My first gold prospecting trip to Western Australia
Before I had even set foot on any Western Australia gold bearing ground for the first time, I had spent a good year or so researching the Western Australia gold fields. I went to my state library, spoke to people on gold and relic forums, searched the internet and read many books. And before I left N.S.W. I also contacted the DMP (Department of Mines and Petroleum in W.A.) to organise my miners right and permissions needed to detect on the areas I had identified in my research.
The drive from the East Coast of Australia to Laverton W.A. was extensive and worked out to be about 41 hours and just over 3,700 kilometres. (It has since amused me that the drive over always seems far more exciting than the drive back.)
I was finally here and I was so incredibly excited the landscape was incredible. The differences from Victoria and N.S.W. gold fields was pretty spectacular, W.A. was ancient land and had been weathered and striped back with very little vegetation in parts and the soil was red. (And that red soil/dust had a way of finding itself in almost every corner of my vehicle might I add and the clean up on my return home was exhausting.) Anyway I ventured to my first area not far out of Laverton and after doing a small walk around observing the ground and noticing just how different it was to anything I had detected on before. There were plenty of rocks and later I started to learn more about these rocks and the ones associated with gold.
So after my short walk to investigate my surrounds I noticed an old dried up creek bed. And that is where I turned my detector on and away I went. After about twenty minutes or so I got a signal and was not sure if it was rubbish or not but I dug it and wow there it was my first W.A. gold nugget. It was so exciting to experience and certainly helped to ensure that all the effort I had put into research may actually have been worth it.
It was the first of many nuggets for my introduction to the W.A. gold fields and after exploring many different areas and meeting some lovely people whom now are considered great fiends. The two or so month adventure was coming to an end and it was time to head back East. I was very reluctant and already could not wait to go back to W.A. the following year.