Eldorado's Oallen Ford trips

[jamie]

Good to hear you both had a good day and found some colour sounds like a great way to bond, my daughter collects rocks when we are out prospecting, wether it be detecting or sluicing
I met colourblind last week he does seem like a nice bloke and good to hear he found a patch hope it paid well for him

 

[nucopia]

All too true Eldorado

 

[Eldorado]

Went out to Oallen today with my son,beautiful day,sun was shining most of the day.Was good to see a lot of families out there enjoying the bush.Started off by lifting some shale on the rock bar and extracting the gravel underneath.Got about half a 5ltr bucket full from the few crevices I cleaned out,have to get a little crevice sucker so I can clean them out better.I am sure there was probably still gold in them.Filled another small bucket with some gravel which had settled behind a large rock.Little fella was hungry so we went and had some lunch under the bridge,set up the sluice after lunch and run the gravel through.

First photo is the result from the crevices and the second is the result from the day's work.Met a bloke out there who was running his highbanker with a bilge pump.Asked him if he was on here,he said he had browsed the forum but was not a member.Told him he should join up.If you are reading this Will,I hope the gold gods shined on you today and it was a pleasure to meet you and your partner.

 

[bazxa]

good work by you & the little fellow.
Barry

 

[cecc]

Nice good on ya, hope your son had a good time with his dad??

 

[goldrat]

Love your story , particularly the bond between Dad & Son . Did that with our son from an early age fossicking , fishing and shooting / rabbit trapping , then the picnic or BBQ or camp out . He's now 43 and we still have that bond , when he phones always closes off with Love ya Dad .
It's Priceless !!! keep it up .

Cheers
goldrat

 

[DropBear]

Thats awesome!

 

[Brendo123321]

Love it good work guys

 

[Eldorado]

Thanks guys,I showed the young bloke this post today and he was very pleased.He commented that you guys were"saying really nice things".My kids were only about 6 months old when they first went camping,mother in law was horrified but we went anyway.Son wants to camp out at Oallen when it warms up so in his words "we can prospect for 2 days or more".Keen as.By the way,that is my son on our first trip to The Ford in my avatar,we had no gear just a shovel and an old wok.Found a couple of specks and 2 tiny terminated quartz crystals and caught the fever.We love the adventure of it all but I think the real gold is spending the day in the bush with the young bloke.

 

[DropBear]

Nice work man!

Looks cold down there.

 

[DrDuck]

Great trip report, Eldorado. I'll have to get my arse in to gear and head out to Oallen for a day shortly.

 

[bundyjd]

I was out there a few weekends ago and young Will was up to his knees in a watery hole. The weather was pretty ordinary, so his wife was happy to have a snooze in the car. He was just filling up buckets that day and told me he'd be back with his highbanker, think he said he was from up Sydney way.

I also told him about the forum, seemed like a nice bloke so hope he did well out there.

It looks like the water levels have dropped quite a bit since my last trip.

 

[Mackka]

Now stand up straight and tall and make sure you smile, say cheese. Just love it.
Good times ahead for that young man with his Pop.
Cheers
Mackka

 

[Eldorado]

Took a trip to The Ford again today to wash a few rocks.I thought I would try down the northern end for a change, done some test pans down there but couldn't seem to find a flake,so I went back to a spot I had picked out last time I was out there.Test pans in the spot revealed 3-5 flakes so the banker was set up.Washed some dirt for about 2 hrs,had a few visitors who were interested in what I was doing.I was doing test pans every half hour or so and getting a flake or two but must have gone off the gold line because the end result was not great.Also checked out a spot that was recommended by Tathradj but I will leave that for another day as I will need the kayak to get to it.Had a good day out in the bush.By the way those "no camping etc signs " are everywhere out there now,not just nailed to a tree either,they are erected on permanent steel posts.

 

[Eldorado]

Pretty poor result.I need to find some more serious gold.DESPERATELY.

 

[Wozza244]

Bugger.

It's a bit hit and miss there hey.

I had a ball valve like yours on my spray bar but it was causing low pressure up the top end of the slotted bars.
I removed it and just running 1-1/2 hose into the 1" poly fittings to the spray bar and it fixed the problem immediately.
I don't really need the valve anyhow.

 

[SOLO_MAN]

Shame about the poor result, I find getting a good spot out there is a bit of an art. I was out there mid August there was a few signs, So new signs now? Darn fun police!

 

[blisters]

I reckon you might be digging a bit too deep there Eldorado. If you sample below about 20cm you might find the returns diminish quickly at Oallen. How many shovels to the pan to get your 5 flakes?
Jon

 

[Eldorado]

Reckon your right Blisters,must have got a bit carried away with depth,the test pans were showing less flakes at depth so I should have recognised this and stuck to the top layer.When test panning I put a full shovel load in to the pan,first pan showed 3 flakes and second 5.I had been test panning for over an hour at that stage and thought I need to start washing some gravel or the day will pass by.WOZZA,I like the ball valve,like the fact that you don't have to go to the pump to adjust the flow.Oh yeah I forgot TIP.Don't keep your gold in a glass jar.I kept my gold in a glass jar in an ice cream container with a few little sapphires and sniffer bottle etc,well when I was getting the ice cream container out of the car this afternoon I dropped it. 8.( 8.( Guess which jar broke.All gold recovered but lesson learnt.

 

[SOLO_MAN]

Sorry to hear Eldorado 8.( , Murphy's law. But don't let that discourage you. That spot you were working is a popular spot and gets flogged hard. Its so tempting to get set up and working, But a bit of scouting can go a long way.Some days I spent most of my time test panning with my kidys in toe. The gold will still be there next time (If your careful). Best of luck next trip.