My first days on the goldfields(Day 1)

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It's my first day in the goldfield. I decided to pan for gold first as I was tired from the travel and had a bad night sleep so I can't swing a pickaxe around. Lucky I'm early, it seems like not many people are here and judging from that there's lots of gold in the creeks. After double checking to see if all my stuff was still here and feeding Betty I grabbed my gold pan and my shotgun then started my walk to the nearby creek, on my way there I saw other panners getting out their tents or humpies and others already walking. I tried to stay away from them as I don't like socialising but this one person came up to me and said hi. I tried to pretend I didn't hear her and continued walking, hoping that she would give up and walk away. Nope. She decided that she is talking to me anyway. She said hi again and this time knowing I couldn't try ignoring her again I said go away. Then she asked me what the attitude was for and without asking for my answer she said that her name was Sally.

We arrived at the creek and I said "Ok Sally, well I don't want to talk so go away and let me pan for my gold."

"Wow. You're a downer, I'm not going away. I'm determined to make friends as well as get gold and you're going to be my first friend."

"Fine! At least let me pan for gold without interrupting me"

"Ok"

I then dipped my pan in the water shuffling it around in the mud then scooping it up. I started sifting and I was somewhat confused as to why I didn't get gold but then I realized that I'm not going to get gold every time and I'll just have to keep going. I dipped it in aain and repeated the process and in a couple hours I got a small amount of gold. In my excitement I shouted out and told Sally about it.

"I thought you didn't want to talk to me," she said.

"Well now I do, I got gold! and it only took around three hours too! I bet you're going to get some within an hour" I said to her.

And by the time it started getting dark I had roughly around 15 grams of gold and a big smile on my face, Sally also had a bit of gold but not as much but she was still happy. We then decided to try to catch a fish as we saw a couple swimming by so we took off our shoes and rolled up our pants then caught a couple fish.

Sally and I walked back to our tents and she told me about a local farmer named John who she used to go shopping with and how I should meet him. I said I would go to him tomorrow and get to know him and then I seperated from her and got back to my tent. I made sure that Betty was still where I left her and then I gave her some exercise before feeding her. I went to sleep after eating my last rations from home and a little bit of mutton.

Daphne Saisal Aussie Gold RushWhere stories live. Discover now