For months my standing description of myself has been “all ideas and no gear.” Plenty of plans, a website, a map app, a head full of how it all ought to go — and not much I could actually carry into the bush. Then two parcels turned up on the doorstep, and the balance shifted. I’m now in real danger of becoming the other cliché entirely: all the gear and no idea.
I’ll be honest: I had no real idea what gold prospecting gear to buy. So I did what I always do when I’m out of my depth — I read. I trawled the Australian prospecting sites, the forums and the gear pages, trying to work out what was good quality and what was a gimmick. Where I could tell it mattered, I leaned towards the stuff that looked like it would last. Whether I chose well, I’ll find out in the dirt. And I’d best enjoy the prospecting — otherwise there’s going to be some very good gear for sale shortly.
The pick (the one you don’t skimp on)
I went to see an old-timer on Friday — a bloke who’s been at this for years. He’d built his own pick, and you could see what that meant to him; making your own gear is half the pleasure, he reckoned. Years back, he said, fellas would dig with cut-down car springs. I loved hearing it. I’m also nowhere near that skilled, and with the trip bearing down on me I hadn’t the time to learn.
So I bought. My worry was a simple one: a pick that bends or blunts on day one is no use to anyone, and I’d sooner not discover that a long way from the car. I went for the Walco Longreach — at 92cm, the longest they make — partly because I’m not as young as I was, and stooping for every rock all day is its own punishment. I’ll flex my back for an actual nugget; not for a hot rock and a bit of old fencing wire. It’s Bisalloy steel, the high-strength Australian stuff, and — to my grandsons’ considerable approval — it looks like it came straight out of Minecraft.
A green plastic scoop
Then there’s the scoop. It’s plastic, and it’s a scoop. The plastic matters — it won’t set the detector off when I’m sifting a target — and the scoop part, well, scoops. It’s also green.
Mind you, Friday put a dent in my pride here. The old-timer doesn’t bother with a purpose-made scoop at all — he uses a $5 all-plastic garden trowel from Bunnings and finds plenty. Next to that, my kit’s starting to look a touch over the top. Still — mine was at least built to scoop, so for a first go, if I come home empty-handed, I can’t blame the tools. What it’ll actually scoop is still very much an open question, but I live in hope.
Snakes (the bit I do think about)
I’m English by origin, so I didn’t grow up around snakes, and I won’t pretend they don’t bother me. Out alone in remote country the odds of meeting a bad one are small — but small isn’t nothing, and it’s exactly the sort of risk worth taking seriously. So: Snake Armour gaiters, proper shin armour, with plastic buckles. (Metal ones would set the detector off, and there’s no quicker way to get your hopes up than swinging the coil over your own leg.) I can’t do much about the snakes. I can do something about what’s on my legs.
Although, kitted up like this, I get a flash of being the new kid on his first day — turning up in the full rig, blazer, cap, tie, logo’d jersey, the lot — only to find a thousand other kids in shorts and a t-shirt, because nobody mentioned it’s a casual school. All the gear, all right.
Water, and a pocket I hope I never use
Three litres of it, in a pack I can drink from through the day — which, in the WA heat, is the difference between thinking straight and a thumping headache. There’s also a pocket sized for a PLB, a personal locator beacon, which out alone matters even more than the water: if it all goes sideways, that little device is how someone finds me. Sensible, dull, essential.
Here, at least, Friday left me feeling I’d got something right. The old-timer carries much the same on his person — a 3-litre carrier, a PLB and a snake kit, on him at all times, not left in the vehicle. He also runs serious water in the ute: tanks built into and under the tray, something like 70 litres all up if I caught it right, with a tap plumbed into the side for washing his hands. That one stopped me — I’d been thinking about drinking water and clean forgotten about water to wash with. Noted. (And yes — did I mention the three litres?)
And the scales — a pointed gift
Last out of the box, and my favourite: a set of gold scales — a birthday present from Amanda. Not for weighing shotgun pellets or horseshoes, you understand, but because she’s quietly banking on me bringing some gold home, and she’d like to know exactly how much. No pressure there, then. So far the only figure they’ve shown me is 0.00 — measured, to be fair, with great precision. Early days. Very early days.
So — ready, then?
Sort of. The gear’s here, it’s good, and I’ve finally shed the “all ideas and no gear” tag. But the real lesson from Friday had nothing to do with kit: I have zero experience, and prospecting is almost entirely about experience. A fine pile of equipment doesn’t find gold. At best it gets a beginner to the start line, legally and in one piece — and even that, it turns out, takes more thought than I’d given it.
What stuck with me was how seriously the old-timer took safety. He keeps a rugged, military-grade GPS on him the whole time he’s out, and the first thing he does on arriving is mark exactly where the vehicle is. It sounds obvious until you picture it: head down, swinging a detector, every beep pulling you on another few steps — and the plain excitement of hunting gold is enough to walk you a long way from the car without noticing. I’d seen a rescue video on YouTube that puts it better than I can: a bloke pulled in, went for a quick reccy on foot, left his GPS and PLB behind — and was found three days later, 20km from his vehicle, very nearly dead.
I’d quietly told myself a phone, a PLB and three litres of water had me covered. Friday changed my mind. I’ll be adding a second GPS, and going back through every tool, spare and bit of safety kit asking two questions: what have I forgotten, and what here could actually save my life? The outback makes no concessions for newbies, and lost without water isn’t a bad afternoon out — it’s a genuine emergency.
Call it my thought of the day: experience is what you get just after you needed it. I’d rather borrow as much of it as I can before August. And if nothing else, I’m profoundly grateful I’m only hiring the detector — if I had to pick the right one of those on top of all this, I’d not sleep a single night before the trip.
I’ve put a fuller write-up of each piece over in the Prospecting Gear section, if you want the detail. As for me — that’s all the gear sorted. The idea, I’ll work on when I get there.