Just one week after we had arrived home from our month long tour of South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula we were off again. This time to the small town of Wedderburn in the historic Victorian Goldfields. The reason for this being our destination was to participate in the annual Wedderburn Metal Detector Jamboree.
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| Arrival at the Wedderburn Goldfields in Victoria ahead of the Detector Jamboree |
We arrived a couple of days prior to the event starting so we took some time to tour the local area. The Victorian goldfields are famous for having yielded some of the largest gold nuggets found anywhere in the world. The world’s largest nugget known as ‘The Welcome Stranger’, weighed in at over 78.3kg (2,520 ounces) and was found near Wedderburn in 1869 resting just 1 inch below the surface! Nuggets continue to be found by metal detectors and prospectors on a regular basis in the region but they tend to be much smaller nowadays. With that in mind Heather tried some detecting for gold in amongst some of the historic diggings that are open to the public. While her detector is capable of locating nuggets it is better suited to her preferred target of coins and relics and as such we did not find our fortune on that day - I guess we will just have to keep searching!
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| Heather detecting for gold amongst historic workings |
What is a Metal Detecting Jamboree?
The jamboree is a well organised 2 day event where 100 identical metallic tokens (numbered 1 thru 100 and painted green for day 1 and orange on day 2) are ‘planted’ in the competition area each night under the cover of darkness. Metal detectorists from far and wide and of all skill levels compete on the same field at the same time using metal detectors ranging from budget models up to machines costing many thousands of dollars. Each token found gets registered with officials and is exchanged for a ticket in a very generous prize draw. Prizes included a couple of metal detectors, various accessories and specialised detector coils for the metal detecting enthusiasts as well as some gold panning equipment for the gold prospectors that were also competing.
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| Metal Detecting Equipment (much of which were prizes) on display |
While Heather had brought her detector with her specifically to compete in the jamboree (if the truth be told, her metal detector travels everywhere with us just in case an opportunity to hunt presents itself), I was fortunate enough to be able to secure the use of a demo model that one of the event sponsors had brought with them so I also registered as a competitor for the weekend - you never know if you will be lucky enough to win a machine!
Clear blue skies were experienced on both days of the weekend where the cool mornings saw detectors set out with gusto as soon as the starting whistle was blown at 8am.
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| Just a few of the more than one hundred detectors lined up at the start line |
Most of the tokens appeared to get found within the first couple of hours and with the temperature climbing rapidly towards 35 ℃, the number of participants had thinned out noticeably by lunch time. Heather was one of the detectors to be successful early having found a token within 10 minutes of starting on day 1. I had not had any luck with old fencing wire and pull-tabs being all I had found during the first 3 hours of the competition. However, just as I was going to take a break (and maybe give-up for the day), my machine signalled the presence of metal below the coil so I squatted down to take a closer look. Hidden below some leaf litter and loose dirt was what I had been hunting for! With each of us now having a token in hand we did indeed call it quits for the day and promptly registered our tokens.
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| Day 1 tokens - Heather's (left) and Grant's (right) |
With most token hunters having left the field for the day (many successfully, many more not), there were several events and demonstrations held to keep the crowd and all age groups interested. The highlight of the afternoon was the gold panning heats and final. All sorts of techniques were on show from the various competitors including ‘Slow and Steady’ as well as ‘Fast & Furious’ and everything in between. Very entertaining and fun to watch.
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| 'Slow and Steady' gold panning technique ended up winning the race |
Day 1 concluded with a camp oven dinner prepared by the local Lions Club members followed by a band and a dance - a good time was had by all.
Day 2 saw all of the same detectors out in the field once again, however this time they were hunting for orange tokens (91 of 100 green tokens had been found the previous day so 9 of these were also ‘still in play’). I found a token near the base of a tree inside the first hour on day 2 but Heather had encountered some technical difficulties with her machine. It had ‘learned’ the signal typical of the targeted token, but instead of alerting her to the presence of a token it had been discriminating against them and had been ‘silent’. She was frustrated (to say the least!) particularly as we only discovered this when I caught up with her to show her my token and it caused no sound when she ran her machine over the top of it. We called it a day as it was getting hot and went back to the organising area to register the orange token for the prize draw that was to occur later that day.
Some folks had registered 5 or 6 tokens each and even though we had three tokens between us in the draw, only one ended up being drawn for a minor prize.
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| 'Finds Bag' won during token draw |
All-in-all participating in the Wedderburn Detector Jamboree was a lot of fun and it is likely we will sign-up for similar events in the future wherever they may be.
Heather made a video about the weekend that can be viewed on YouTube via the attached link (below).
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