YOU can get all sorts of gold-detecting advice from Dean Mortimer. What’s the best pan to use in the central Victorian creeks, what’s the best detector brand and how to read its hum… just don’t ask him where to find the stuff.
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“‘People always ask me where the best spot to go is,” Dean said.
“It’s like asking what tonight’s Tattslotto numbers are. If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. That’s the bushman’s lottery.”
The owner of Goldsearch Australia in Dunolly has been playing the local lottery since his grandparents took him panning as a kid.
He said he’d had the fever most of his life and when he wasn't behind his shop counter, he was usually in the bush around Maryborough, Dunolly and Tarnagulla, looking for “that big one, that one that’s going to give me a better life”.
The last known big nugget found in the region, at Kingower, was the Hand of Faith in 1980, valued at more than $1 million.
“Six weeks ago one guy found a 63 grammer. If you take today’s prices it’d be worth $3080,” Dean said.
He said some people were still making a living from the local diggings. For others, it’s all for love.
Gold tourism is a big deal in the Central Goldfields Shire. Dean said hobby prospectors from around the globe ended up here to try their luck among the state’s famous ironbark forests and mullock heaps.
He’s had people in his shop from Sudan, England and California, and coin and relic hunters from Greece.
“It’s quite active,” he said.
“We also get a lot of people from Melbourne, and a lot of people struggling to find gold in their fields in Western Australia come to the Victorian fields.
“It’s becoming harder to find gold in other states because governments are starting to close off areas where you can prospect, but in Victoria there are lots of places open to prospecting.”
Dean predicts a rise in prospecting this year following the state government’s cut to miner’s right fees on January 1.
Last year a miner’s right cost $32.10 for two years; this year, it’s down to $17.20 for 10 years.
“A lot of people who can’t get a job will buy a detector and make some money that way,” he said.
“All you need is a gram and you’ve got $48 in your pocket.”
Grammers, subbies, pickers and sun bakers; whatever the prospector’s lingo, they all translate into cash.
“It’s the hunt,” he said. “The thrill. You don’t know what’s out there.
“And it’s peaceful. You can get away from everything else that’s happening in life.
“There’s a sense of tranquillity to it.”
