I am back

fredm

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fredm Newbie

fredm

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Hi boys and girls;

i am returned (mostly) from a month in Oz...

Not rich in gold...just a 1/2 oz or so...about 30 bits

been just about everywhere ( or so it seems) in the NT, Halls Creek, WA; NSW and Victoria

met many fine folks

learned that no one in Oz knows what a Coolibah Tree is...

My tour with Mark Hyde, of Gold Prospecting in Australia, was great...he runs a first class operation. Mark stepped up when the airline decided that I would not be needing my luggage, they didn't ship it from LA...more about that later...If anyone is interested in His tours just e-mail me. I have no monetary interest in Marks Business...you will get my opinion and facts as I saw them....

And now a little .....

AussieHumour

The Jackaroo

A Queensland jackaroo is overseeing his herd in remote territory when suddenly a brand-new BMW advances out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a designer suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, 'If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?'

The jackaroo looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, 'Sure, why not?'

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resoluti on photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel Spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, 'You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.'

'That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,' says the Jackaroo.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then the Jackaroo says to the young man, 'Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?'

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, 'Okay, why not?'

'You work for the Australian Government', says the Jackaroo.

'Wow! That's correct,' says the yuppie, 'but how did you guess that?'

'No guessing required.' answered the jackaroo. 'You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used all kinds of expensive equipment that clearly somebody else paid for, You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows .. This is a herd of sheep. Now give me back my dog.'

they have the same issues down in OZ...

Fred

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Ridge Runner Contributor

Ridge Runner

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Fred

Well it's good you got back in whole.It's too bad you didn't get more gold but what a trip it had to be.I looked at a trip like yours at one time but like you it's best to have somebody that know their way around.

Thanks for the joke.

Chuck Anders

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Huego 1 Newbie

Huego 1

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Welcome back Fred,

You sure got around covering all that ground in 4 weeks! I musta missed you somewhere in the crowd.

Were the flies bad? Where in Vic did you go and did you meet Doug?

Good to have your balanced opinions and humor back on this wesbite.

You will notice the gold here is rougher generally than the smoother placer gold you may find in US. But finding gold is still a fickle business for amateurs. still you came back with a sample.

As for "no one in Oz knows what a Coolibah Tree is" ... you must have been in the wrong company. What do you want to know? I am sure I can tell you being very familar with them (there are a few species of eucalypt (Eucalyptus) tree called coolibah or coolabah, most are inland trees.)

Cheers Huego :)

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fredm Newbie

fredm

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No worries, Huego...if I had said i found 100 oz lots of people would be asking where and how...just the way it is.

I appreciate your guidance on the other forum...as hard as it may be to believe, I go to Oz for much more than just the yellow rocks. This was my third trip and allowed me experience far more of Australia than I ever would have done on just a nugget hunting trip...

best regards

fred

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Huego 1 Newbie

Huego 1

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typical spinifex detecting, Halls creek area

miles of spenifix, Halls creek area

A Boab tree, often called a Jailtree when they look like this...

thanks Matt and Adam

fred

Great pics & thanks Fred.

That (Kimberly)area is a very unique & wild part of Australia. Those hallow Baobab trees (which onl;y grow up there) were used as jails in some parts. The spinifex (spiky grass) only grows in some desert areas & provides shelter for snakes, lizards etc. Makes swinging a detector difficult & interesting at times, as you know. Spinifex areas are mostly in central and northern WA & NT. I prefer the mulga & eucalypt country further south in the goldfields of WA. The gold country in Qld (central and south), and most especially NSW (eastern) & Vic is much younger and quite different in appearnace and climate again.

Cheers, Huego

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fredm Newbie

fredm

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Hey Huego; is the boab tree and the african baobab the same, or the same name for different trees?

Now that my lust to see many of the famous gold districts of australia is sated I believe that the area around leonora is my favorite for gold hunting. The area around Marble bar and the Nullagine would be my choice for scenic beauty while having great nugget hunting (except for that spinifex)...

a couple more pictures for the few that have shown any interest...

the whip stick area...where the one itty-bitty nugget came from...I will attach that in the next post...

shaft and mullock heap near Hill End

boab tree...lower left is Ray for scale

fred

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matt Newbie

matt

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Thanks for sharing more pics Fred. That first picture sure looks like

a nice place to detect. That second pic almost looks like a big deep

hole from a detector, but must be just a narrow shaft. Take care.

Cheers,

Matt

PS-No luck up at Portola yet. Too much work and no time to detect.

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Huego 1 Newbie

Huego 1

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Hey Huego; is the boab tree and the african baobab the same, or the same name for different trees?

Now that my lust to see many of the famous gold districts of australia is sated I believe that the area around leonora is my favorite for gold hunting. The area around Marble bar and the Nullagine would be my choice for scenic beauty while having great nugget hunting (except for that spinifex)...

a couple more pictures for the few that have shown any interest...

the whip stick area...where the one itty-bitty nugget came from...I will attach that in the next post...

shaft and mullock heap near Hill End

boab tree...lower left is Ray for scale

fred

Hi Fred, the Baobab (or Boabs) of northern Australia are closely related to those of Africa. Same name applied to different trees is very common (and confusing). They are different species of the same genus, Adansonia. In dry season baobabs are devoid of leaves. Did you see their seed pods? Like a emu egg in size and shape. Sometimes drovers scratch outback images on their surface with their knives.

Thanks again for the pics. Look forward to pics of your gold. Have you noticed it looks different (shape) ie less worn than US gold?

Huego

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PVGOLD Newbie

PVGOLD

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Hi Fred

Thanks for the picture, there great!

Rely interesting to see where you've been.

Glad you had a good trip to the land down under.

Good to have you back and posting again and nice

talking with you my friend.

See Ya Out There

Herb

PS Hi Heugo! Thanks for the descriptive input.

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fredm Newbie

fredm

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I guess I have used up my photo space on this thread...I will attempt a new post...didn't work...sorry,won't let me post anymore pics

thanks herb

Huego; as I was sitting in the shade at the caravan park in Kunurarra I quickly learned why the swagman wasn't waiting for his billy to boil under the shade of a baobab tree..those seeds are big!

there is a pic on Bills forum...the wild nuggets were similar to some of the USA nuggets I have found; as was the little Bendigo nuggy; the patch nuggets were very different from any I have found in Oz or the USA...(not that I have a huge collection)

Fred

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Huego 1 Newbie

Huego 1

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Huego; as I was sitting in the shade at the caravan park in Kunurarra I quickly learned why the swagman wasn't waiting for his billy to boil under the shade of a baobab tree..those seeds are big!

there is a pic on Bills forum...the wild nuggets were similar to some of the USA nuggets I have found; as was the little Bendigo nuggy; the patch nuggets were very different from any I have found in Oz or the USA...(not that I have a huge collection)

Fred

The seeds are inside Fred. Those are hard shelled pods filled with soft spongy white mass & seeds.

Much of the gold I see from USA is very smooth. Some here is that way too but more often rough and craggy and not worn much.

Time to post pics of your gold on a new topic Fred. Maybe some of those BIG pics you posted early used up some posting quota.

Cheers Huego

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