Left Echuca on Thursday 30th June and traveled to Dunolly, between Bendigo and Maryborough Victoria.
We were going to head to Mildura originally but on coming down to Maryborough on Tuesday and having a look around, decided to head down here instead.
We are at the Dunolly Caravan Park in Dunolly 20 ks north of Maryborough, what a great spot, friendly people, great social camp kitchen. Lake in the centre and lots of trees. $25 per night. Seventh night free.
A lot of the people in the park are gold prospectors, some come here regularly and a few live here permanently.
Dunolly is an amazing little town, notwithstanding the fact that more gold nuggets have been found here than anywhere else in Australia. And it is where the largest gold nugget in the world was found. The 'Welcome Stranger ' nugget was found here and weighed over 2,200 ozs . Worth at current value approx $3,300,000. You can understand why so many people are still prospecting around here.
We have spent the last couple of days looking around the district. Some amazing little towns absolutely full of Historic buildings. Some are almost like ghost towns.
Spent Sunday dismantling my tow hitch and painting it. We have been having an issue with getting the van off the hitch due to the angle the ball was presenting itself. Will be reassembling it tomorrow.
After talking to people around the fire at night and seeing the gold being found by them in the area we bit the bullet today and hired a metal detector today. (Monday).
2 elderly brothers who come here for 1 weeks holiday every year showed me 44 grams of gold they found over the last week. I asked the guy at the Gold supplies place here how much it would be worth. He said he would pay $1650 for it. Actually not a lot of gold.
We went out this afternoon and found absolutely no gold, but did find some nails a bit of tin and a bent 22 cal bullet. Heading out again tomorrow. I had to purchase a Miners Right to be able to prospect in State forests in Victoria. The forests down here are a maze of tracks. 2 and 3 ounce nuggets are still being found weekly and gold is $1500 an ounce. You can see the attraction.
Anyway we are booked in here until Thursday and we have the metal detector tomorrow.
