Metal Detecting

A huge treasure hunt occurred in Yenda over the long weekend as Metal Detecting Country NSW held its annual NSW Championship.

Group founder Mark Richards said he was thrilled with how the weekend went.

“We had over 300 people over the weekend,” Mr Richards said.

“We had just under 200 people the first day and around 150 the second day.

“We’ve taken the NSW Championship on annually.”

Mr Richards thanked the Yenda Diggers Club for helping out with meals for his event.

He also thanked Kurrajong for allowing the group to use their facility.

“It’s a beautiful site,” Mr Richards said.

“I’m very impressed after the event.

“There wasn’t one bit of rubbish left.

“Metal detecting is an eco-focused sort of hobby.

“We always leave places cleaner than we find them.

“We cleaned the site up and got rid of all the rubbish.”

Mr Richards first created a group on Messenger about 4 years ago.

“I started metal detecting about 12 years ago,” he said.

“There were about 20 people, acquaintances mostly.

“It blew out to 40 and then 50.

“I started a Facebook group because people were just getting lost in the messages.”

“We had a thousand people in the first year.

“We’ve now got just under 5000 people in the group.

“It’s a beast I lost control of.”

The original group name was Metal Detecting Around Griffith.

A few years back, Mr Richards started hosting catch ups which he used as training days to help people with their hobby.

Mr Richards said that people had forgotten that much of our country was built on gold prospecting.

“Metal detecting is part of Australian history,” he said.

“Places like West Wyalong and Temora only exist because of gold.”

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