Alaska Gold Rush Diary

As soon as Zhou Xin entered the store, he noticed that the owner was looking at him with a strange expression.

He had no idea what his boss was thinking, but he felt vaguely offended.

"Sir, is there anything I can help you with?"

Having done a lot of research beforehand and gained some understanding of using metal detectors to mine gold, he immediately got to the point.

"I need a GPX 6000 detector, used."

The boss wasn't surprised by Zhou Xin's expertise. In the information age, even the most impulsive newbie would do some research online.

"You're going to dig for gold, right? Where do you plan to go?"

"Kurgadi".

"Oh, Kurgadi, since you're going there, I suggest you choose the GPZ 7000."

"The geological conditions there are complex, and most of the gold is buried very deep, perhaps even blocked by rock layers. GPZ 7000 will be much more effective."

The owner's face was full of sincerity, as if he was genuinely considering the customer's needs.

Zhou Xin cursed the unscrupulous merchant in his heart; he clearly wanted Zhou Xin to buy more expensive and more profitable equipment.

In fact, the two models are not much different in terms of detection capabilities; the latter simply has more auxiliary functions.

If I hadn't done my research beforehand, I would have been completely fooled by him.

"Excuse me, I need the GPX 6000 model. Please help me choose a used machine with a good price-performance ratio."

Even after his plan fell through, the boss still smiled, knowing that the newbie in front of him must have made thorough preparations.

He showed Zhou Xin several GPX 6000s in different conditions for him to choose from.

Zhou Xin selected two machines that showed signs of wear and tear but were in good working order, each priced at $4000.

A brand new machine of the same model costs as much as $7000.

Although the machine is expensive, there's a reason for it.

GPX 6000 has a wide range of applications and can adapt to highly mineralized environments such as laterite and saline-alkali soils.

With its high sensitivity and powerful balancing system, it is a top choice for most small and medium-sized metal harvesters.

Zhou Xin initially thought that he wouldn't need the detector after gaining the ability of "the smell of gold," but after carefully learning about the methods of gold mining, he realized he was wrong.

With his "smell of gold," he could easily find places where gold was buried, but relying solely on his nose to dig for gold seemed impractical.

Imagine smelling gold in an area, digging it up, and finding the gold nugget covered in soil, mixed with many similarly shaped and sized pebbles.

To find them, one has to dig up shovelfuls of soil and examine each one by one by bringing them to one's nose.

It looked just like a stray dog ​​searching for food in a garbage dump!

Using a detector makes sifting much easier; simply bring the soil from the shovel close to the detector, and discard any soil that doesn't make a sound.

If it makes a sound, it means there's something inside.

Then, little by little, pour out the soil from the shovel, measuring it with a detector each time.

If the detector suddenly stops making a sound, it means the gold is in the soil that was just poured out.

This is also the method used by all manual gold hunters who use detectors.

Of course, if you're lucky, the gold nuggets buried in the ground are quite large, and experienced gold hunters can identify them at a glance.

Conversely, there are also many times when you work hard for a long time, only to find out in the end that it was just a nail.

For the average gold prospector, the most difficult part is the process of finding gold.

With a small detector, they searched aimlessly in the vast wilderness, hoping to hear the hum of a machine.

This is also part of the allure of gold mining; it's very similar to fishing—you never know when a fish will bite.

For Zhou Xin, finding gold was much easier.

If you can smell the scent of gold, you can be 100% certain that there is gold underground.

Moreover, he could roughly judge the size of the gold nugget by the intensity of its smell.

Another point is that he would never mistake other underground metals for gold.

In fact, detectors can also distinguish them to some extent, because the beeping sound emitted when gold is detected is slightly different from the beeping sound emitted when other metals are detected.

However, the difference is too small; unless one is a very experienced gold hunter, they simply cannot tell the difference.

Zhou Xin has a clear advantage in finding gold, but in the process of mining gold, he is almost equal to ordinary people.

Therefore, he decided to combine his superpowers with technology to maximize his gold-mining efficiency.

This is precisely why he wanted to buy two machines.

After mounting the two metal detectors on his pickup truck, he continued to wander around various markets, buying other supplies.

From large items like freezers and plastic water tanks to small items like headlamps, walkie-talkies, and mosquito repellent masks, he meticulously purchased every item listed on the supplies list, striving to be fully prepared and ensure nothing went wrong.

Last time, I was on my own with limited funds, so I suffered a lot.

This time, he hopes to live a more comfortable life.

He had originally planned to sleep in the car, but he immediately abandoned that plan after renting the car.

The reason is simple: the space inside the car is too small, making it very uncomfortable to sleep.

So he still bought a lot of camping supplies, including a tent.

However, he really didn't like sleeping in a tent, so he decided that once he found a place to settle down, he and Edward would work together to build a comfortable shelter.

The weather here is hot, so we must consider the preservation of fresh food. Therefore, a freezer with refrigeration function is essential.

Western Australia’s wilderness is mostly barren and arid, making it very difficult to find reliable natural water sources. Water can only be transported there by water towers.

Daily drinking is definitely not a problem, but taking a bath is out of the question; at most, you can only wipe your body.

Unlike Alaska, the wilderness here doesn't have wolves or brown bears, which are medium to large predators. But it does have an even more dangerous animal: venomous snakes.

There are many kinds of venomous snakes here, and most of them are extremely venomous, such as the taipan, the cobra, and the brown snake, which are all very common and highly venomous snake species in the wild.

For example, the taipan is the most venomous terrestrial snake in the world; a single bite releases enough venom to kill 20 mice.

If you are bitten and do not receive timely treatment, you will surely die.

For this reason, in addition to buying commonly used anti-inflammatory drugs, antipyretics, antibiotics, and other medications, Zhou Xin also bought multivalent serum and even adrenaline as a precaution.

Of course, various snake repellent powders, as well as snake-proof powder and snake-proof shoes, are also indispensable.

Due to the dry weather, there aren't many mosquitoes in the wild during the day, but once the lights are turned on at night, mosquitoes from several kilometers around will likely be attracted.

Therefore, mosquito killer lamps, mosquito repellent sprays, and other similar items should also be prepared.

It took two whole days to buy everything.