The Echidna and the Gold

For two days we searched the Golden Triangle, central Victoria, for just a little of that elusive colour. That intoxicating lust the old timers must have felt was almost palpable here in a region which has given millions over the last 150 years. Alas despite all our brazen confidence only Mark found the tiniest piece […]

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The Strike

In 1892 William Ford and Arthur Bayley had been prospecting near the Western Australian country town of Coolgardie. Their story tells how one evening their bush camp was swept away by a flash flood. In their dismay, vowing they’d had enough, they searched for all their scattered belongings with the intention of quitting. In their […]

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Industrial Gemstone

I found this beautiful mineral specimen recently while exploring the historic Barossa Goldfields. The most obvious thing about this mineral specimen is of course the gold but when I thought about it a little more I realised that symbolically the ironstone and quartz represented perhaps the real value. Without iron the world would have been […]

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