further up stream that had some good exposed bed rock but it looked like it may have had some modern day activity with possibly a trommel plant & excavator doing some work over the old workings. I was supprised I didnt do better there. I was about to give it away when I got a .11 gram bit with the 10" X 5" mono. I then went back to the workings where I have been doing quite well to a spot where I had got a few bits where a road in has crossed some bedrock. I put on my new 6" round coiltek mono to see if it could sniff out something more than my 10" X 5" had got. I had been over the ground very slowly & very thouroughly with the !0" X 5" a couple of times & had got a couple of bits more on a previous visit. My first signal with the new 6" mono was a .11 gram bit. It was dark by this stage so I packed it in for the day. Boy what a long day for a total of .22 grams. I would have walked miles backwards & forwards over the workings. Through briar rose, broom & gorse.
The weekend before I had crashed through some briar rose, tearing up my old jacket in the process, under some powerlines, which made the mono a tad noisey, when I spied some good looking bed rock up on a small slope that I hadnt noticed before. Damn the powerlines
. They where above some stacked tailings & looked as though they may have been washed down with the ground sluicing in the old days, but there was no tailings on them but some small tail races either side. So my thoughts were that they must have been pretty exposed in the first place. It was the usual schist up on edge but very smooth & rounded off by glacial grinding.
Here is a pic of the slope looking up hill.
Within a minute I had my first signal that had that lovely mellow gold sound. I scraped away a couple of inches of the topsoil, checked the signal & it was still there. Another scrape & I was on to the schist bed rock. Another check of the signal & it was gone. Bugger, I thought. That isnt a good sign. Scanned the pile & the signal was there. Not giving it much hope now of being gold but more likely a bit of lead. Too my suprise it was a piece of gold. You beauty. Must have been sitting right on top of the schist. I got 6 pieces off that slope when darkness set in. I didnt take my head lamp with me so had to bale before it got too dark to find my way back through all the briar rose, damn the old miners for planting that stuff. They planted it to use the hose hip to make tea as a source of vitamin C. Now the bloody thing is growing wild & taking over the land scape & invading the valleys & mountain sides. A real pest now. HORRIBLE STUFF.
Looking down the slope with a dig hole & detector showing another find. Notice the powerlines & briar rose bushes.
Notice the shallow topsoil down to the schist bedrock, About 2"
And another piece down into the folds of schist. The broken out schist to the left.
Piece of gold on the white lid of my gold bottle
River way down below & the exposed high bank on the other side cut down into the glacial material. Notice the powerlines & briar rose, GRRRRR
Some of the pieces I found before dark on this slope.
I went back during the week after work & found 12 bits all up off this slope using the 10" X 5" mono I havnt tried the 6" mono but had a go with an 11" DD in mono mode to combat the powerlines. Got nothing further off that slope but on my way back to my wagon snagged a .7 gram piece on some bedrock exposed by a 4 wheel drive road that also gave a heap of crap targets & .22 shells.
Total finds from these working since my last photos. 32 bits. I think I have now done my dash at this spot & will have to find another.
Found 20 grams all up. Not bad for a spot that has been trashed in the past & also by a GPX 4000 that I know of.
Happy hunting
JW
Saves flying to OZ too 
LOL
