The New GPZ 8000

[kiwijw]

I guess by now most of you are aware that Minelab have very recently released the long awaited GPZ 8000. Different tech to the 7000 & all coils are concentric coils. The standard package comes with detector & the 18” coil for AU$14,999. The three coil package is AU$16,999. Other coils at this stage are not available separately. Doesn’t bode well for those of us wanting a small coil for those tight places. The smallest is a 13” coil.

GPZ 8000

I have to laugh that the coils are all concentric coils. You may remember the shit fight that the Russian made X coils caused for minelab on the 7000 & now minelab have copied them.

I can see the coils being called the Dunny Seat Coil.

JW

[bluethermal]

promo video is a good laugh..

[kiwijw]

Bloody hell. There is a bolt from the blue. A Bluethermal bolt.

Yes, I wont be racing out to get one in a hurry. The only thing I have seen of some one finding gold with it is from none other than JP. No surprises there though from him since he is Minelabs front man. It was a 4 grammer & a few smalls. Others I have seen have found no gold with it. I wonder how X coils will go with that? Hopefully smaller coils than 13” will happen.

I have just returned from a couple of missions from out in the wilderness. Got snowed on, hailed on & had frozen water a few mornings in my billy. Not bad for summer.

Doing it rough for 5 days at one spot, long dodgy drive off the beaten track. First day walked it to see if I could get to where I wanted to park up & then a 2k walk to a creek junction of old timer workings where we set up camp for 5 days.

Was all good to drive in, although my mate was shitting himself. After the hike in to our camp spot.

Old workings for miles & in the middle of nowhere. The old timers would have done it bloody tough & totally snowed in for winter.

Unfortunately gold was pretty scarce. I have found that when the old timers had a steady flow of water, even if it was just a small amount. They were pretty thorough in washing out the gold. Not chucking out very much in their waste piles. Bastards.

Found a few old hut sites & relics scattered about. Came across quite a few old shovels broken in the waste dumps & some just discarded.

Quite a few pick heads as well & sluice forks. One creek we went up I gathered a few of the relics together & set them up in one of the hut sites along with old tin cans.

This was a cool pick, complete with the makers mark.

The gold did come in dribs & drabs

But not like I was hoping. 20 pieces for just over 3 grams. Bloody hard won too over 5 days.

Another spot coughed up 14 small bits for not even 2 grams.

My mate got 2 bits on the 2nd day & that was his lot. He took great delight in racing ahead of me thinking first over the ground gets the goodies. But he was going too fast & not digging all signals. He was using an SDC 2300. I would look up & he would be out of site. Slow & steady wins the race. I kept telling him, but no, he was off. He liked taking nana naps which is where I caught him up a few times.

It was fun though & there is unfinished business in there. Still a few more creeks & gullies to do.

JW

[gavin]

That looks like an awesome adventure up on the tops @kiwijw! The experience itself is probably worth it’s weight in gold Well worth exploring some more… it just takes one loaded carack that was missed by the old timers for some reason. It happens… heard a few stories of this happening recently both up on the tops detecting and in the water dredging.

[kiwijw]

Thanks Gavin. Yes I am all about the adventure, especially when going into places for the first time & not really knowing what to expect. That is just from driving in there & why we walked the dodgy track first off. There were numerous sharp hairpin bends both going down the side of spurs from creek crossings & going up, zig zagging both directions. A few three point turns on some of those as the land cruiser was a tad too big. It was these my mate had his heart in his mouth waiting for us to get thrown off the edge. A couple of times he even got out. Bloody pussy. He is a bit green when it comes to this kind of off road stuff. As we dropped into the guts of the drive he put his seat belt on. I turned to him & said that is the last thing you want to do. If we go off the edge you want every split second to get the fuck out & not held up by a seat belt. He replied by saying he would take his chances & ride it out in the vehicle. I said you have got to be fucking kidding me, with all the shit in the back getting flung about your head & the vehicle either rolling end over end or rolling down to the creek, because I won’t be in here. I think that put the shits up him, but I was serious. I think I got my point across though. But there was no way we were going off the edge, but I had to wind him up to add to the excitement of getting in there. All part of the adventure. A quad or Polaris would have been more suitable with tighter turning ability & narrower wheel base. I had every confidence. A trip he wont forget.

Coming from the Coromandel he complained of the cold every 5 minutes & that was during the day. But no, it was fun in there. Very isolated & I would say not ,many people have been in there due to the amount of relics laying about. Funny thing was that on our last day we were having breakfast before breaking camp & heading back to the iron horse for the drive out. I heard a distant motor. Thinking it was a far off helicopter at first. But it got closer & closer. I looked up the gully we were camped in & a couple of hundred meters up a camo coloured quad bike & rider slowly made his way across the gully. He must have seen us as my mates tent is a glow in the dark fluro green/yellow but he didn’t wave out & just carried on. I didn’t notice a rifle but assumed he was a hunter. We never saw any deer but my mate found a shed antler which I brought home. We did see heaps of sign & hoof prints all over the place in the bogs close to the creek edges. Never heard a rifle shot. I actually thought he might come down for a yarn, but no. Then we were out of there. So gold or no gold it was great to see some new to me country & old gold workings I never knew existed & had never seen or heard anything about them & I do a lot of research. Nothing on youtube from off roaders or motorbikers. But it was nice to get some gold from these old workings to add to a new goldfields bottle.

JW