The old timers in WA’s Murchison Goldfields reckon prospecting is a lot like going fishing; only you never throw a catch away.
And the one big haul they are all talking about is a nugget worth an estimated $110,000 pulled from the northern Goldfields above Kalgoorlie in September.
Peter Muir, 69, has been prospecting for gold across WA since 1989.Credit: Carmen Allan-Petale.
“I suppose that’s the holy grail for any of us,” prospector Peter Muir said, who’s searching the ground around Cue, a gold mining town about six hundred kilometres north-east of Perth.
“You’re always after that big fish. But the thing is you can’t count on that.”
The 3.23kg specimen contained 68 troy ounces or 2.11kg of gold and was dug up by a retired man who didn’t want to be named.
But while these kinds of discoveries get plenty of attention, Mr Muir said the real game pulling thousands of people from far and wide to WA is a bit more slow and steady.
“We go out and find little bits. One or two grams, here and there a few bigger ones. But that all adds up. It’s like a treasure hunt.”
Striking it rich
The prospectors in Cue are a mixed bunch of curious amateurs, weathered veterans and happy-go-lucky chancers from all over WA and Australia.
Some just have a swag and an old ute, while others have top of the line four wheel drives and caravans. But when it comes to searching for gold, they are all relatively equal, armed with maps, jewellers loupes, pick axes and metal detectors.
Cue is a quaint mining town in the Murchison Goldfields that hosts a big influx of prospectors every year.Credit: Carmen Allan-Petale.
“I’ve had the same metal detector for fifteen years,” Jill Muir said, wife of Peter and a long-time gold prospector. “I could get a new one, but this one’s got a lot of luck in it.”
“A few years ago I detected a twelve ounce nugget (about 373 grams) from the ground, about four kilometres from Cue with this detector.
“We were out with some aunties and uncles and they sat down to have a cup of tea and a chat at the camp, and I just thought ‘I can’t just sit here for this’ and so I went out with the detector.
“I was just a few metres away when I heard it – a big whoosh sound in the earphones. And then my uncle came over and he dug it out.
“I put it in my pocket and my pants nearly fell down it was so heavy. Slept with it under my pillow till we could offload it.”
The Muirs sell most of their gold to the Perth Mint, with the twelve-ounce nugget Jill found fetching about $19,000.
And though he wouldn’t say how much they’ve earned prospecting over the years, Mr Muir said the “bits and pieces” they find are reward enough.
Land rich in history
Gold has been plucked from the ground around Cue since the early 1890s when the first prospectors came.
Violet Muir is going strong at 92, still prospecting for gold.Credit: Carmen Allan-Petale.
The most famous gold seeker is perhaps Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States, who came to the region as a young man to assist at several mines including Big Bell, a gold rush settlement that’s now a ghost town.
The landscape around Cue is starkly beautiful, with low scrub and red dirt flowing around shallow hills and rocky outcrops smoothed by thousands of years of wind and rain.
The most dramatic of these is Walga Rock, an immense monolith five kilometres in circumference that seems to hum with a peculiar energy as you approach it, as though it’s the focal point for the millions of years that have shaped the land.
And in the lee of its rocky sides is a gallery of Aboriginal rock paintings, the largest of its type in WA, with images of animals, a tall ship, and the people who valued the land long before others came looking for gold.
Joining Peter Muir on the hunt for gold is his mother, Violet, who’s still swinging her trusty metal detector at 92 years of age. She says prospecting can be meditative, and over the decades she’s learned just to have a go and see what happens.
“Being out here just walking around, looking and listening, some days it’s hard and you think ‘oh why am I doing this?’ But it’s fun in the end. It’s just stunning country sometimes.”
A Miner’s Right
While it’s never been as gold rich as the areas around Kalgoorlie, the Murchison Goldfields are a major centre for prospectors and there are a number of active mine sites in the area.
This mix of paid professionals and entrepreneurial amateurs circling the same ground has produced a tolerant culture, as long as the rules are kept to.
Some mine sites and leaseholders allow prospectors to come onto their land to look for gold provided they log their hours and report their findings.
But woe-betide the prospector who looks where they shouldn’t, with fines of up to $150,000 against individuals caught out of bounds.
“We check this as often as we can and get it updated as often as we can,” Peter Muir says, looking at a “Tengraph” map as he sets up gear for another day’s hunt.
Tengraph maps are produced by WA’s Department of Mines to show “a current and accurate picture of land under mining activity,” and Peter said he wouldn’t prospect without one.
“We’ve been checked a few times by the gold squad, just to see what we’re doing. Never had any trouble, but they’re like the chaps from fisheries, you know? Ever on the look out.”
Most prospectors are happy to swap yarns about how many grams they found that day or complain about a dry strike. But others are a lot more secretive, understandable given what’s at stake.
Walga Rock is etched with some of the oldest Aboriginal rock art paintings in WA.Credit: Carmen Allan-Petale.
‘Oh, it’s certainly competitive,” said Bruce, a prospector from Perth who came back to the Goldfields after a three year battle with cancer.
“A few years back, I won’t say who, but there was a fella who used to sit up on the lookout hill with a pair of binoculars and have a look at where everyone else was going. Not that that helped much.”
Because most prospectors agree that no matter what technology there is or what advantage is tried for, nothing can beat luck.
“I’ve found pieces of gold right next to the car where we’ve been camped out bush for a week,” Jill Muir said. “You look and look and find nothing and then all of a sudden there it is, right under your foot.”
One evening as dusk settled a wild wind picked up over the land around Cue, flensing huge strips of red dust into the air. And while most prospectors busied themselves tying down the awnings of their caravans or putting in an extra tent peg or two, one veteran headed out on a quad bike, winking as he passed by.
“Always got to have a go. You never know, do you?”
David Allan-Petale is a writer and travel blogger exploring Australia with his family. You can follow their adventures at www.double-barrelledtravel.com.