So You Want To Come To WA


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So you wanna come to WA to prospect, and dont know where to begin.

Well Besides the obvious thing of actually getting here, what needs to be done for a relaxed

and well set up trip to Western Australia besides your accomodartion ???

1st a WA miners right is needed to prospect for ANY minerals in Wa and it costs $25.00 for life,

it can be got in WA at any branch of the WA mines Dept or got in advance by phone or email

to the Wa mines Dept - http://www.dmp.wa.gov.au/documents/Info2%284%29.pdf

So the next thing to do is start to plan all the nitty gritty things like areas to prospect on,

legal rights to prospect on leases etc, and this may be of help to you in starting off on the great

adventure of prospecting for gold in Western Bloody oz icon_biggrin.png

How do i find an area to prospect on ?

Its best to go through a sort of selection process by 1st choosing a Goldfield and for this post we'll just

make that The Murchison Goldfield.

Next thing is to define the gold bearing areas for the goldfield as the Murchison is very large, and

that can either be done by login onto the WA Tengraph site or by simply using G&G for the area

to outline the mining centers.

So lets choose the "Cue District" of the Murchison goldfield ay.

Then the next thing to do is to do the same as anywhere you prospect and thats to look at the out lying

areas rather than close to the main town in this case Cue, so lets say you go east of Cue onto the

"Tuckabianna area" and then its time to really zone in on the gold runs within that area.

So its now time to get on Tengraph - http://www.dmp.wa.gov.au/3980.aspx or you can use

Geoview - http://mapserver.doir.wa.gov.au/GeoVIEW2/viewer.htm?Title=GeoVIEW.WA

to see the main mining area and also obtain company drilling and work reports.

In this way we narrow down an area until we get the blood boiling.

Next i personally go onto TROVE - http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper

and start lookin for any old reports of alluvial rushes or small rich isolated finds within that area,

use keywords searches like "Alluvial rush at" & "new rush at" etc, this gives a good idea as to the run

of the gold etc.

If your not up to speed on reading a Geo Map the best thing to do is make sure you have the map and

accompanying notes for the map and the maps can be downloaded from the tab on the top of every page,

or the map & notes to cover every WA Geo Map can be downloaded from here -

http://geodocs.doir.wa.gov.au/document/documentSearchCriteria.do?from=topNav&cabinetId=1101

This then gives you all the details on the minerals found within the chosen map, and gives you an understanding

of the geological make up of the area and which parts are no good for gold.

So at this stage we have zoned in on a specific area we want to prospect on, the next thing is to check

Tengraph for current lease status if any, if Pending over your area go for it no permission needed from the

lease holder until it goes live, if already live written permission is needed to prospect.

Lets assume now that so far so good and permission has been granted or a 20A has been taken out

for an EL covering your area, its now time to get excited and start packing the truck.

One other thing only needs to be done at this stage and thats a quick call to the stn owner who's

land the lease is on to advise of your coming and rough area you will be at, this is for curtesy and also

to make sure if Doggers may be shooting they stay away from you..

Sounds like a lot of pissin around but its well worth it to have a massive area of country open

to you with the chances of getting good heavy gold very possible....

Please feel free to PM me for any more in depth details on laws, areas and techniques.

Pete

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Always welcome mate but be sure to bring some of that good US Beef chewin Jerky ay :)

The misses "Kym" stooged me with some "Camel" Jerky last week, and for some reason i now feel

the need to wrap a farkin Towlel round me head :angry:

Pete

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No, don't use a towel try a diaper. I hear they are good for everything from the bottom of your sluce box to wearing on one's claim. I got back at everyone at the last outing that made comments on my bowel habits and looking for a good place to repose. You are at long distance but while detecting look up every once in a while you might see an old guy with a white beard (It won't be Santa) trailing you. One never knows just where or when this guy will pop up. Being retired from the telephone co. long distance is no problem. LOL.

Enjoyed all your postings in the past as a guest, but now I have become a member and so now I'll hear everything at first hand. Keep it up Pete you are lots of fun.

Old Tom

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Not to discourage anyone as there still is a lot of gold to be found out in the Murchison area, but I spent a couple days up in the area around Nanine (a bit north of Cue) and it was like a retirement center. One day we went to a secret patch near there. No roads into it, we just had GPS coordinates and had to go cross country. Well as we got close, we saw there was a track in there. Got in and the area had been heavily chained in the last couple months, there was an older gent and his wife camped just above it and within an hour of our arrival, another retired bloke and his wife showed up and parked about 200 meters away. I think I still got 2 grams off that spot by hititng the fringes of the area that had been productive. Another secret patch we visited that morning had one gent camped on one side of it and a second camped on the other - we didnt even stop there.

Any with a flat, accessible area like that there are lots of folks flogging it. To do well, you need to get out and explore. There are still good finds still being made by those who get out of the well known and historically productive areas. Its like going to the well known, productive areas here in the states - they've been hit hard and with current prices for gold they continue to be flogged over and over for whatever crumbs can be gleaned.

Western Australia was a fantiastic place to visit, geologically very different from what I am used to here in the states, and it still holds great potential, but not so much at the places everyone knows about from various books like the Gold and Ghosts or other well known publications.

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No, don't use a towel try a diaper. I hear they are good for everything from the bottom of your sluce box to wearing on one's claim. I got back at everyone at the last outing that made comments on my bowel habits and looking for a good place to repose. You are at long distance but while detecting look up every once in a while you might see an old guy with a white beard (It won't be Santa) trailing you. One never knows just where or when this guy will pop up. Being retired from the telephone co. long distance is no problem. LOL.

Enjoyed all your postings in the past as a guest, but now I have become a member and so now I'll hear everything at first hand. Keep it up Pete you are lots of fun.

Old Tom

Hi Old Tom

Great to see you have joined up mate, Young Tom tells me you like to swing the pick real good,

i really enjoyed your photo's of the Golden Diaper Claim but i think Tom may have needed a fresh

diaper and some baby powder on his little toosh, oh! wait up, thats right he was sitting in the dirt

so maybe he didnt need a fresh diaper :)

I look forward to hearing of your journeys out bush chasing gold in the bad lands with the boy,

keep up the great work Pop your a living legend mate :)

Pete B)

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G'day Chris

I do agree with your post on the amount of other prospectors out at the moment on the Murchison Field, there seems

to be more and more every year which is understandable with the gold price increase, its probably the same over your

way at the well known areas.

I generally try to stay away from those types of places for that exact reason, i like solitude and i like to prospect up new

patches also, but i do sometimes when the golds not coming head onto a known area just to get a couple of small bits

to get the ball rolling, as you know gold attracts gold so once i have a few it seems to keep coming...

This season i will be pushing out a bit further with my prospecting partner onto some good leases further north, they show

good potential and we have inside info on the best alluvail and drilling reports so fingers crossed..

Pete

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I like this thread!

I was in New Zealand last October but didnt have time to visit the Dunedin area....

I would like to come down there some day soon.....

Thanks Pete!

paul

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Thanks Argonaute & Congress man.

I would like to think that AZ & WA are pretty much sister goldfields, both are dry desert areas with good gold and

probably what works as to "techniques" on one works fine in the other, they are both good places to slurp down a cold beer with mates around

the campfire after a great day finding gold, and both have the same restroom facilities hahaha.....

One day I'll get over hopefully....

Pete B)

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