Big Park Hunt ~ 07-01-2017

Last minute decision to head out to a park I pass whilst on the way to the shopping centre we go to.  I dropped a note on a Facebook group asking to see if anyone else wanted to come down for a swing, but most people were tied up that morning it seems.

When i arrived the council were doing greenwaste tree chipping, which took out the corner of the park i was initially most interested in, as it did have an old house there in the 40’s.  It was on the corner of 2 main roads so would have been hunted heavily, and full of junk anyway.

The park it’s self has a few old cricket pitches on it, it also houses the circus when it is in town, so i was hoping for a bunch of spendables.  Speaking to a guy on the Facebook group later that day, he said he’d had a $100 off it a moth or so prior.

I ended up with $9.95 in spendables (2 x $2, 5 x $1, 4 x 20c, 1 x 10x and 1 x 5c)  Nine Brown Buggers all up too.

After spending a bunch of time in the first half of the park and really only pulling up the spendables and so much canslaw it wasn’t funny, i moved through to the back part of the park.  I noticed straight away that there wa a section of park which either had been left as bush, or had re-vegetated to some extent.  There were a bunch of older big trees in here too, which served as my targets.

This area was much better, less canslaw and I was soon in to the pre-decimals.  All around the bases of the big trees, they are always prime targets in my hunts.  I ended up with three Penny’s (1943, 1949, 1951) and two Half Pennys (1946 and 1948).

I also dug a few random bits and pieces, a key and an oval brass ring (CCR?).  There was also half a cog, from a clock or something, but as i pulled it out i thought i’d found my first Rising Sun badge and got super excited. As i cleaned off the muck i realised I hadn’t filled that bucket lister 🙁  The cog is still kinda cool though.

It was a full day, super hot, but i had 30 good recoveries so was happy with the results.

Old Dam ~ 27-12-2016

Christmas is over, and I needed a detecting fix!  I had half a day on Tuesday to head out as it was a public holiday.  I had wanted to get back to the dam since the end of last summer.  A friend had told me it was empty again so i decided to go down and check out the other bank which i didn’t get to last time.

It’s a nice downhill KM walk from the car to the dam, the bush here is idyllic.  You can just imagine all the kids and families which have walked up and down here to the dam since the early 1900s when the dam was established.

Although only about 25 degrees, the humidity was killer.  The empty dam was a sun trap too.  Luckily i had my camel pack which kept me hydrated through the day, i did forget top pack food though, but i think i’d eaten enough over the festive break already.

First find of the day was a Half Penny.  It was just under the surface on the rocky bank of the dam.  A good sign for things to come.  The area is used for motorbike riding and 4×4 so there is a lot of modern trash, mainly can slaw, so it was a little noisy.

The other thing which kept me busy throughout the afternoon was these tiny little bullets.  I’m impressed the Minelab Xterra 505 was picking them up.  Loud and Clear!  I don’t mind finding these bigger ones, which look kinda cool, but these little lead things take ages to pick out of the sand, even with the “Garrett Carrot”.

The next interesting piece and soon to be annoyance was a membership token/fob for the local workmens club all for the year 1982/83.  I soon found another couple just down from the first.  Then a stash of about 6 just to the edge of a large rock.  In the course of the afternoon i think i totted up about 30 of the buggers, all around the dam.  In fact my last signal as i left was one, it was like they were mocking me!  I’m not sure why there were so many.  Perhaps a group of guys left the club at the same time, maybe they graduated an apprenticeship, maybe a mate died and as a sign of respect they threw them in the dam.  Maybe they were stolen and just ditched.

I also picked up a couple of modern coins, which is always good.  I think this will likely be my last hunt of the year and takes my total of spendables to close to $200.

Overall a great afternoon out in beautiful surroundings.  I’ll be digging in to the history and story of the membership fobs and will update you all when i know more.

Happy Hunting in 2017!
Davo