I haven't been Metal Detecting or painting for awhile. I have been busy with my invention!
DETECTING PROJECTS
Metal Detecting in Australia & Beyond
#Coins, #Rings, #Hafpenny, #SwivelGun, #MusketBalls #Bush, #Outback, #Australia,
Email Rex Woodmore: [email protected]
WANT TO GET MOTIVATED?
Watch this guy!
|
The Man Behind Some 'insane' Treasure Hunting Finds:
Leigh Webber doesn't just find treasure as a hobby, he does it for a living. Armed with an incredibly powerful magnet, Leigh discovers incredible hidden treasurers all around the globe. From the water's great depths, Leigh has pulled up everything from gold coins to an entire BMW motorcycle. |
1827 MUSKET BALL & 1889 HALFPENNY
FOUND: SEPTEMBER 2017 WESTERN AUSTRALIA
My wife Lyn and I love to escape from suburbia, and head for the Outback in our 'Supervan'
On a 4000 km trip from Perth to Exmouth,while metal detecting an inland area where Europeans diverted water from a natural rock hole to a dam (depriving the local Aboriginals of their water) I found an 1889 Queen Victoria halfpenny. |
Further down the track where a European settler was murdered by a local tribe (who in all fairness were probably trying to protect their only water source in an arid land) I found a piece of molten lead weighing 64.7 grams and then a lead musket ball weighing 31.9grams and about 17.5mm in diameter.
The firearm used by early settlers, convicts and troopers from the late 1780’s to the 1840’s and 50’s was the flintlock musket.
|
Making musket balls.Sydney Living Museums
How musket balls are made. In a crucible sheet lead is melted and then poured into a bullet mould. A few moments are allowed for the lead to set, excess lead is sliced off. |
|
The extremely hot lead ball is dropped into a bucket of water and left to cool.
Don't sell your house to go looking for the treasure that you read about here on Oztreasure, or any other website, for that matter. Invest in my art instead! :-)
http://art-sale.weebly.com |
MY FEEBLE EFFORTS
Getting even more feeble each year.
I use a Garrett AT Pro metal detector on land and underwater (with garret waterproof headphones) to search the Swan & Canning Rivers, Metro beaches, parks and anywhere that I have the legal right, on the coast & outback of Western Australia & beyond.
ONE OF MY INTERESTING FINDS
Who said petrification takes thousands of years?
Being a modern implement it has obviously not taken thousands of years for the hard rock around them. which consisted of broken shells, rust & course quartz grains, to form. Right next to the pliers I found an Australian 50% silver coin, a Florin (2 shillings)
NOTE: (There is a story of thousand year old coins found on an island & for years people have been debating about them. They seem to forget that they were found in the 1940s and could have been dropped there in the 1940s, The date and country on the coin is no guide to who dropped them and when!)
A FEW OLD DETECTING STORIES
TRUE? TANTALISING TALES of TREASURE
TOY FINDS TREASURE.
A guy in Mexico, bought a cheap beginners metal detector (A kid's cheap toy) and excitedly headed off into the desert. As one would expect, he had days of finding only junk,but when he was on the verge of quitting he dug one last target. It turned out to be a 389 ounces gold nugget and it sold at auction for $1.55 million |
CONSPIRACY CORRECTED An amateur treasure hunter using a detector, on railroad property in Dallas, found a bullet near the site of President John F Kennedy's assassination.
CAN TURNS INTO CHALICE
Using a detector underwater, a diver off Key West, found what, at first, he thought was a beer can stuck in the mud, but when the sediment cleared he found himself clasping a heavy golden chalice (valued at $1 million) from a Spanish treasure ship that sank in 1622. |
Later an official archaeological team found 3,500 pieces of broken objects, that make up several hundred complete items made of gold, silver and garnet. The Anglo-Saxon treasure was valued at around $5.3 million.
he discovered a skeleton buried together with a hoard of 18th-century Spanish and Portuguese gold doubloons. The treasure is thought to be from a Spanish galleon plundered by pirates in 1725.
CRUSHED CUP In a field in Kent, UK a retired electrician discovered a Gold Cup. Although it had been run over and crushed by tractors and mangled by a modern ploughs, it is still a very rare & valuable find, and one of only seven similar gold cups, found in Europe, dating to between 1700 and 1500 BC. The British Museum paid $520,000 to be shared between the finder & land owner.
|
With a little research the rightful (grateful) owner was tracked down and presented with the ring that he had lost 48 years before.
