Blackwood hosts Australian Gold Panning Championships

BASALT grandmother Verna Baker is flexing her forearms to compete in the Australian Gold Panning Championships at Blackwood this Saturday, March 4.

Verna is a dab hand with the gold pan. She’s been honing her gold panning prowess since the age of five.

Over the years she’s found “probably 100 specks” of gold – enough to have turned into a lovely little gold pendant.

“I’ll be competing in the women’s skilled, the veterans’ and the teams’ categories on Saturday,” says Verna, 68, who has plenty of other “golden” aspects to her life as well, including farming daffodils.

Another golden facet to Verna’s life is the fact that this year marks the professional childcare educator’s 50th anniversary of working at local kindergartens.

“I love my work,” says Verna who has worked at pre-schools across the shire and beyond, including Daylesford, Hepburn, Franklinford, Glenlyon, Creswick, Clunes and Wallace.

And there’s no doubt the kinder kids at Daylesford Preschool, where Verna currently works three days a week - and at all the other little local kinders where she’s worked over the years - return the love.

For one thing, Verna not only teaches the littlies how to gold pan, sharing her enjoyment of the sport that gets her out into some beautiful places, she also brings in small animals from her Basalt farm to teach them about caring for critters and to impart her own love of nature.

Verna has won many firsts and seconds in the women’s skilled gold panning competition and team event prizes over the years she’s been competing in the gold panning competitions.

The mother of three and grandmother of four – who also runs a native tree nursery and volunteers with Franklinford CFA - is keenly anticipating this Saturday’s competition.

“It’s a really, really fun day,” she says.

Run by the Victorian Gold Panning Association, the annual Australian Gold Panning Championships are expected to draw around 100 competitors from near and far.

Victorian Gold Panning Association president Marcus Binks is also keenly anticipating the event which he says offers good competition for all skill levels from established champs to those who have never wielded a gold pan before in their lives.

“It’s a great family event and really we’re trying to preserve the history of gold panning,” says Marcus, a geologist by profession who has a couple of national gold panning championship titles to his name.

“I’ve been gold panning since I was a kid and I started at the first Australian championships that were held at Sovereign Hill in 1993,” he says.

This year's event will see gold panners racing against the clock to find a number of tiny golden pieces that have been carefully pre-counted and hidden in sand buckets.

“We even provide pans for those who have never panned before,” Marcus says.

At the top end of the competitive spectrum the competition is keen and close and the addition of an electronic timing system in recent times comes in handy.

“We have a heap of prizes on offer including two metal detectors,” Marcus says. The championships are taking place at the Blackwood Cricket Ground on Recreation Reserve Road and getting along to watch the competition as a spectator is free.

“It’s a great way to come and learn about panning,” Marcus says.

“We’ll have catering by the Ballan First Scouts and a coffee van. We’re affiliated with the World Gold Panning Championships and we get competitors from New Zealand coming over. They really like our competition. We also get them from interstate - Queensland and Western Australia.”

Words: Eve Lamb. Images: Kyle Barnes