Post by cronicbadger on Nov 14, 2023 19:37:34 GMT 10
I went up to Uralla in May for a few days to fossick.
I ended up with 1.6g of gold and some interesting stones. Here are some photos of that trip.
This is a sandy billabong a short distance from the main camping area. It's quite pretty here when the water has been flushed. There wasn't much gold in the watercourse, but some nice stones on the higher floodbanks.
While I was walking over some exposed bedrock I looked down and spotted what appeared to be a gorgeous blue stone. My heart skipped a beat. As soon as I picked it up its weight told me it was not a monster sapphire but some sort of waterworn plastic or resin bead, probably from a necklace. I WAS DEVASTATED! :-(
However, a few testpans later, and I was finding some flour gold around the rocks. This photo shows around 90-100 specks.
Eventually, I decided to set up the sluice! The sluice has a dream mat. I classify the gravels to 8th inch, which helps the sluice when the waterflow is low. This photo shows just how well those dream mat cells catch the heavy material.
The mat is highly effective. Here is a closeup of the gold trapped in the lettering stamped into the top of the mat.
I cleaned up the gold I obtained from one single crevice. 0.62g.
I panned out most of the gold from my concentrates. The photo shows 1.6g of gold, plus a small but rare (for uralla) "picker", that's going into my retirement fund.
All in all, it was a fun trip, with plenty of interesting wildlife and scenery.
I ended up with 1.6g of gold and some interesting stones. Here are some photos of that trip.
This is a sandy billabong a short distance from the main camping area. It's quite pretty here when the water has been flushed. There wasn't much gold in the watercourse, but some nice stones on the higher floodbanks.
While I was walking over some exposed bedrock I looked down and spotted what appeared to be a gorgeous blue stone. My heart skipped a beat. As soon as I picked it up its weight told me it was not a monster sapphire but some sort of waterworn plastic or resin bead, probably from a necklace. I WAS DEVASTATED! :-(
However, a few testpans later, and I was finding some flour gold around the rocks. This photo shows around 90-100 specks.
Eventually, I decided to set up the sluice! The sluice has a dream mat. I classify the gravels to 8th inch, which helps the sluice when the waterflow is low. This photo shows just how well those dream mat cells catch the heavy material.
The mat is highly effective. Here is a closeup of the gold trapped in the lettering stamped into the top of the mat.
I cleaned up the gold I obtained from one single crevice. 0.62g.
I panned out most of the gold from my concentrates. The photo shows 1.6g of gold, plus a small but rare (for uralla) "picker", that's going into my retirement fund.
All in all, it was a fun trip, with plenty of interesting wildlife and scenery.