Goldfields II

G'day mates,

Well?? Did you found out? Amazing isn't it? When you see the pictures of that vast country, it gives such a special feeling, being in the middle of nowhere and then somewhere in the ground you find this little speck of gold, three in a row.

Outback, red dust, don't try to fight it, a sky full of stars (at night of course), a lady (which I try to be) turns out being half a man, well you have seen me....

Gold digging can be dangerous too. I was swinging around also under trees as the experts say that's the place the nuggets hide, and without looking I sway my arm towards the trunk of the tree and suddenly I felt a pain saw that a branch, which was pointing firmly forwards was sticking into my arm. I pulled back but saw there were several splinters in my arm and it was not bleeding enough to clean the wound. I went to the car to get some first aid from Fred and he had to cut the splinters out of my arm with a Stanley knife. When we thought everything was clean, he nursed the wound with Betadine and just hoped it wouldn't get infected.

I can tell you, at the end of these 7 weeks I had much physical problems, my hands, my knees and back were pretty sore BUT I wouldn't have wanted to miss it!

Don't think we are rich now because I might have about $ 250.00 worth of gold and been digging for about 7 weeks. It's the excitement and I have the patience to keep on going where as a lot of other people quit when they don't find anything for days.


After the 2 weeks in Cue we went to Mount Magnet and stayed there for 10 days which is too much to prospect every day so we also did some sight seeing.

We went f.i. to the Lennonville Cemetery, which actually is nothing anymore except for a nice gate and one left grave...

Here we are at a natural Amphitheatre. It appears to be an ancient waterfall long long time ago;

Fred is waiting patiently till I finish taking pictures....

The Granites;

For at least 20.000 years local Aboriginals considered the Mount Magnet region as a seasonal home. Very ancient finger paintings were made here. The Granites are an escarpment about 15 meters high. 

Mother and Child Grave. The identity of this mother and child is unknown but they died in the "plague" (typhoid) in 1908. People passed away suddenly and were often buried where they died.

During this trip we passed so many gold mines, it's just incredible!
Of course I did some prospecting; This really was a hard time, it was so hot, I had to wear my hat and at the same time there was so much wind I couldn't hear my detector so I had to put the headset on, it simply didn't work ...

We also made some new lovely friends. They were our neighbours and most probably just felt they had to make it up to us as they nearly killed themselves and us because they had a gas leak haha. The leak wasn't to laugh about though.

We went detecting a few times together and had a lovely time...

We left Mount Magnet and headed off to Sandstone....

ready to go

Movie time;

The way to Sandstone was so beautiful and colourful with all the wild flowers.....

with the red soil it gives such a great contrast...

In Sandstone I didn't do any detecting at all, we only stayed for 2 nights and we did the Sandstone Heritage trail; a sign-posted tourist drive along a dusty track that you can do as a loop drive from town or as a one-way detour off the Agnew – Mount Magnet Road......

The Sandstone State Battery was a government-owned and run facility that crushed ore from the gold mines in the Sandstone area. It was in operation from 1904 right through to 1982. The workers live on site in little cottages not far from the battery building.

Old fridge on the veranda....

From the State Battery we continued our way to the London Bridge.....

but before we came there we passed this spot with old mines........

which was very dangerous!!

A few years ago a couple disappeared here near Sandstone and the man was found back in one of these shafts, the woman has never been found. There are hundreds of these shafts so you have to be very careful out there!

London Bridge, a scenic rock formation ;

Here I'm standing on the top but I didn't dare to walk to the other side....

BBQ

Nice picnic spot....

Lets go to the PUB......

Sandstone brewery; don’t expect to find an outback pub serving up craft beers! You will only find a pub with no beer. It’s been a long time since beer was brewed here, this is what’s left of it today:

View from in the cave up......

Looking into the cave......

Cheers!

If you want to see more of Sandstone itself;

http://torn-between-two-lovers.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/exciting-dangerous-must-read-story-gold.html

Till next time.....