Dunolly.

[richard70au]

We are stopping in Dunolly for a couple of days to try our luck.
spend a couple of hours swinging the detector today and found 3 pieces of Dunolly's finest fencing wire, plenty of places to search around here and the young guy in the shop is very helpful.

Wonder how many members of this great site are actually here in the van park as there are plenty of people searching for that yellow stuff here.

 

[WalnLiz]

Would rather be down there than up here in Canberra. Hope tomorrow turns that fencing wire into gold nuggets. Best of luck and stay safe out there in that heat.

Cheers Wal.

 

[Redfin]

Just left today after 4 days of camping in the state forest.
We only saw one other car in that 4 days, tho we do go out of the way a tad.
Good luck and with this weather be early.
We get up in semi dark and start swinging as soon as you can see where you are going.

 

[nuggetino]

Count me in for Dunolly mate i'm heading over from goldless SA for a week or so. Pretty excited as I've never been detecting out of adelaide. Hope you find plenty! Will be trying the three corners of the triangle. Anyone see a bald idiot swinging a stupidly big coil and it'll probably be me.

 

[loamer]

Dunolly - big gold country - big coil country. You need to do some pretty in-depth research about Dunolly if you are detecting off the mullock heaps. In a lot of places, the 'shallow' leads are out of detecting range. Most notable nuggets, with a few exceptions, were found from about 3 feet and deeper. (Moliagul being an exception and it has been surfaced within an inch of its life and any 'potato' patch). There are thousands of mullock heaps with the odd 'throw-out'. Be prepared for some pretty hot ground with the heat that can give you false signals/ground noise - you can watch the heat haze coming off the ground, quite interesting. There is no water about (what's new) for panning but the dams (fire-water points - marked FP on maps) have water in them. The sites right in the town are are very rubbishy and a lot of what looks like mullock dumps are in fact fill from road works/building sites.

There is no 'easy' detecting around Dunolly and its quite hard going so be prepared to walk. VLFs at this time of the year can get cranky due to the hot ground, hot rocks and hot pockets of that mongrel red clay. Where the tracks are marked as 'rough' take that as 100%. If you follow things marked as pipe-line track(s) they are not well maintained and 4WD even in the dry in places. Several places are either being mined, have been mined and are still closed or have been mined and the over-spill (mullock) dumped. Keep well away from private land - due to fence jumpers the locals are very wary of fossickers.

It is worth chatting to the boys at Goldsearch Australia (Broadway Dunolly - near the pub) and perhaps a trip into Maryborough to the Coiltek boys.

The good news? Its a very challenging place, has a reputation as being flogged (it has been in places) but is still producing for patient, planned detecting with some surprising results.

 

[nuggetino]

Thanks for the input loamer, as always any insight/advice is welcomed and I'll be sure to do some thorough research before I head over in a week or so. I think I'll do a day at Dunolly but Wedderburn also looks like it has some great areas nearby too. I have read the ground is extremely mineralized in wedderburn. You have much experience detecting in this area? Thanks again, erik

 

[loamer]

No, I have given Wedderburn a miss for years. For no other reason than its a smaller field and doesn't suit my type of detecting. The field reads pretty well, and yes, mineralised. As you would be aware, its pretty well the last of the goldfields that far north. On that side of the Victorian fields, the run very generally seems to split at about Avoca - runs north west to St Arnaud, west to the Grampians and north through to Wedderburn - lots of geological reasons. I guess you could almost work your way down to Dunolly from Wedderburn following any of the two sort of gold 'routes' - St Arnaud, Stuart Mill - Dunolly, or Rheola - Moliagul - Dunolly. If you haven't been to Dunolly before, the amount of diggings and new ground that are on crown land is amazing - a lifetime of detecting.

 

[eureka wow]

any new spots you can think of cheers ew

 

[loamer]

New spots for detecting? yes, a few and I shall be detecting them one at a time through the year.

 

[Mungass]

Bit of Dunolly magic

make sure your at the caravan park for pizza night Friday night and maybe win the dollar in pot also, cracked it last visit 68 bucks, straight to the supermarket VB 2 for 72 ha ha ha

 

[eureka wow]

what coil best suits Dunolly area

 

[eureka wow]

I run a gpx4500

 

[loamer]

I have a 4500 and run mainly nugget finders with old DDs as required. the standard 11 mono and 11 DD are as good as any coil for general prospecting. light, sensitive and reasonable coverage.

 

[eureka wow]

I have the 8 and 11 inch minelab coils the 11 inch one is a super goldsearch coil both mono

 

[loamer]

they should be fine. the 8 inch on mullock heaps should do well.

 

[eureka wow]

what about the 11 inch coil

 

[loamer]

the 11 inch is the standard coil issued with minelab detectors. they are also the standard for your factory pre-sets. the 11 inch will be fine, all round coils on relatively open ground are fine. if the ground gets too scrubby or you want to investigate rocky or quartz littered ground where you cannot get good ground coverage with the 11 (that is having to continually raise the coil too high) switch to the 11. you will not get the same depth but it is better than swinging an 11 inch in mid air. take a back back, stow the 8 inch (on a shaft if you want) and start walking. as you progress and get used to the detector you may want to consider bigger coil, like a 14, 16 or 18 inch.

 

[eureka wow]

any other areas that are worth a try for the Maryborough area

 

[loamer]

check the maps lots - and by the way - you're welcome

 

[richard70au]

Well we left Dunolly this morning with no gold in our kick.

As loamer said there is enough room available there to last a life time.

The guys staying at the caravan park are great and I spent a few hours listening to them talk and look at some of the nice gold they found.

We are off to Tassie next but when we return to the mainland I will be looking at some more time in Dunolly.