SEARCHING FOR SECRETS IN THE OUTBACK
A detecting project at a secret airbase could be a 'blast' !
first heard of this abandoned secret military base, many years ago when Treasure hunter Allan Robinson told me of his visit to a very inhospitable area in the Outback of Western Australia where he saw rusting trucks, machinery and piles of 44 gallon drums (Some still filled with fuel).
|
In those days you could expect to find ammunition boxes, bomb holders and even a few rounds of live ammunition in abandoned buildings. Allan was seriously discussing the possibility of acquiring salvage rights to the metals left there - copper pipes, lead, brass and so on. I was extremely enthusiastic until he mentioned one minor problem….When Allan Robinson visited,the area was still ‘secret’
There is no knowing what might have happened to him if he had been seen poking around in an area that at the time was probably still covered by the official secrets act.
Today the area is no longer a secret and would be an interesting place to metal detect (watch out for live ammo), but this is still harsh, unforgiving country. In the days before air conditioning, tormented by flies, scorpions and snakes, this must have been a very tough place to work in. A visit today in air- conditioned vehicles is much easier, but it is still a tough hot rugged place with nearby Marble Bar recognised as Australia's hottest town.
There is no knowing what might have happened to him if he had been seen poking around in an area that at the time was probably still covered by the official secrets act.
Today the area is no longer a secret and would be an interesting place to metal detect (watch out for live ammo), but this is still harsh, unforgiving country. In the days before air conditioning, tormented by flies, scorpions and snakes, this must have been a very tough place to work in. A visit today in air- conditioned vehicles is much easier, but it is still a tough hot rugged place with nearby Marble Bar recognised as Australia's hottest town.
http://www.marblebar.org.au/destination/marble-bar/corunna-downs-airfield/
‘No.73 Operational Base’ or ‘Corunna Downs’ the name of the active cattle station on which the base was located, was a secret Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) base 40 km south of Marble Bar, plonked in the middle of desolate spinifex country in the blazing heat, it was heavily camouflaged and carefully hidden. Long-range B-24 Liberator bombers roared in and out, heavily loaded with bombs to bomb Japanese bases in Singapore, Java, Borneo, Celebes, and other island targets to the north of the Australia.
‘No.73 Operational Base’ or ‘Corunna Downs’ the name of the active cattle station on which the base was located, was a secret Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) base 40 km south of Marble Bar, plonked in the middle of desolate spinifex country in the blazing heat, it was heavily camouflaged and carefully hidden. Long-range B-24 Liberator bombers roared in and out, heavily loaded with bombs to bomb Japanese bases in Singapore, Java, Borneo, Celebes, and other island targets to the north of the Australia.
The Corunna Downs base closed on January 14,1946. Today, it is a bit creepy but is a peaceful place full of memories and imaginings of its historic past. I am sure that there are still a few secrets to be discovered.
Slowly but surely it is being reclaimed by the desert. The main runways, constructed with bitumen surfaces are cracked and parched from exposure to the relentless sun and are almost completely covered by sand.
Slowly but surely it is being reclaimed by the desert. The main runways, constructed with bitumen surfaces are cracked and parched from exposure to the relentless sun and are almost completely covered by sand.
The signposted access road (Corunna Downs Station Road/Salgash Road) to the old Corunna Downs Air Base (36km from Marble Bar) is all gravel, usually in quite good condition (except after rain) and can be travelled with care in conventional two- wheel-drive vehicles. Along the way (through old gold and copper mining areas and undulating, spinifex covered hillsides) there are a number of small creek crossings and parts of the road can be a little eroded. The trip is generally OK for off-road caravans or camper trailers but, as there are no facilities and the old base is on the privately-owned Corunna Downs cattle station, permission to camp must be obtained beforehand. Preferably use Marble Bar as a base and make a daytrip out to the air base.
Visit the Marble Bar visitor information centre (in the local shire office) for road conditions to the site. It is about an hour journey to get there from Marble Bar. Further info photos and memorabilia from Corunna Downs Air Base can be seen at the Comet Gold Mine and Tourist Centre near Marble Bar township.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=90&v=tFcIrvpcSO4 ttps://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php?topic=52094.0 |
GOLD BAR
“A guy walks into a bar....”
