Day 71: A photo-less fossicking experience

Fossicking is hard work. All that swooshing and swirling and tipping and flipping (of sludge in the pan that is), along with standing up and kneeling down, up, down, up, down...it was surprising that we were not swooning all over the river banks. Actually, us three bigger people did get a bit light headed every time we stood up and had to take a moment, but fortunately no keeling over.

We went back to Nundle today to hire some shovels and pans, and, armed with a couple of maps, headed hopefully up the river, dreaming of all the nuggets waiting to be found. Well, the nuggets were unfortunately not lying around going "Pick me! Pick me!" and so we had to do some active panning to find some.

A very nice gentleman, who has been doing this for 40 years, offered us some soil from under his tree (he digs around the tree roots), as this was the most likely place for us to find anything. We had all been panning here and there and all around - to no avail - by that point, so this re-inspired our efforts. Duncan was the luckiest and perhaps the most skilled panner and he found three specks of gold. Clever Duncan! I think this sort of activity would be more aptly named/spelt 'pro-speck-ting'.

After these finds we decided we were more than satisfied and drove off up the hill to seek out other gem deposits and just have a general look really. After a hot cross bun and some family dialogue, we concluded that we were 'done' fossicking for the day. We returned the hire gear (cost us $5 all up) and then set off for Hanging Rock for a look. After taking on the twisty, turning, steep mountain climb, it was fairly disappointing to discover that Hanging Rock is a little village, rather than a 'hanging rock'. : (

That was it for the Grants, and we made our way back to Tamworth. The fifth gear is still playing up and so a visit to the Mazda place tomorrow am is the first thing on the agenda.

Duncan apologises for the lack of visual evidence today - the scenery was really rather beautiful - but he forgot to take his camera along. It was only when we were on our way back to Tamworth when we realised that we both have cameras on our iPhones and could have taken some pics with those. D'oh!