Well finally put in a good day's hunt on Saturday ~
We decided on a visit to the rough country ~ a 07:00 start saw us on site around 08:30 ~
The morning was very cool with a brisk easterly breeze to cool proceedings the temperature rose ~
A mix of very rough ground and then some fairly even ground where a 19 century mining village was placed until 1920's.
A Bower Bird nest ~ an intriguing creature that decorates his nest with ideally blue bits and pieces to woo a potential partner ~ ( note blue plastic cap off to the left !~ a puzzling find on his part for sure in this area ! )
Some of the Bower birds pieces surely came from one of these palm flowers ~
This 25 Lber I came back for as I figured it would make for an intriguing relic ~
I came back after Smoko and lugged the bloody thing for around 3/4 kilometer ~ dropping it at least three times to rest ~
When I finally got back to the vehicles ~ I scraped the dirt out of the top to find ~ it was technically a UXO ~ the TNT was intact !
Another 25 pounder HE~ but positively exploded ~ but way too far. way too rugged country and way too heavy to lug back to camp base ~
Sunbaker 3" UXO mortar ~ ( GPS marked it and buried under stones ~ after all soem Drongo even after 70 Years will surely take it home ~ if it does not explode first ~ )
We eventually stuck to our plan and after Smoko moved to the nearby former mining town site for a few hours ~
Home by 16:30
My best of day ~
Thanks to the site imput managed to ID the cartridge casing as I suspected ~ George Kynock Birmingham .577 Martini Henry ~ 1884 ~
Amazing condition after < 100 years > buried ~
3" mortar frags match and are stamped 1942 /|\ plus identity serial numbers ~
The rifling band is most likely 40 mm / 2 pounder ~
A great day ~ but bloody hard yakka ~ and despite Winter ~ bloody hot ~
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