A short story about a broken down car, flat tyres and Aussie gold! (pic heavy)

sandgroper

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Western Australia
Hey everyone,!

The other day I came back from a few days of gold prospecting. A few things happened along the way, so I thought I’d share this adventure dad and I had (as briefly as possible :lol:).!

It all started last Sunday. We left Perth at around 4 in the morning, and we hoped to get to the spot we’ve been finding gold at over the past few years at around 3/4 in the afternoon. Before leaving Perth, we had checked the road condition reports one last time. Since the region we had to pass through had received a fair bit of rain in the past few days, some of the roads had been closed (and were still closed). Most of the roads out there are unsealed, so the shires are always quick to close them, even after only a bit of rain, to prevent cars from damaging them. One stretch of road along our route was closed, so instead, we took a little track to bypass it. That track (about 50km, or 30 miles long) ran through swampy terrain, so half the time we were driving through one massive puddle after the other. Needless to say, the car was an absolute mess afterwards :lol:.!

After finally getting back onto the main road (which was in great condition for a gravel road), it didn’t take long until the tyre pressure monitoring system dad had installed on the car started going off. This gadget alerts you as soon as the pressure of one of your car tyre’s starts decreasing significantly. It turned out to be an awesome tool that saved us a few more tyres that trip. Anyway, the system was only mounted to the car tyres, and not the trailer tyres, so I never realised that one of the trailer tyres had become completely shredded leaving nothing but the rim and a few bits of rubber behind…. That’s why it’s important to carry spares with you. Half an hour later and two tyres fixed we were ready to continue the trip…

…if only we could. But the car refused to start (we had turned the engine off whilst fixing the tyres, and now it’s not turning on anymore). It’s not exactly the greatest feeling to be in the middle of nowhere along a remote country road, about an hour and a half’s drive from the nearest town with a failed car. We tried everyone we could to get it started, but nothing seemed to help. We’ve never had something like this happen, so we couldn’t really work from experience either. We also noticed some of the electrics of the car stopped working, so we suspected water had gotten into somewhere where it shouldn’t have, perhaps the starter motor. And since our car is an automatic, we couldn’t simply push start it.!

By now it was around 4:30 pm, and with little hope of continuing that day, we decided to push the car next to the road and set up camp there (and hope that the car will work in the morning). At 8:30, the first car passed us, and we asked him if he could tell mum about our situation and whereabouts we were. We later found out mum then called our friend who was expecting to see us and told him about us, who then called a cattle station that was 13km (8miles) south of us, and also a mechanic who would see us the following day if the car still wasn’t working.!

Obviously, it wasn’t working. Conveniently, we had a moped in the trailer which we use for prospecting, so dad decided to visit the station we were nearby. Dad has a map app on his iPhone that works without reception, and it tells you your position and things around you (including that cattle station, and also the track we had taken yesterday). We waited until around 3 pm that day for the mechanic, but he never came. We later found out he had two flat tyres himself which he had to fix. So we flagged down the next car (only the 5th car that passed us that day), and thankfully he was happy to give us a tow to that station. At the station, the owners provided us with a great dinner of beef lasagne (fresh beef from the station) and accommodation. A thousand times better than spending another cold night by the road. The owner of the station also gave me permission to detect around the property (goes back to the 1890’s), and I found a silver threepence, penny and a 1923 dog registration tag from a town a few hundred kilometres south of the station. There was also a bottle dump nearby in which I managed to find a few nicer ones.!

The following morning (Tuesday), the boyfriend’s owner agreed to have a look at our car. We opened the bonnet, and he had a look around, but also didn’t see anything unusual. So we decided to try and turn the engine to see what would happen…and would you believe…the car started by itself! We’re still not too sure what was wrong, but the starter motor probably had water in it (from driving through all those puddles), and it simply dried out over the past two days.

After thanking the owners for their generosity and help, and offering to bring them supplies next time we head their way, we were on the road again. We got to our little spot without any issues, and by the next morning, we were already onto the gold. Over the next five days, we worked various old patches, getting a few nuggets here and there, some days being significantly more productive than others. One little patch was incredibly rocky, and most the gold was in stuck in crevices between the rocks. At times it got too difficult to use the pickaxe, so once we thought we were pretty close to the nugget, we used a pinpointer and stick to scrape away the dirt around the rocks. A bit like archaeology…except for gold :lol:

Also, during our time out bush, we got two more punctures, so having a puncture repair kit and all the other tools proved to be really quite handy. Other interesting things I found include an old pocket knife (Joseph Rodgers & Sons) and a spoon that I dug out of an old miner’s rubbish dump.

