“There’s gold in them there hills!”

Castlemaine is the location of an historical gold rush that happened in this region of Australia in 1851. The site still holds some gold, if you’re patient enough to look for it. What’s nice here is that you don’t need a massive wash plant or an excavator to find it. All you need is a metal detector, a shovel and a map. The gold nuggets sit under the surface by only a few inches or couple of feet. This is why they call it fossicking here (and not mining) because you’re really just searching the ground, and a little below, to find targets.

Coiltek, aka, The Gold Center is where we rented our equipment. We allocated three full days to this endeavor. We rented the detector and shovel, bought a map of the area to show where we might find something, and also bought a pan, just in case we found a river that wasn’t too dangerous looking. We were assured that there were no crocodiles here.

Note: The term “diggings” means “tailings”, which are areas already worked. And a fly net hat is a must, unless you want flies in your eyes and mouth all day!

What we found, I will leave to your imagination…