On a long weekend, in the Goldfields of Western Australia, a young guy from the city, walked into a bar, sat down on a stool at the counter, surrounded by six or seven locals, ordered a beer and then proudly and loudly bragged about how, with his brand new Garrett metal detector, he had just found a ‘beaut’ big nugget of gold, which he took from his pocket and dropped onto the beer splashed bar in front of him. It was indeed a beautiful and valuable gold specimen, probably worth more than the detector that was used to find it.
A gruff voice from the other end of the counter asked
“Where’d you get that from?”
The young guy with the gold thought “I’m not that stupid” He wasn’t going to give away the location, so instead he pointed through the window to a rock strewn hill and flippantly said “Just over the other side of that hill”
An old timer next to him, reached over with a sun tanned hand, picked up the nugget and quietly slipped into his shirt pocket and said:
“That’s my gold Sonny!” and went back to sipping his beer.
Before the young guy could ask “What do you mean?” Someone said
“That’s his claim on the other side of that hill, so it is his gold! Ha! Ha!”
And another chuckling voice said “You can’t get out of it mate! All of us here are witnesses to what you said !” The whole bar errupted in raucous laughter, the youg guy left red faced and minus his nugget!
A gruff voice from the other end of the counter asked
“Where’d you get that from?”
The young guy with the gold thought “I’m not that stupid” He wasn’t going to give away the location, so instead he pointed through the window to a rock strewn hill and flippantly said “Just over the other side of that hill”
An old timer next to him, reached over with a sun tanned hand, picked up the nugget and quietly slipped into his shirt pocket and said:
“That’s my gold Sonny!” and went back to sipping his beer.
Before the young guy could ask “What do you mean?” Someone said
“That’s his claim on the other side of that hill, so it is his gold! Ha! Ha!”
And another chuckling voice said “You can’t get out of it mate! All of us here are witnesses to what you said !” The whole bar errupted in raucous laughter, the youg guy left red faced and minus his nugget!
GARRETT METAL DETECTING
|
|
TREASURE HUNTING
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
I got a free hat & big backpack with my gear "Yay!"
BEACH DETECTING North West Western Australia.
One adventure my wife Lyn & I particularly enjoyed was in May 2012.
It was a Western Australian Coastal camping trip from Gosnells to Exmouth (Home of the World Heritage listed Ningaloo Reef) and back. For me detecting on a pebble beach was something new & quite profitable too. In all we did 3661 kilometres (almost 2275 miles)
It was a Western Australian Coastal camping trip from Gosnells to Exmouth (Home of the World Heritage listed Ningaloo Reef) and back. For me detecting on a pebble beach was something new & quite profitable too. In all we did 3661 kilometres (almost 2275 miles)
DETECTING UP THE COAST
TO NINGALOO
I metal detected on many of the beaches including Jurien Bay, Greenhead, Leeman, Dongara, Geraldton, Carnarvon, Coral Bay, Shark Bay (Denham & Monkey Mia), Pebble Beach, Turquoise Bay (Exmouth) and at Ningaloo Station where unfortunately our ‘Supervan’ although it is 4WD, was not tough enough to explore the areas that contain the shipwreck material the area is well known for and so I did not find the treasures that may be lying in the sand around Point Cloates. The 1811 wreck of the American ship ‘Rapid’ once had 180,000 Spanish American silver coins on it and many, if not most of this coin, has been salvaged but quite a few are still unaccounted for. There are other wrecks including the 1816 wreck of the Portuguese vessel ‘Correio da Azia’ which has produced some coin and there is one wreck that has only recently been discovered and thought to be mid-19th century, buried on the beach. It was due to be explored by museum marine archaeologists the week after we were in the area.
Although I did not discover shipwreck treasure, by the end of the trip I had 177 metal detecting ‘Hits’ on coin totalling $147.14 metric coins, plus an American half dollar, a Singapore five cents, an Exmouth tourist centre token, 2 costume jewellery earrings, a gold plated ring and best of all, an 8gram Sterling silver pendent. Plus numerous fishing sinkers (1.7kg of lead) and dozens of bottle caps (which I collect and bin)…Oh! and a Thomas the Tank Engine toy too.
Although I did not discover shipwreck treasure, by the end of the trip I had 177 metal detecting ‘Hits’ on coin totalling $147.14 metric coins, plus an American half dollar, a Singapore five cents, an Exmouth tourist centre token, 2 costume jewellery earrings, a gold plated ring and best of all, an 8gram Sterling silver pendent. Plus numerous fishing sinkers (1.7kg of lead) and dozens of bottle caps (which I collect and bin)…Oh! and a Thomas the Tank Engine toy too.
