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Prospecting enthusiasts return to Golden Triangle in bid to find big gold nuggets
SYD Pearson remembers the exact moment he struck it lucky in Victoria’s sprawling gold fields. Pacing across a little patch of earth out the back of Dunolly last December, the 68-year-old heard the hum set off by his metal detector then the distinctive “clunk’’ as he chipped into the soil with his pick axe.
He knew what it was. Hands already shaking, the garbage man from Maryborough brushed away the dirt to discover a 4.3kg gold nugget.
“I lit a ciggie and made a cup of tea but I didn’t have to bloody stir it,’’ Mr Pearson said.
The Aussie battler had hit the jackpot. He didn’t know it yet but the rock in his hands would be worth almost $300,000.
He placed it in his toolbox and drove home, presenting it to his wife and naming it in her honour. The Lady Catherine is now lodged in Victoria’s prospecting history books, part of the rich tapestry of the state’s contemporary gold rush.
Framed by the towns of Avoca, Castlemaine and Wedderburn, thousands of enthusiasts are returning to the “Golden Triangle’’ in a bid to strike it rich.
At around 96 per cent, the gold pulled from the soil here is considered the purest in the world.
Prospectors need only a $22 permit to legally claim it.
Prospectors and Miners Association of Victoria president Olly Oleszek said Mr Pearson’s nugget was one of two discovered in the last six months and among the largest recorded finds in the last decade. But he said even larger rocks certainly remained.
“The harder you work, the luckier you get,’’ Mr Oleszek said.
At 72kg, the “Welcome Stranger’’, discovered in 1869, is still the largest nugget ever discovered in Australia’s history. Today, it would be worth almost $4 million.
Mr Pearson and his business partner Jason have been turning the soil for decades and said 166 years since the first rush began, they didn’t mind continuing it.
“It’s like fishing,’’ he said. “You’re always after another big one.’’
The Lady Catherine was sold to a private buyer in the US but not before Mr Pearson had two replicas created — one as a keepsake, the other for inclusion in the record of nuggets at the Melbourne Museum.
“It’s not just the value of it,’’ Mr Pearson said. “I’ve achieved something I spent 37 years trying to do. I always dreamt of finding the big one. I was persistent and never gave up.’’