On the way back home, we got one more puncture brining this trips total to five punctures. That’s a new record for us :lol:. After giving that tyre its third plug, we continued our journey without any more flat tyres. So there you have it. Despite all this, we still had a great trip. I’m happy with the relics and bottles I found, and this trip’s gold total came to 12.2g (almost pure gold). Could’ve been a lot better but I’m not complaining. Thanks for looking and good luck out there!
 

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Sounds like quit the adventure. Congrats on the gold and other finds.

HD
 
Enjoyed the story, thanks for posting, great photos also. What generally causes the punctures there? Around here it's nails and screws, but I wouldn't think there's many of those on the road there.
 
Sounds like quit the adventure. Congrats on the gold and other finds.

HD

Thank you! :)

Good story and a happy ending.

Possible that the Joseph Rodgers knife was brought in with the one of the first settlers to Australia from England?

Sheffield was the heart of cutlery making in days gone by.

Link to the company:

http://www.sheffieldcutlerymap.org.uk/location/joseph-rogers-and-sons/

Thanks Doug. That company has some interesting history to it. I know this area got mined quite intensively from 1890 to about 1915, but the knife may very well be much older.

Well Done !!

Sometimes it's not the Destination.. it is the Journey..

Thanks, definitely a trip I'll remember.
 
Enjoyed the story, thanks for posting, great photos also. What generally causes the punctures there? Around here it's nails and screws, but I wouldn't think there's many of those on the road there.

Thank you! Usually rocks and sticks (from old tree stumps). One tyre (which was pretty much brand new and of decent quality too) ended up with three different punctures. Two were rock fractures (so a sharp rock on the road just pierced it). Some of the unsealed roads are pretty rough.

The other puncture on that tyre was a side wall (still managed to plug it) and it had a stick stuck in it. We took a short cut to our camp once and probably didn't see a tree stump. We're always on the lookout for them when we're not on a track. We don't know what happened to the trailer tyre, not much left of that one but probably a rock fracture too.

But we rarely get nails/screws in our tyres. It happened to mum once a few years ago in the city. Someone had salted a street with nails and screws and she ended up with three in two tyres.
 
A well told story of a amazing and successful adventure Sandy. No doubt some testy trials along the way. Great pictures also. Congrats on the Silver Three pence, the Gold and all the rest. Most important a safe arrival back home. Trapper
 
Cool story and the kind you will always remember!! And retell a few times.
 
Amazing story! The distances in Australia always leave me shaking my head. We watch a few shows from Australia and they are always going WAAAAAY out in the middle of nowhere and the logistics involved just make me shake my head. Would LOVE to detect there someday, but it is not a cheap trip to get there...
 
A well told story of a amazing and successful adventure Sandy. No doubt some testy trials along the way. Great pictures also. Congrats on the Silver Three pence, the Gold and all the rest. Most important a safe arrival back home. Trapper

Thanks trapper! Glad to be back home although a few more days would've been nice too.

Cool story and the kind you will always remember!! And retell a few times.

Thanks, a trip I won't forget :)

Amazing story! The distances in Australia always leave me shaking my head. We watch a few shows from Australia and they are always going WAAAAAY out in the middle of nowhere and the logistics involved just make me shake my head. Would LOVE to detect there someday, but it is not a cheap trip to get there...

Thanks zeemang! WA is pretty big, normally takes us 11/12 hours to get to that spot and it's around 1100km (680 miles) away. Worth the long journey though :)
 
What an absolutely awesome adventure! Thanks for sharing and congrats on the finds!

Thanks Waveoff! Was an enjoyable trip despite all the unfortunate events :)

Nice pictures, looks like fun,cool bottles. Great nuggets!

Thanks mate :)

Congrats on an excellent variety of finds! A little bit of everything we look for.

Thank you, quite liked the variety of finds for this trip :)

That's some beautiful country! Thanks for taking us along on the adventure and congrats on all the nuggets and relics!

Thank you, :)
 
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