A HEAP
METAL DETECTED TREASURE
There were a couple of oddities I found while metal detecting. A piece of cast metal, in the water in Shark Bay, embossed with '1200 miles' and a lead tag (found in Geraldton) similar to the historic ones I previously found in the Canning River, but it must be modern as it has what looks like a fragment of double sided tape attached to it .
|
BEAUTIFUL COLOURFUL BEACHES
MANGROVE CAMPSITE
South of Carnarvon W.A. there are two unusual camping areas ‘Bush Beach’ & ‘New Beach’ here you can camp free on mudflats alongside the Mangrove swamp
We had no problems with mosquitoes, as there was a constant breeze blowing which seems to keep them away.
The only insects were butterflies that fluttered around our heads and actually came into our campervan.
We had no problems with mosquitoes, as there was a constant breeze blowing which seems to keep them away.
The only insects were butterflies that fluttered around our heads and actually came into our campervan.
A GUN FROM A SHIPWRECK?
A Swivel gun - a bit like a jack.
I imagined it was a ships swivel gun, like the Portuguese bronze gun found by a boy in the Northern Territory (A find that threatens the accuracy of our history books which make no mention of early Portuguese exploration)
But no! it was just a rusty old high lift jack.
It was the biggest thing I ever bothered to dig while detecting. “Oh well! Perhaps next time?”
But no! it was just a rusty old high lift jack.
It was the biggest thing I ever bothered to dig while detecting. “Oh well! Perhaps next time?”
MANGROVE JACK
'Mangrove Jack' is a type of fish, but not this time! Photo by Rex
It was a good thing that we got going early in the morning because as we packed up, the tide came in silently inundating the low points around us and quite quickly snaking its way along the track leading from the water’s edge towards us.
The rapid tide explained the rusty high lift jack that I found in the mud the day before. I imagine some guy using it to extract his vehicle from the mud and then leaving the jack behind as he fled from the rising waters.
The rapid tide explained the rusty high lift jack that I found in the mud the day before. I imagine some guy using it to extract his vehicle from the mud and then leaving the jack behind as he fled from the rising waters.
ABOUT SWIVEL GUNS YouTube
WILDLIFE TREASURES
Butterfly in Mangroves. Photo by Rex Woodmore
On the roads, particularly late one afternoon, we saw lots of very small Kangaroos that at first we thought were young ones, until we saw one with a tiny joey, poking out its head from the safety of its Mother’s pouch. We saw lots of emus in the wild (which also roam free throughout the resort at Coral Bay) and Lyn saw her first wild Echidna.
On Ningaloo station we saw hundreds, perhaps even a thousand, of what I thought were feral goats. Now I hate to admit it (especially as I once owned goats & have a Certificate of Dairy Goat husbandry) that these multi coloured things that I did not recognise, are in fact Damara sheep.
On Ningaloo station we saw hundreds, perhaps even a thousand, of what I thought were feral goats. Now I hate to admit it (especially as I once owned goats & have a Certificate of Dairy Goat husbandry) that these multi coloured things that I did not recognise, are in fact Damara sheep.
UGLY FISH - THAT LOOK LIKE ROCKS
Stone Fish
UGLY ROCKS - THAT LOOK LIKE FISH
Fish Stones?
DOLPHINS OF MONKEY MIA
No monkeys - Only dolphins, fish and emus.
CORAL TREASURES
Parrot Fish Ningaloo. Underwater Photos by Rex Woodmore
My wife Lyn and I dived with a turtle, a multitude of colourful coral fish & large stingrays.
At Ocean Park (South of Denham) we saw many species of Shark in captivity, then at Monkey Mia, we saw friendly but still wild dolphins being hand fed in the shallows of the beautiful bay.
At Ocean Park (South of Denham) we saw many species of Shark in captivity, then at Monkey Mia, we saw friendly but still wild dolphins being hand fed in the shallows of the beautiful bay.
A LAND OF CONTRASTS
Western Australia
SHEEP THAT LOOK LIKE GOATS
Damara Sheep
I used to keep Anglo Nubian goats and I have a certificate of dairy goat husbandry, so I was a bit embarrassed to find out that what I thought were strange, long tailed goats were actually a type of sheep - Damara sheep.
THE BIRDS of CORAL BAY & EXMOUTH
THE SHARKS of SHARK BAY
Email Rex Woodmore: [email protected] or [email protected]