GOLD MEMORIES with Pattie

Scottie and I were camped on a side creek creek off the Gentle Anne ...Thats a creek in the East Kimberlies.
Scottie had been away all day walking across the ridges to see if there was any "good" country close by for us to look at.
I had been digging a tiny offshoot where the water only runs in the real wet time...it was 4pm and and I was tired and knew I had to get back to the Landrover to get a fire started and the billy on and a stew going and some rice on to.
As I walked back to the camp rather than just carry my detecter I was sweeping it over the ground in front of me...really not taking much notice, thinking more of the evening ahead and whether Scottie would want to move camp again the next day.
When suddenly the noise in my ears was deafening...I stopped and ran it over the ground again..Yep it was big...Now shall I dig it or just leave it as it was most likely a horseshoe or the head of an oldtimers shovel...Like the last 255 noises like that.
A quick look at the sun and yes I would dig at least for a few minutes...First I had to move a quartz boulder only just managed to push that to one side...as I was pushing it , it ocoured to me how could a horseshoe get under it still you never know..then 4" down before I even got to recheck the noise...there it was the biggest gleam of gold you ever saw.Another few seconds and the gleam turned into a sight I had never seen before...not just a little nugget but several nuggets of a size that made my face smile and my heart race.
So I just left things as they were and raced back to camp to get the fire going and things started. Scottie got a real welcome that night and after tea we got the flash light and went to look at our find.
For several days we dug the little site until we had every speck of gold.at the finish I took all the earth left in the spoil heap down to the creek and washed it in a pan to get every piece. All told the haul from the hole came to about 8ozs...I know not the most ever found but the best I ever did.

The spearhead was lying on top of the ground...in that sort of country things don't go far away from where they are dropped its to rocky and hard.
I found loads of them about the country ..not whole ones mostly just the tips....Sometimes made of Quatz or other rock only one other time of glass and that was the glass they used to use on the telegraph line a lilac glass...the aborigionals used to throw stones at the poles to bring down the glass connections to use for spears..as they went on making spears for a long time after the whites arrived.
And I twice found spear heads made out of out of old horse shoes...first iron they must have used I think, they must have very quickly caught on to the idea of using iron once they had seen it...I am sure no-one told them it could be used for this.
One quatz one was made to look like a barbed fish head..would have been a leathal weapon when complete and new
I have no idea of the age of the stone ones might be 1000's of years or just 100years.

I have so many stories in my head of my 12 yrears in the bush...all are true, like this last one a couple of times I have felt like we weren't alone ...not that I can say I have great faith in the life hereafter...just sometimes perhaps a memory of times past.
There have been a couple of times also when once arriving in a place I felt it was "bad" and we always upsticks and moved on if that happened.

My first little nugget.

I had been in the bush for over a year and been and seen places I loved and bought myself a top of the range detecter and several panning dishes...In fact I was getting better with the dish if there were any really small pieces in the creeks I could get them...but my detecter was another thing ..just couldn't hear the noise I wanted...Plenty of horeshoes and even a silver australian 1932 3d piece...one they used to nick name a "Joey"....But a regular sized nugget to show off no. no. no.
We were camped in on a mine doing a bit of caretaking for the owner..while he went off to earn a real living driving a bulldozer..before he could come back and throw his good hard earned money into trying to find "The big one"...(which he never did)
One morning I went into.Poverty Creek.along the top of the Creek where the water only run when it had really rained for days and was running a banker...Don't know why I was up there.Just seemed like it would make a change.Then after about 20 minutes there was the sound and I knew it was there close on the surface it was.weighted about 20 grams I think..not very big and was a very pale gold colour ...Poverty was known for its gold to have a lot of silver in it..Not like Red Gully there the gold was just about 100% gold and was a dark red/gold...and fetched more money.
But never mind it was my first wouldn't have cared if it had been 90% nickel.!!!
Sent it off to my Mum in England...never saw it again..she says she still has it but goodness knows where.

Snakes.

ONE time we were camped in House Creek past old Ding dong Homestead...Its quite wide where we were, and dry in most places with a few usable water holes on the inside of the bends.
It was about 4.30pm and I had just been along to a little water hole to fill up the water esky there were lots of big rocks between me and the Land rover camp, and out from under one of them came a Deaf Adder (Death Adder )..It took one look at me and tried to move to the right of me...at the same time I went to my left...well we did this 3 times..and I could see it getting mad.....
Then I swear to god it looked me straight in the eye for a few moments as much as to say ..Stay where you are.....Then it shot under the nearest boulder.
Now don't tell me animals don't speak that one surely did.

