Wed, 28th Sept, 2016 Bush camp at Ruby Well Find Mine, WA (exploring Peak Hill area)

Very strong wind all night and it is still blowing. Very cold too!! 8am only 13.8 degrees so we put the heater on – needed a run any case.

Lara texted to invite us for dinner tonight – crumbed roo steaks. Should be interesting. I did up a curry pasta salad to take with us.

The wind is very cold and the sun can’t get through it to warm us up. Put on jeans and jumpers and headed off to find Peak Hill. Lots of people have said to detect there.

Found the old township. Even has street signs.

Lots of old buildings and one lovely homestead. There is a huge open cut mine further over too.

Wandered around checking out all the broken bits and pieces. Beside one of the houses were some shafts.

Some old mining equipment.

Walked over to the homestead – no one home though the sign said it has been in the same family since 1899. Will have to google the township and get the story.

Drove down to the open cut mine but a fence stopped us getting too close.

New hills have appeared beside the big hole.

We had lunch sitting on the verandah of one of the falling down buildings. Trying to warm up in the sun as the wind is still bitingly cold.

Further down the road is an operating mine so we turned around and headed back to another mine. Lots of old tin shacks here and some big sheds. Looks like this was the processing area.

The well which provided the water for the tanks, though we think it might have been a mine shaft first looking at the headframe.

Further around was lots of old-timer rubbish.

Drove back down the road a bit and tried detecting for a while but there were lots of hot rocks sounding off and no gold. Headed back to Bilyuin Pool where we stopped previously though it was pouring with rain that time. Much nicer today.

That was where we camped.

Back to the van. I baked some Anzac cookies while Steve took the 2300 for a walk. He came back with a tiny bit, 0.06g, didn’t even take a photo!! Had our showers early then headed over to Ross and Lara’s for dinner. The roo steaks were great – not gamey or anything. Another great night chatting. We had only found 5.74 grams in total so he just took 1 gram as his 20 percent. Steve had given him some gas parts too. Said our goodbyes and will catch up with them at Quinns next year as they will be heading down there soon to detect that area.

The temperature has dropped a lot as we head back to the van – glad I brought my jumper.

Peak Hill, Western Australia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Peak Hill is the name of a goldfield,^[2] locality and the site of a gold mining^[3] ghost town in the Murchison Region of Western Australia. The gold mine covers 2,162 hectares and consists of four open-cut mines, titled Main, Jubilee, Fiveways and Harmony.^[4]

In the adjacent region to the locality there are considerable non auriferous mineral deposits.^[5] Adjacent fields included the Horseshoe field.^[6]

Early exploration at the site occurred in the 1890s,^[7][8] when gold was discovered by William John Wilson in 1892.^[9] The townsite was gazetted in 1897,^[9] and the field has had varied fortunes even in early years.^[10][11] Before 1913, the mine produced some 270,000 ounces of gold.^[4] Peak Hill was also included as a location in a regional newspaper network of more outlying mining communities in the 1920s and 1930s.^[12]

The population of the town was 190 (180 males and 10 females) in 1898.^[13]

A Walker was the proprietor of the Peak Hill General Store until 1954, when he retired to his Daughter's Farm (Nee Campbell) McCourt Farm, Peppermint Grove Beach, South of Capel. Mr Walker was the last full-time resident of Peak Hill.

In the 1970s it was reduced to a ghost town with a few remaining residents, however in the 1980s activity resumed,^[14][15] producing around 650,000 ounces of gold.^[4] The mine became dormant again the 2000s.

Montezuma Mining Company Ltd purchased the mine from Barrick Gold and Rio Tinto in August 2007 for $1 million cash and $600,000 of environmental bonds.^[4] Montezuma negotiated an underwriting agreement with Cunningham Securities, a Perth broker, in January 2008 to raise money for further exploration. Montezuma is seeking up to $3 million to drill at four priority zones, hoping to recommence mining in an area that has historically produced over 900,000 ounces of gold.^[16]