It’s not every day you get a screen shot from your dad. First off, he learnt how to screen shot. Second it was an edited screen shot of google maps. Third, it marked an area I had been prospecting near. And last but not least the text that accompanied it "found a reef there in the 70s".
This was 20 years in the making, my dad telling me a story of his lost reef that he had to abandon in 1974. It was etched in my mind and i had been looking for it for years. But the old boy finally had given up his secret spot. Other than the map he said he left a shovel and a Gold pan there back in 74 as 'reference points'. He never returned to those markers and after his stroke all he wanted to know was 'were they still there, is his reef untouched'?
I didn’t need a second offer, I called a mate Mick and asked 'you, me, detectors and dads lost reef, you in'?
6am rolled around at a snail’s pace and we were on our way, Mick running the GM1000 and myself the SDC2300. There’s a creek in that gully but it only runs during heavy rain, dad had to lug dirt back to water some 2km away to sample, and we could just turn on the magic wands. How times had changed.
Hours of hiking and swinging turned up all manner of relics, bullets and junk. It was late in the day by the time we reached dads X.
Well he wasn't lying.
First thing we found was a huge run of float quartz, oxidised and good looking. We chose to start there. I ran up the hill to the point where the quartz was oozing from a cut in the ground whilst Mick started at the bottom. Working left to right across the hill it wasn’t long before I heard an excited yelp from Mick.
REEF, I FOUND REEF!
No way. As I look over my eyes scan over a bit of crud... wait not crud. A gold pan. And a shovel!
By the time we finished jabbering away at each other about this surreal experience it was all we could do but to scoop up as much or as we could and hike out.
Testing has revealed the ore to be high grade, 10.5 ounces to the ton at minimum. But that pales in comparison the story of finding my dad’s reef!
Chris – Victoria, Australia
