Sat, 30th Aug, 2025 Bush camp on pending lease near Murrin Murrin Nickel Mine, east of Leonora, WA

6.9 degrees min, clear sky and windy again.

I wandered along from camp while Steve did the big walk. I got a sound over someone’s hole - always good to check. I scraped the loose dirt back expecting to find a bit of rubbish but the noise continued - no a distant target sound but it got me interested. When I scrapped back more I hit harder ground and the sound became very distant - gold. I called Steve up but he was too far away so will dig it out when he comes back. I continued wandering but no other targets. As Steve headed back to camp I met him at my deep hole and he agreed - good signal. He had a scrape with his pick then decided we need the hammer and chisel which he walked back and collected, along with Rick’s homemade pick he had given us. The ground was solid so the pick just bounced off so out with the chisel and hammer. After a couple of hits he pulled out clumps which I checked over the detector coil and one screamed. He broke it down and out came a wonderful surprise - ice cream celebration tonight. Left a very big smiley face made of quartz rocks. My biggest piece since I started detecting. 

After lunch Steve put his big coil on and went wandering. He came back with one but only a 1 gram nugget but at least he got something.

It has warmed up out of the wind when we had our cuppa. Steve went back to his spot with the chain to grid it but didn’t get any more - what a shame. Still we are very happy with our 2 nuggets for the day. I was cooking his favourite chicken wings any case and with ice cream for dessert we enjoyed our celebration.