The Golden Triangle

Golden Triangle Victoria

The Golden triangle in Victoria would be our last opportunity to detect for gold before reaching home. The world renown area is from Bendigo to Ballarat in the south to Stawell in the west, roughly speaking that is, as there has been finds in other area's outside of the triangle such as Echuca.

The gold rushes of the 1850s and 60s made a powerful impression on this region especially in its lavish buildings, which are still in use today. Did you know that the Eureka rebellion in Ballarat in 1854 was the first step towards establishing our democratic principles and the notion of "a fair go for all" ?

Its surprising though how many pioneering stories are woven into this nations history and culture. Bendigo is now a city of some 100,000 people, yet continues to prosper from its golden past through tourism. Although when I asked where we could go to do some gold detecting, no one really knew. I was given the official Goldfields touring map which ironically had nothing about gold detecting in it, just a tourist drive and natural heritage trails.



Tarragulla



So off we went blindly into the bush along some tracks  just outside Tarragulla on the Goldfields tourist drive, thankfully they were wide tracks which made pulling our 20ft caravan though the bush a lot easier.

Salt and Pepper ground a gold indicator

Looking for what we call salt and pepper ground, that's Quartz and Iron stone and the dirtier the Quartz the better, we found a promising site and with a camp spot close by.
There was plenty of evidence that the area was well worked over and it had a lot of trash, and the noise through the head phones can blow your eardrums, if you go out for too long.



GPX4500





The following few days were spent swinging my way through the rough bush terrain, considering the detector weighs around 5 kilo's I should have built up a few muscles, but no joy at all was to be had at that location.

Onward to Dunolly a quaint little village with well planned gardens overflowing with roses and manicured lawns, a little piece of Britain. The folk here were more than happy to give directions to local areas one could detect, along with some good advise and knowledge about my detector GPX 4500.
Hard Hill was apparently producing some recent finds, so off we headed 3kms out of town, but hilly it was not, just gentle slopes which is my favorite terrain, I felt certain this was the place I would   strike the big one.

Trash

After setting up camp I headed off across the railway tracks into the bush in a search for virgin ground. The detecting was not easy with thick undergrowth baring my way, but its these places which are hard to access were the finds are made.

I was taught by the old-timers in West Australia to check around tree stumps and low and behold it finally paid off with a 7gm nugget on my first day!

You can bet I never left an inch of that ground undetected after that, I patiently gridded the entire area, but there wasn't another piece left with my name on it. Not this time anyway.

The Emmy Lou

The weather started to crack up on the fourth day and our water supply was running out so it was time to pack the detectors away and head for the Echuca on our homeward journey.
Echuca is a vibrant bustling city with that old town country feel, we found a beautiful spot right beside the Murray River were we could free camp. The river however was a very dirty brown colour and the river banks were bare of any living vegetation, with the exception of the Red River gums which clutched desperately to the steep banks to exist.




 

Land slip



We parked our van very close to the edge for the view and on that first night while sitting admiring the sun set and skiers on the river a huge river gum not 10 foot away went crashing into the water, along with a huge segment of the embankment. We did very quickly moved the van away from the edge, even though I thought our spot was secure.




The steam engine

The following day it was off to the port of Echuca to cruise the mighty Murray River on board a genuine old paddle steamer. The Emmy Lou was built at the turn of the nineteenth century to cart cargo up and down the river, today it is a licensed   cruising boat with an exceptional menu of fine food and local wines.

We were surprised at how smooth the journey was and impressed at the size of the steam engine that drives the paddles. I even spent some time with the Captain in the wheelhouse getting exclusive info on the Emmy Lou. Another surprise was how many luxury house boats were on the river. It was a great day out !

Luxury house boats

Following the lunch time cruise we browsed the many shops adjacent to the wharf finding a distillery of fine wines St Anne's. After sampling quiet a few of the wines thanks to our host Georgia , our favorite was Jack's Barrel although it was a tough choice, and the barrel we just had to have, has been sent home awaiting our arrival.

As much as we enjoyed Echuca the fishing was not good and the gold was too deep so we moved on. Surveying camp spots all along the Murray at Cobram we popped into the tourist centre to ask for some local knowledge, only to find out that fishing was totally banned this time of year between the weir at Lake Mulwala and the bridge at Tocumwal due to the Murray Cod spawning season. Either side of these places we could fish but not for cod.

Carp

So here we are at Bundalong well above the weir enjoying the beautiful weather and clean river water  clean enough to give Mylee a long awaited B.A.T.H much to her disgust.



Murray Cod



Although it's not the Murray but the Ovens River, the Carp are just as big and I just let go a beautiful Murray Cod.

So we'll be here for a few days I think.

so until next time

Warm regards to you all

Alan and Laurie