Whalers camps along the the Southern Coast 1820-1865

[tinpan]

With whale stocks in North Hemisphere being hunted out, many different countries whale ships followed the wales to southern waters.As many as 6 different countries had large whale ship fleets working off the southern coast of the Australia.Hundreds of camps can be found along the coast line for 3000 miles.The whalers often used islands and high cliffs as spotter stations .There was generally safe ancorage for ships not to far away.The great southern ocean could turn nasty rather quickly and there was just as many ship wrecks along the coast as camps.Not allow to take relics from wrecks in Australian waters and the water is mostly to deep for divers.

On the long week end we had a few weeks ago i went to stay with my brother and he lives about 5 miles from the coast and a work mate his who's family had lived in the area for about 120 years gave me a couple of sites to try out.Spent 2 days trying out a couple of spotters camps and came up with just a few relics and 2 silver coins .Found these

silver 1815 shilling (uk)
silver florin early victoria not readable date
pistol hammer and bit of
silver spoon twisted
big loop key
copper bigger than a UK penny ??
Shards of black bottles and few real thick pottery shards

thanks for looking tinpan

 

[tinpan]

I guess you know the 'Gothic' florin dates have a normal date but a mdcclxiv date? Can you see any of the letters on the odverse?

odverse very poor condition and based the age of the coin on the young crowned queen victoria 1837-??

t.p

i think the letters are mdcccliii hard to make out even under mag.

tp

It can be narrowed down to 1848-87. Can you not see any letter dates (mdcclix etc) to the right of the head?

 

[taropatch]

Thanks for sharing some of that history. I would love to see more pictures of that coastline.

 

[Colonial KirkPA]

How deep was them twos wilvers? :P

Kirk

 

[tinpan]

How deep was them twos wilvers? :P

Kirk

thanks for your reply bone-boy. Been a place of little human activity and very clean ground make a choise of MD quite easy. SD 2200 minelab P1 unit, yes its dig all target but no-thing gets missed.This model does have a decrim mode if a doudle DD coil is used.Limited to 10 inch range.If you use a 24 inch sand-seeker coil on PI the detph increases to 2 foot with small items and nearly 4 foot with larger items.I once dig a find in a creek bed wash at over 4 and half feet, found a 5 inch braided winze cable . Not bad for a 10 year old MD
the coast at this site has a hard granite base ,so the top sandy soil is about 7 inchs before you hit the rock pan.

Seems there a lot more history here other than 1900

tinpan

 

[finders.keepers]

Hey tinpan,

Congrats on the finds looks like a cool site to dig, you certainly do your homework. Still looking forward to a trip next month if u r still up for it

 

[weasel606]

great finds and pics Tin congrats