Purely for the record (because let’s face it not even my own family read my blogs), I herewith announce that tomorrow I return to an activity I used to enjoy frequently but now do far less (no not that) — prospecting! After an enforced and highly unwelcome hiatus of almost a year, I’m finally going back to my beloved river. The hiatus in question has been chronicled thoroughly — or so I thought — but then I checked and not a mention of how things turned to poo in 2025. So here’s a summary to bring you up to speed:
After completing the first three legs of the Wild South Coast Way during a historic weather emergency in South Australia, I naturally ventured out on an equally bleak morning in late-July 2025 after several days of rain to explore the junction of two watercourses: the Isabella River, which has birthed at least one confirmed 220g nugget, and a suspicious landmark named Golden Gully which (call me dense) I felt might also have a hidden goldifereous history. After careful navigation I found the spot, strapped on my boots and descended into the gully. I found not a speck of yellow in the Gully, but decided the juction itself would be the best place to test pan. Working my way around a bastion of blackberry, I was navigating a steepish downhill section when I stepped on a wet stick and went for six. My right leg compacted like a folding ladder and both my ankle and knee cracked like gunshots. I didn’t quite scream, but I did have a moment. The next moment was spent gazing up through the canopy at a greyish sky thinking “I’ve broken my leg” and the moment after that: “How do I get out of here?”
Long story short, I walked out. Limped out. I was maybe 1.5km from the car all uphill through patchy scrub, and it took me two hours. Then three hours to drive home. Then to the doctor who misdiagnosed it as a sprain and sent me back to work. Then two hellish weeks before I went back and was rediagnosed with a fractured ankle and three Grade 3 tears to various ligaments. In the end, we never even looked at my knee, where damage remains to this day. So I became restricted at work for the next three months, with ten visits to the physio before I was cleared fit. Except I wasn’t fit, just pretending enough to get through the test, and I am still not fit. Not then, not now, maybe never if I’m honest. It could be the event that makes me officially an old man. So tomorrow will be an important test. I am going back to the Winburndale Rivulet!
Nek minit.
Back from the Rivulet, and a glorious return to form! Gold aplenty, and nil issues with either the ankle or the knee. I wasn’t hurdling logjams or anything, but my exertions were typical of the stress I’d put myself under during an adventure of the alluvial or even non-alluvial type. I am one hot shower and four hours safely home and no residual discomfort in any joint so far, some of which is probably due to the Pink Lady Apple pie I enjoyed for desert, courtesy of the ever-reliable Bilpin Fruit Bowl. Aren’t I becoming louche with my little name drops. ‘Oh yair popped by the salon don’t you know, that Jeffrey is a wizard with the shears’ also happened, and I am neatly shorn by an Arab not-named Jeffrey who normally makes me look like a happy-snap from Abu Ghraib circa 2004 but who I never correct because he always looks so angry and I am probably an infidel. So I am ready for work tomorrow which I guess is the point, but really who’s every totally prepared tof a 3:30am wakeup? Not me.
I am just going to send this off without any pictures because (as I may have previously mentioned) nobody reads my blogs anymore, so why steal images to illustrate them? Makes no sense does it. By the way, do you thing blogs are dead? I think they may have died about the time I began making them. What I should be doing is TikTok narratives where I transcribe a carefully-scripted monologue over a carefully-edited video of me walking beside a canal with my dog or something. If I was a young attractive woman I could do away with the monologue and still retire on the royalties (wrong word I know but I’m old) so long as I showcase my tits. Unfortunately I don’t have a canal or a dog, and the sad truth is that nobody wants to hear from a 57-year-old white guy no matter what they have to say, no matter the platform.
Which is a shame for you because I can predict the future, and I am actually a funny, genial, honest, eloquent, intelligent, thoughtful and incredible modest guy to boot. Which is also something nobody says anymore. Anyway, looks like its back to the Winburndale for the win!