Another time we were crossing a narrow dry sand creek bed (about 4 metres wide)and 1metre deep ..and we went into the creek and then trying to get out and up the other side We were only just a bit shorter than the creek and the first attempt at getting up and over the bank failed, and as we did so we pulled a mob of the bank down with us....and then settled in the mess.
I knew that we were going to be some time digging out so jumped out of the Rover....which because of the angle my door was 1 1/2 metres from the ground.....so I took a big leap out ...just as I did Scottie gave a huge shout ...
I looked down and there coming out of the bank right under my feet was a king brown....(Not good) One foot touched the ground and I was off again like abird. Now I have never been very agile but that day I could have entered the Olympics.

How did I meet Scottie

It was 5th Jan 1986 ...I was working for the West Australian Government as an Emergency Nursing sister in West Aussie....
I was posted to Derby in the far north west had arrived the day before..a cyclone was just going through ..we had missed the eye but but had been hit by the rain both sides of it...and god it rained .22kilometers of the new road out to the west had gone and on the other side it was flooded to deep to travel, I came in by plane to the old airport.
Started work the next morning at the Hospital ..which was on stilts thankgoodness as it was flooded under and across the road.
never worked in such a place . temp 43c and so humid your knickers were stuck to you 2 minutes after you put them on...anyway...
walked down the corridor to my first patient of the day...and there he sat with one leg in tractiion and a big happy grin on his face.starkers....he never wore a stitch of clothing as far as I know ever in that bed...just about covered by a small sheet....when he thought about it.
He was full of life and wanted to experience all life that came his way...had an opinion about every subject on the earth and never failed to tell you...a fund of stories that could keep you glued to your chair for hours....never saw in the 10years we were together one person after having met him ever wanted to leave his company.
And I was no exception....I spent as many of my off duty time with him as I could...and 12 weeks later when the health dept moved ome on to the next hospital...as I sat with him he asked me with great offhanded ness he could gather if I would "like to shack up with him".
The rest is history

I have put in how I met Scottieso guess I will now give Mick a go..
After Scottie died in June 1996 I found it very hard to come to terms with it all ...and made the mistake of packing up and taking myself to Mildura in Victoria...not that the poor friends in Mildura or Victoria its self were anything but kind to me and it is a great place ..but in my mind set I think nowhere would have been a happy place..
So again I packed my worldly belongings into my jeep and set out again for Perth....where I thought perhaps I could settle myself....Not here either was there any rest for me
So packing my jeep again I put it on to a cargo boat for England and took off by plane to follow it. Once in England I set about finding myself a little bolt hole to hide in.
By now 1yr had passed and my Dad was getting sicker...and one day he said to me you should not be alone..I listerned but had more on my mind as he was dying.
But by the 1st of September ..sitting in my tiny house the local freebee news paper came through the door.....And each week they have a "Couples " spot.I wrote 5 letters to men wanting a new partner...just telling them the usual pack of bullshit you know they want to hear..
One I discounted on speaking to him as a pervert.
One lived to far away
One wanted to change my garden
One I stuffed up because my Aussie langugue did not sit well with him

And the last one was Mick.....I knew from the minute I saw him..holding a bunch of flowers in his hands for me looking so sad, you could see he needed me.
I knew from that minute we were made for each other...but it took Mick a bit longer...My living in the Aussie outback had put a lot of hard edges on me that didn't sit easily with a quiet gentle Englishman...and it has taken a fair time to mesh our lives together
He is different to any other man I have ever been in close contact with and I love him for his tolerence and gentleness...not better or worse than Scottie ..but different and in his own way a man standing head and shoulders above the crowd.
He never understood my love of Aussie...but now after our trip last autumn he is converted to the slower and more thoughtful life style poeple have made in a sometimes hostile country.

Was once walking up a little creek..just about 2ft wide..rocky and it goes without saying dry.

Gold.is where you find it.

Once in a while we I took the detecter for a walk...and on this day we had spent the whole day in a long thin Creek..never saw a name for it on the map,just one small creek coming out of a low range of Hills going though and on in to a bigger one and so on.

Scottie was on the side of a ridge using the panning dish to see if he could find a leader...Me I walked the lenght of the creek x2...once on one side and back again to make sure of the other side...found a few tiny nuggets that would have been big enough to use as ear rings with a bit of work.(that is if one day we ever got round to it)

And again as is always the way I was just going to pack it in when I got a small but firm sound come up...Nearly didn't bother sounded small...but hacked away at the slate bedrock in the creek and 10 minutes later had in my hand a beautiful nugget...long and thin shape and very red gold in colour...which in the Kimberly means a high cold content...sometimes as high as 98%

There is something about this nugget which is attractive...so later a friend who makes the best gold jewelry you have ever seen set into it a tiny Broome pearl and an Argile diamond and fashioned a loop on the top so that I could use it as a pendant with a gold chain..

Now I am back and that life seems like a dream...my pendant is aa talisman of the Kimberly.