Aussie Import

[Ausgold]

I lived on the Sunshine cost, Noosa Heads Queensland for few years, and would rather be there now! but a few months travelling the UK and beyond would certainly be interesting time. Careful how big a van you get as it'll limit the smaller places to visit as we're a very densely populated Island! Have Fun!

Hi Yeoblade, thanks for your reply. We live about an hour north of Noosa. As to van size it will be under 3500kg as we are restricted by license regulations. I am conscious of height restrictions also.

 

[Ausgold]

So we love Australia and have been 9 times but now the cost is too high to return.
The aire system in Europe is pretty good for free parking but to set up camp aus style you will have to pay for the privilege. Between £7 and £60 depending on what you want per night
Full membership on this site gets a bonus of the free water tap places that are not on other clubs .
Have a look at searchforsites .co.uk for places to stay
Joining both should cover all you need and it's what we use for all of europe.
I expect there are metal detecting clubs in the uk for info on what happens here. ( I've no idea).

Hi Drover, you have an Australian sounding name tag! I hadn't heard of the searchforsites so thanks for that advice. Plenty of rules in UK about metal detecting and slightly different ones between England/Wales and Scotland, but nothing that is insurmountable. At least it is permitted (with regs) whereas much of Europe says an outright NO!

 

[Ausgold]

Make sure you look into regulations over here regarding metal detecting in particular relation to historical finds. You will need landowner permission and finds have to be formally recorded. We don't have any true wilderness. Welcome and enjoy your trip.

Thanks Korky,
have been reading up on detecting regs and rules and there's plenty of clubs and groups over there that offer assistance and info.

 

[The laird]

Welcome from Scotland

 

[Borders2]

Another welcome from Scotland. Metal detecting is regulated as said and also there are other issues as in some people obtain permissions and then salt the ground for weekend rallys they charge for.... it pays to be on several forums as the names crop up if you get my drift.

The other wee issue that catches people out is our insane road classification system. An "A" road can be dual carriage way, as in 4 lanes, or it can magically shrink to a single track road with passing places.

Our distances are small compared to your giant of a country but it can and often does take a lot longer to get from A to B than you would expect.

B2

 

[Ausgold]

Another welcome from Scotland. Metal detecting is regulated as said and also there are other issues as in some people obtain permissions and then salt the ground for weekend rallys they charge for.... it pays to be on several forums as the names crop up if you get my drift.

The other wee issue that catches people out is our insane road classification system. An "A" road can be dual carriage way, as in 4 lanes, or it can magically shrink to a single track road with passing places.

Our distances are small compared to your giant of a country but it can and often does take a lot longer to get from A to B than you would expect.

B2

Hi Borders2,

Thanks for the heads ups. The weekend rally salty thing is something I had not ever considered. Too trusting perhaps! I have already noticed one surname in multiple posts.

I have joined a couple of the UK Facebook detecting groups in preparation and research for our trip and have seen the "Pay to Play" weekend rallies being advertised. They seem expensive to us as we do not have such things over here for coin and treasure detecting and 15 quid per head (my wife detects as much as me and is often much better at it than me too) that's over $60 Aussie dollars for a day's detecting. We like to detect 6 to 7 per week when we get the chance so those sorts of prices are astronomical.

We have no problem with paying something directly to the farmer/landowner to come onto their land to camp and detect and that is something we are used to here where we pay to go onto privately owned gold bearing land. Since 2017 we have been going back most years for up to 6 weeks at a time to one particular North Queensland cattle station where we pay about 10 quid a day for the 2 of us and that includes camping on the property with access to flushing toilets, water and hot showers (so long as somebody remembers to bring in some timber from the bush and keep the fire going).

The "Pay to Play" business model is used by numerous Aussie landowners who own land in the known goldfields. It supplements their farming income, we pay in cash and all of the gold we find belongs to us. The gold doesn't belong to a land owner here it is property of The Crown while it is in the ground, but with the appropriate license or Miners Right it belongs to us once we dig it up. So in this model the farmer gets something for letting us on his/her land.

Having a third party in the middle who is running a business out the detecting rallies doesn't sit well with me.

As to distances we won't be in any sort of hurry and yes we are very used to lots of driving, but usually on very wide open and little used roads. Narrow roads and wide motorhomes are something that will take some getting used to.