I grew up in rural England, where the ground is mostly old farmland, the weather is mostly grey, and nobody goes looking for gold.
I am sixty years old. I live in Perth, Western Australia. In August 2026, I will be standing on an active goldfields tenement in the middle of the WA outback with a metal detector.
This is not how I expected my sixties to begin.
The Short Version
My name is Rob. I’m originally from the UK, I’ve lived in Australia for long enough to call Perth home, and I’m approaching retirement. Due to a lifestyle change along the way, I’m not where I wanted to be financially — and sitting still has never really suited me.
A few years ago I gave up motorcycles — Western Australia’s roads are too straight, the speed limits are strongly enforced, and the kangaroos don’t look before crossing. I needed something else. A friend suggested 4WD travel. I fitted out a white Prado, headed east, and ended up in Kalgoorlie.
That was the beginning of the problem.
How This Became a Thing
The goldfields got under my skin. There is something about that part of WA — the red dirt, the ghost towns, the sense that the ground beneath you holds more history than anyone has written down — that is genuinely difficult to explain and very easy to feel.
I started reading about gold prospecting. Then I found Gold Talk Leonora and booked a three-day course. Then I started this website.
In that order. More or less.
What This Site Is
Digging for Legacy is the honest account of what happens when a sixty-year-old Englishman from Perth decides to take up gold prospecting in the WA outback.
There is no pretence here that I know what I am doing. The journey — the learning, the mistakes, the unexpected encounters with local wildlife — is the content. If you are new to prospecting yourself, or curious about what the WA goldfields actually look and feel like, or just enjoy reading about someone enthusiastically getting things wrong in spectacular scenery, this is the site for you.
The name has two meanings.
The obvious one: I am literally digging for gold.
The one that matters more: I have grandchildren in New Zealand. I would like to leave them something worth leaving — stories, a record, proof that their grandfather did something interesting with his sixties rather than watching television.
Whether any gold is involved remains to be seen.
The Gear, Since You’re Probably Wondering
I drive a white Toyota Prado. I built the fridge slide myself. I wired the 120Ah lithium battery and DC-DC charger myself too, which was either competent or foolhardy — the jury is still out. I carry a 5W UHF CB and have no intention of being the person who didn’t have comms in the outback.
The detector is a Minelab GPX 6000, hired from Gold Talk for the August trip. I am not buying one until I have established whether I am any good at this.
Contact
If you have questions, feedback, or you know somewhere in the WA goldfields worth exploring, I’m at:
I read everything. I reply to most things.
Rob
Perth, Western Australia