Griffos Outback Adventure Part 6 Ularring District W.A. "Micks Patch" 13 - 26 June 2026

Another trip out bush on the same patch with my Bro – keen cos he missed the big haul last trip. Was sketchy weather leading up to the trip so we opted to come in through North Coolgardie Rd because the north end of the track was probably still boggy. Got stood up by another big brindle bull on the road, he didn't want to move and was pretty keen on taking the Dmax on!! In the end our horns won though. Got some Tokyo Drift action on the one wet spot on the back track we knew was still going to be wet. Set up camp and got some gold on day 1 with a bit of benching on the patch. We worked that section for the next few days down to about 500mm and picked up 17 grams but nothing big. It was hard going, gives you massive respect for the ol timers, they didn't have the luxury of cold beers in the fridge at the end of the day!! Jas reckons it's the hardest he's worked in 10 years – I guess wandering around Barrow Island with an IPad isn't that taxing!! Note – 180 beers+ were killed over the duration of the trip (13 days) and I LOST 2kgs!! I then made the executive decision to jump on the west side of the patch where I had previously hit the honey hole. We started digging and around 450mm down we got the fainted hint of a target. Jas continued on the mattock, it started fattening up, we're on!! Then at about 600mm the detector blanked out – we have arrived at the destination. Out it popped a beautiful 10 gram nugget!! I dug another 600mm down over the next few days, not a trace of another target. By then we were broken so we chained some fresh ground, still in the area of my theory – diagonal shear through the 3 fault system. We picked up some bits and pieces, a nice 2 grammer sitting under a tree that screamed like trash and had no business being where it was – a traveller being smoothed off but I'll take it all the same!! Then we hit some more easterly ground, chaining up and down. I've learnt that when you think – don't bother with that bit – that you really have to go do that bit. This was my thinking on my next find – can't be arsed with that nice easy flat section. So I go over and start gridding it out and my detector blanks out on the surface. Ah shit got myself a staple or Ali tag, can't see anything obvious. Then I see a yellow rock – we call them corn cob rocks. The detector was screaming every time I passed it. I put my glasses on and f-ck me if it wasn't a SUNBAKER!! I didn't touch it and called Jas over on the radio, he was working the other side of the track. Totally the highlight for me – a 6.9g slug (dirty) just sitting on the surface waiting for a million odd years for me to walk over it! It definitely has travelled in its time – smoothed off. The last few days were really quiet on the gold and with weather expected Friday arvo we decided to pack down Thur arvo – earlier than we planned and bail at 3am Friday morning. We ended up with over an Oz - 37g (dirty) 34.68g (clean) of the good gear so a good trip in all. We'll probably look at another site for the next trip, there's gold still in the patch but it busts you hard trying to get manually.