It has been an exciting couple of days here in Wedderburn.

On Friday we had beautiful weather again, sunny and 30 degrees. We had a bit of a lazy morning, I waded around the banks of the lake with a fishing rod (without any success), Kathy read a bit, updated the blog and not much else happened. After lunch we decided to go to one of the nearby areas of state forest and give the metal detector a run. We found a nice little hill in scrubby bush that looked as good a spot as any. Kathy set herself up with the detector and her pick and set off in search of the elusive gold, while I wandered around with the camera and searched for some suitable photography subject. After a couple of hours, (and a couple of more old bullets to add to the collection) Kathy had another nice tone on her detector. Thinking that it may well be more crap but she had better have a look she began to clear away the sticks and leaves from the site of the signal, then checked it again with the detector, still there, time to dig. She scraped away a couple of inches of dirt, checked again, signal still there. Another scrape, this time a few rocks came away with the dirt. She ran the detector over the site and there was no signal, it had moved into the pile she had dug out. The detector was put aside and she began to search through the pile, expecting to find another bullet casing or other worthless junk. A couple of rocks were discarded, then she picked up a rock that felt heavier that the others. She waved the detector over this rock and it sang to her. A bit of a clean and the golden shine she had been searching for was in her hand... GOLD!!! I was taking photos a bit further down the track when I heard Kathy yelling out my name, I saw her almost running toward me with the detector (no pick - that had been left behind) and waving her arm in the air. First I thought there was something wrong, but then I could see that she was excited. She could barely talk as she showed me her find. Very happy girl!! We went back to the site and I took a quick video and a couple of photos.

Needless to say, on Saturday Kathy was keen to get back out there and find the rest of the gold on that hillside. There was none to be found in the morning, so in the afternoon we went back with the bigger coil on the detector for another look. Late in the afternoon, when we had nearly had enough, Kathy walked past a large, old tree stump and the detector gave a good signal. This was once a large tree, it had been cut off about a metre from the ground and was now going rotten. A bit of pin-pointing had the source of the signal about 30cm from the trunk, so I started digging. About 6 inches of dirt were removed and I hit one of the tree's big roots. The detector was giving an even louder signal now that the dirt had been removed. Kathy and I both agreed that whatever was there haad been there before the tree was, otherwise the signal would not be so strong over the root. After a bit of thought, and realising that there was no way to shift the stump, I contemplated to dig to one side and then dig under the root. It was one of those things... do you put it in the too hard basket and forever wonder if there was a fist sized nugget under there, or do you nut-up and dig to find out... I decided it wasn't too hard. So I started digging, and digging, and digging... in 30 degree heat. Digging through quartz and ironstone that was hard enough to create sparks when the pick hit them. After a while we took it turns to dig and clear the hole. We dug down beside the root and ended up with a hole about 60cm deep and 60cm wide, then started to dig under the root. By now it was after 7pm, it was raining lightly and there was a thunderstorm rolling in. Kathy suggested a couple of times that we could call it a day, but I had come this far.... Once we got under the root I realised that we were digging out only clay, I had dug through the dirt layer, then the rock layer and now there was clay. If there was gold in here, it would be in the rock layer, amongst the quatrz and ironstone. This was annoying. I wondered if the root that I had thought was one big solid piece of wood was actually two roots on top of one another, and where they overlap there may be a hollow.... so I started to dig on the other side of the root. Again, Kathy suggested we could call it off, but I had come this far.... I dug down about 15 or 20cm on the other side of the root and I did find a hollow!! I was excited! I eagerly dug out some more rocks to provide better access to the hollow, then when I could I put a couple of fingers in there and felt around. I was met by the sound of something light and tinny rattling as I touched it. I said to Kathy, "There's a tin in there!" and we both had the same thought... someone had burried something there a long time ago and the tree had grown around it. Now I had my second wind, a new burst of energy had me digging out the rocks and dirt like mad, it was hot, it was raining, thunder was rolling around us, but I couldn't stop. Eventually I got enough rock out to see into the hole and saw metal inside a small hollow. I got up and was going to get the axe to cut through the root, when Kathy had a look and told me....... ......... ........ "there's a can in there". "A can..?" "Yep, a soft drink can". NO F%#*ING WAY!! I got down into the huge hole I had spent over two and a half hours digging, looked into the hole with my head in the dirt, and saw... a Pepsi can. A Pepsi can... inside a root of an old tree... two feet below the surface.... a Pepsi can. You can tell by the photos how thrilled I was... After a lot of head shaking and laughing at ourselves, we found that the centre of the stump is rotting out and hollow, someone must have been out here and dropped an empty god-damn Pepsi can down the stump, and it had fallen all the way through to the root where it was. Damn it! What do you do? I had to know what the source of the signal was, or we'd be forever wondering. At least I got some exercise.... We filled in the hole again and headed back to our camp. It was now nearly dark and the lightning was spectacular. We started to get dinner ready when the storm hit us, thunder, lightning and heavy rain. (see video) We sat under our awning with the rain coming in (we didn't put the annexe walls up) and ate our dinner, had a beer and watched the storm. I was not at all mad at the tree-stump-event, it had been worth digging to find what the detector was picking up, if you don't look you'll never know. It was an experience, and that's what travelling is about, experiences and passing on the stories.

Tomorrow we pack up from Skinners Flat and head for Echuca. We are looking forward to seeing the area, fishing the Murray and going on a paddle steamer. Stay tuned for more updates!