My first token

Went back to the Tauranga Domain in the rain,worked my way around the old trees trying to stay out of the rain,found the two old silver coins one on top of the other at about 7",the sixpence is 1908,the shilling is 1918.I then moved to another area were an old bandstand used to be many years ago,and got a deep signal about 8"down turned out to be this old token pretty hard to make out the writing,but I can clearly read the words DUNEDIN OTAGO,and an S.WILSON the rest is unclear I will give it a good soak.The date is 1857 one of my oldest coins yet,when the rain stopped I headed out to the soccer field and found the other coins $19 in goldies,an english 1pound coin.the little silver ingot and a couple of pennys and the halfpenny.It always amazes me that coins keep popping up as I have been   over this area half a dozen times now,I guess it comes down to learning your detector and a bit more patience from me.

Back to the beach...GOLD...YIPPEEEEEEE

I just had to go back, as all the holiday familys have gone back home,I went back over the same area again but this time quite a bit slower and intentional,listening to those deeper sounds,one thing I have learnt is to run the etrac on all metal in the sand, and dig most signals.The gold ring (9ct) come up 12:15 if I was in a park I probably would have ignored that, as it is identical to a tear tab.Problem is now I am thinking heck how many fine gold rings have I missed in the past,ah well I will just have to go back to all them spots again,what a tough decision.There is two pictures of the rings, before, and after they were cleaned up, roughly that is the other rings are all silver and $19 in goldies.Thanks Guy you were right about there being gold in this spot,a bit disappointing as a quick test shows that the stones in the gold ring are not diamonds,but I am still a happy chappie.

Good ol' NZ

Well back home after a fleeting trip to the gold coast,we came away a bit disappointed work is very hard to find (especially for us oldies).so back home again and hard out looking for another camper and the intention is to keep travelling as the lifestyle is great,its just the work thingee we dont like,we will be staying around here and do the hairyberry season then move north or south depending on the severity of the winter.

 In the meantime I have been haunting the Mount beaches again,today I came on to an area of beach that had been well washed over after a resent storm and exposed a lower layer,well i had a ball picking up coin after coin,also the three rings two which are silver the other i suspect is brass,$39 in goldies,also of course lots of metal junk the result of the Rena and the containers that came ashore.Funny how the beach had just hollowed out in just this one area about 100 metres long,Anyone got a job for a 61 year old (haha) there is not quite enough in metaldetecting to survive.......

My last quick couple of hunts

Driving through the Lindis Pass we noticed an old stone building a rather rough detour took us the site,turns out to be an old hotel built around 1865 and still in very good condition,the temptation to have a detect was over whelming, so I had a quick go well away from the the main building structure managed the threepence but for sure there would be lots more here as it was a very popular place during the gold mining era,but time forced us to keep on travelling.There is an enormous amount of these old stone buildings in this area just oozing history, the mind boogles with the thought of lost gold and coins etc.Had another hunt at Wanaka this has a very large beach frontage and the results are after just an hour and a half.Anyone coming this way have a go it is a little untouched goldmine.

Where it all began

Well we are at Lawrence,stayed last night at Gabriels gully right in the heart of the gold country,problem is it is raining relentlessly and I cant get out for a look around so spending the day in the van and going to the museum etc,we have been to some great old places full of history with names like Bendigo,Carricktown,Bannockburn,Logantown,Welshtown etc and there are lots more we would like to see but the roads are just a bit to mean on the old camper,I tend to forget we are not in a 4WD.

 We had a good poke around alot of the old brick buildings some dating back to the 1860'S,The old Bendigo school was interestingTony found a nice 1884 sixpence and an old silver thimble,I must of found 300 .22 cartridges as they all have a tid similar to a small nugget,they had to dug up.But alas no hidden caches of gold or sovereigns.This may be my last post for a while as we have sold the camper and are heading to the Gold Coast,the plan is to work there for the next 6-8 months knuckle down and save some $ then come back and start over where we left off .In saying that I am taking the Etrac with me and intend to haunt the local beaches,so I will post any finds etc

Brrrrrrr

Woke up this morning to 7 degrees and fresh snow all around the hills,what a wake up call for us woossie north islanders from the sunny bay of plenty,pictured are some more finds from the beach front here in Queenstown.Also a picture of all the finds from four trips $123 in gold coins plus all the change Tony found another silver ring we felt a bit like a goldfish with all the wealthy tourists staring at us and taking our photos. Yesterday Tony (son) and I walked up the twelve mile creek in the rain this is the sight of many old gold workings and lots of it is still very clear to see,massive amounts of tailings and rock walls that have been piled up to support sluicing channels,we took the detectors up and dug up all the corrogated iron ever known to man,along with an old axe and some other scrap iron.Ran the detectors around the the base of the old hut stone chimneys hoping to find a hidden cache of gold (haha)No luck but plenty of spiders.....ps I have now posted the correct photos on my previous page sorry about the muck up.

Kind of sad find today

Well here we are in Queenstown it was raining all day,around 2pm we decided to heck with it its only rain so headed to the lake front,this is a very popular spot with tourists,Found quite a number of coins and also a few foreign ones,my son was using the xterra and got a good signal under a tree on the beach,the target turned out be be a what looked like a small parcel btu due to the amount of time it has been in the ground the paper that wrapped it had become soggen,but there aws still a good signal coming from inside the wrapping.

 Pulling the paper off there was another layer and this turned out to be a photo,but unfortunatly the picture had completed faded,inside this wrapping were the two rings in the pic they have japanese names inside them with a date and the words silver.We have done some research on the net but no luck so I guess the next move is off the police.certainly have to wonder how they got there,judging by the date they have been in the ground for 7 years.....the mind boggles...hopefully we can get them back to the rightful owners....oopps picture of the ring in paper clip is from a previous find