I came across this perfect little pohutukawa tree this morning while out metal detecting. It must’ve been a good luck tree because I got the most spendies (that’s detectorist slang for currently spendable money… there are many older coins that don’t work anymore for various reasons) ever. $36.40, a whole handful of change.
Here’s the display of my morning’s finds that I posted in the Facebook group where I (and a few thousand other NZ detectorists / onlookers) hang out. The Colonel Sanders pendant is especially cool.
Lee saw a post on a local Facebook group from a lady asking for a metal detector to find her lost house key. I responded and went over that evening.
There was a tale of a German shepherd getting tangled up in her lead while getting out of the car, a friend’s key not attached to the regular key ring, and tall grass.
The magic metal detector found the key in less than a minute. Yay science!
That’s me and about 120 other metal detectorists at yesterday’s Metal Detecting New Zealand Aotearoa seeded hunt in Rotorua.
I left well before dawn to make the 3 1/2 hour drive. As it turned out I didn’t actually need quite that much time, but better safe than sorry. I woke up early anyway.
That’s the field of battle… a city park and beach on the big volcanic crater lake at the center of sulfurous Rotorua. Apparently this was a main swimming beach back in the day, but nowadays development has moved the town’s center of gravity, so this is kind of out in the ‘burbs.
After the speeches, thanking of the sponsors, and so on, we were away.
I called this a seeded hunt, because they had planted a bunch of stuff for us to find. Similar events in England routinely turn up Roman and medieval relics. But here we haven’t had metal for so long, so you’ve got to sweeten the pot. They gave away three new metal detectors, and some gold and silver coins, and various other cool treasures.
I won a hat, AND a t-shirt. But I also found a small silver coin, a 1940 sixpence to be precise, so that was cool.
Until this event I’d only ever met these people on Facebook, so it was cool to see them in real life (although my currently neurodivergent smile doesn’t probably make the best first impression). And it was really neat to see firsthand a couple of the people who always seem to find the good shit. Here we were, same field, same equipment, etc. And sure enough, I watched in amazement as some of the guys did what they do… find all the good prizes and a whole lot of original stuff too, while I was largely getting pull tabs. (In fairness to me, I was happy to dig the pull tabs… it didn’t seem appropriate to be too aggressively cherry picking only the obvious stuff. And the earring I found, although not real silver, still counts as a win on my internal scoreboard, and definitely sounded like a piece of “can slaw”, so patience can be rewarded. )
That’s my loot… the silver coin, the bullet, the rings (not real silver), and the little games token were seeded, and the rest was just in the ground. It puts into perspective something I’ve sort of suspected… there’s a lot of targets in the ground. Between us, I imagine we pulled 1,000 coins and several dozen pieces of jewelry out of an area maybe the size of two regular city blocks.
And we cleared a lot of trash. And we could have pulled at least three times more if that had been the point.
After about four hours of staring at the ground, including a break for sausages on the barbecue, it was time to go home. I was plenty tired at the end, but it was a really fun day.
Earlier this year, I went to a party at that lady’s sister’s house.
I’m sure I talked too much about metal detecting… because I talked about metal detecting.
But now months later, she lost a gold charm while working on her farm. The chain she wore it on got caught on something and broke. She found the chain right away, but the charm was lost in the tall grass.
She remembered the metal detecting, and a few phone calls later there I was in a cow pasture.
It only took a few minutes for the magic metal detector to find the little charm. Happy days!
And even better, she’s given me her neighbor’s number… he’s got an old cottage site on his farm that’s never been detected…
That’s a pretty ring I found this afternoon metal detecting. I’m pretty sure it’s not real gold or anything… but I don’t know because I lost it!
Normally, I put anything of potential value in a small zippered pocket. But this ring — for no known reason — ended up on my finger. Somehow in the process of taking my gloves on and off, I lost the ring. I got chased inside by rain, so I couldn’t go back and retrace my steps. Grrr!
As I approach my first full year of detecting, I’ve found maybe 15 or 20 rings, and each time I think “How did this happen??”
Well… now I know!
I still ended up with over $10 in spending money, an old British penny in terrible shape, a copper ring, and a silver Pandora heart charm that retails for $89.
I got up early yesterday and went to Orewa Beach for some metal detecting fun.
I didn’t have much luck on the actual beach, but I got a nice assortment of coins from the grassy area above the seawall. I got a little over $5 in spending money and about a dozen “little brown buggers”, the 1, 2, and 5 cent pieces that have been demonetized because they cost more to make, ship, and store than they’re worth.
I was out metal detecting the other day, way out in the shallows of low tide, nobody around me except a few of these red-billed gulls.
I didn’t find any treasure but I sure had fun watching these guys stir up the sandy mud with their fast feet. I guess it must bring some tiny little creatures out of hiding?
The TikTok world loves fast footwork. I won’t link you to them, but whether it’s jumping rope, tap dancing, roller blading a slalom course, or who knows what else, this kind of video is a thing. Hopefully this clip also goes viral and I will be able to retire on the ad royalties.
Oh wait… I don’t do ads. Or TikTok! Oh well, enjoy!!
I took the metal detector out to Devonport yesterday. Didn’t find a pot of gold, or really anything interesting. I eventually moved to another beach and found a few old coins.
But after a shower soaked me a bit, this super rainbow appeared. one end was pointing right at the big navy ship in port…
Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition 