A Patch to Remember in Wedderburn
Long-time detectorist and member of the Sunraysia Goldies, Mark has been chasing gold since 2016 — and earlier this year, he hit a personal best.
Camping out in Wedderburn with seven mates from the club, the crew spent four nights exploring the historic goldfields. Armed with his GPX 6000 and 9" Coiltek Goldhawk coil, Mark kicked things off with a bit of recon on day one. It was day two when things really lit up.
“I came across an old water race,” he told us. “I started getting signals — one after another. First a 2-gram nugget, then a few smaller pieces. I kept marking them, and by the end of it, I’d pulled 12.52 grams, including a 4-gram nugget — my biggest patch yet.”
But the weekend wasn’t done.
The next day, he hit what he called the Kangaroo Patch — named after the kangaroo he spotted relaxing there before he arrived. That patch produced another 8.7 grams of gold.
With help from a mate, they raked the area clean of signals — until he went low and slow over a nearby mullock heap. Scraping away the edge, he uncovered a small open space and, to his surprise, a stash of Chinese coins tucked away in the soil.
But the real showstopper? An old nautical compass, buried under a rock in another mullock heap.
“21.22 grams of gold, a coin stash, and a buried compass — easily my best weekend yet.”
It just goes to show, persistence, patience, and a good crew can lead to an unforgettable trip in the goldfields.
