G1X - Driving out to the Country Goldfields... (PICS)

​The long road from the city to the Goldfields, as viewed from my car window at 110kmph

Whilst deep in the Australian bush some years ago, I marked a big piece of quartz on my GPS that set off my metal detector back in 2009. There was gold inside the quartz that triggered the reaction from by gold detector but the quartz was too large to haul back to my car at the time.  I tried to cleave it in two with a $300 pick but damaged the steel head on the hard quartz so I left it there. After a couple of years, a guy I know brought in three similar chunks of quartz from nearby where I found mine and it contained over $1.1 million dollars in gold (that's what he was paid for it).  I was determined to return to my old chunk of the same quartz that I had left behind but, after spending hundreds of dollars in fuel and driving for many hours, I discovered the chunk of quartz had been claimed by another prospectors in my absence and was long gone.

Below are some pictures from my day out that were taken with the Canon PowerShot G1X although one shot was taken using my Canon PowerShot s95 that was mounted on the shaft of my metal detector at the time.

The G1X hung under my arm via the shoulder strap but it was annoying to have it dangling there where it was banging into my detector.... and so I had to pass it to my wife Rena who put it in her own backpack to allow me to use the metal detector unencumbered.   She spent the time photographing wildlife whilst I searched for any gold nearby.  I found none on this particular trip but I have placed this detector on Ebay to sell in order to justify a number of new Canon lenses for my EOS-M camera.  It's not our only detector but our backup machine and so this day out allowed me to test it properly before selling it to make sure it was working perfectly.

We drove to six other goldfields on the way back home and saw all sorts of Australian critters on the road, including a Jackie lizard that ran on its back legs alongside the car with its head up in the air.  Nearly hit a kangaroo that jumped in front of the car but aside from the near misses, it was a great day out with a chance to play with the G1X and to snap some pictures for a book I am working on that covers our local goldfields.

The full gallery can be found here: http://www.pbase.com/nero_design/prospecting_31

​Preparing to set up the detectors - deep in the bush near the old Gold Diggings

I almost brushed up against this tiny Wasp Nest at knee height. Taken with the 250D CU Lens.

--
Regards,
Marco Nero.
www.pbase.com/nero_design