Day 948, Gold

There be gold in them there hills!!

168 years ago gold was discovered in the Adelaide Hills and for the next 50 years various strikes and digs from Willunga to Mount Rufus produced hundreds of kilograms of gold before becoming uneconomic.

In the last few months I have been working on and playing with products from local Adelaide company Minelab and this weekend we were using a new detector.

I had gotten used to the whooping sounds and constant murmuring tones while sweeping back and forth over the ground. Up until now we had dug ball bearings, cigarette packet foil, used brass bullet shells, fencing wire and even an old lapel pin. Buried fencing wire was the worst with the detector literally screaming at me and taking several seconds to recover.

This time while sifting through the rubble I caught a glint of yellow in an otherwise dirty brown stone and picked it up noting how it felt unusually heavy. A quick clean revealed a cute little gold nugget, our very first!


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Day 948, Gold' 20s f/14 ISO160 200mm