Four Park, One Hour Challenge.

Triangle Park....from a distance.

Yesterday was a scorcher and rather than hang listlessly around the homestead three of us set out for MD challenge. We knew of four bark parks, three close together and a fourth one in Riverhead which as an after thought we visited on the way home. We had only an hour in each park and the prize apart from obvious prestige was a dozen cold
beers which sat at home sitting in the fridge awaiting the victor. We set off in the Rav at about 11 am full of anticipation. I was with my Beach Cobra, Ritchie on only his second adventure, in which strangely both featured beer, had the Garrett Ace 150 and Garfy strode out proud with his ATPro.
First stop was Triangle Park.

Ritchie was the first to find and due to the lack of headphones his signal could be heard binging regularly. He quickly gathered a following of kids all keen to help him dig and no doubt he cultivated a few future detectorists. I did reasonably well after a slow start a few coins and a couple of small keys.  After the hour was up my total stood at $2.40, Ritchie and his band had managed $1.70 and Gareth had 20 cents.

Then we progressed to McClintock park. A very picturesque park which the photograph didn't really do justice to.  I didn't hold much hope for too much as it was along way of the beaten path and probably underused.

Garfy and me in McClintock Park

But it was a good hour spent. Gareth found three nails in a row, Ritchie commented all you need to do now find is the hammer!! Amazingly within a few minutes I had dug up a hammer head about three metres away. Which caused a few laughs. I also found a Japanese 100 yen coin which I later identified from 1980 the Showa era, only a 580 million mintage!!!!

Only 579,999,999 left to find.

Also my Cobra produced an old 20 cent and $2.10 spending.
Ritchie came in with a couple of old currency and $2.80. Gareth found a few more old 20 cents, only 40 cents of the new stuff and a old rusty cheap chain.

The next park was Gallony park a very small compact park and quite secluded.  We forgot to photo this one and we actually gave up after 30 minutes as we felt we had drained what little it had to offer. A couple of Ritchie's young followers had skateboarded across to watch how things went on. He managed only forty cents, I plucked a single 10 cent and Gareth won the round with 40 cents and an old currency twenty.

Our last stop was the park behind the Riverhead bowling club. Kids cricket on the adjacent field was in full swing and the heat was becoming really oppressive. I found zip. A broken one otherwise I found zip. Ritchie nailed it but managed a few small coins and Gareth plucked a ten cent. After a trip for much needed ice creams and cold drinks we set off for home. 

Approaching the last leg, Riverhead Park



So Ritchie and his Ace 150 won the day with his total of $5.10, I was second with $4.60 and Gareth uncovered $1.10.

We all felt worn out and luckily Ritchie decided to share his prize and we spent the rest of the afternoon analysing, dreaming and planning our next adventures with lashings and lashings of foaming beer.

See you out there.