ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

TRUE STORY

You didn’t know I’d had a go at treasure hunting did you?

If you put ‘Gilt Dragon’ (Vergulde Draak) into your Browser you can read the story of the wreck.


THE MONEY SANDS

The thought of treasure stirs the mind of wondrous things a bloke may find;
we’d heard a story at that time about a place called ‘Money Sands.’
If Lady Luck should smile this day and somehow pause to point the way,
we hoped to have before day’s end, Dutch silver bullion in our hands.

The story goes that long before some coins were found upon the shore,
out near a place called Guilderton - not far from where a ship was wrecked.
Gilt Dragon was that old boats name, a treasure ship of well known fame,
and castaways were left marooned quite close to where the coins were specked.

We headed off with hopes held high; a lovely day with clear blue sky,
we’d bought detectors used for gold to help us in our search up there.
The gentle murmur of the sea was there to greet my mate and me,
and seemed to whisper good luck boys there’s treasure here for you to share.

We searched all day without much luck; it seemed our plans had come unstuck.
and then at last when all seemed lost, an ancient old clay pipe was found.
To us it seemed like treasure then - it once belonged to shipwrecked men,
that find we felt was Just as good as silver buried in the ground,

__________

© T.E. Piggott

There's a little boy in every man

From when i was about 10 years old my family went to a place on the NSW coast south of Eden for holidays for several years. There were stone ruins there and a stone cairn which we thought was a grave. Our childish (and the adult) imaginations ran riot. Rumour had it that the ruins were Portuguese. Every New Year's Eve we would traipse with torches through the bush to find the "grave". Such fun and adventure and very spooky. The ruins are now sign posted and documented and of course nothing to do with the Portuguese. I went back a few years ago to show my kids and we couldn't find the "grave".

There's a still a girl in this woman.

Thanks for uprooting the memory Terry.

Hi Heather,
I can well imagine your excitement back in those days you mention.

The finding of that old clay pipe perfectly preserved, was quite exiting, we felt as though we were holding a piece of history in our hands - it had been lost or discarded hundreds of years before.

There are several such wrecks along the WA coastline including the murderous and blood soaked story of the 'Batavia'

Cheers Terry

Do you still have that pipe?

As it was my Mate Mike who actually found it, I felt he should keep it - wouldn't mind having it though.

Even after all those years the pipe was in perfect condition and you could still see the fading blackness in the bowl.
being made of clay and having been in beach sand, had probably helped to preserve it. When found it was just partly covered, but as it was in sand dunes it had most likely been covered and uncovered many times over the years.

Terry

A great rollicking yarn Terry and well told - I love it. What a find bet that was a real thrill. Sand dunes do seem to have the habit of covering and uncovering lost treasures (and corpses)

Terry wrote:we’d bought detectors used for gold to help us in our search up there

Terry, maybe you should have brought detectors used for silver. Isn't that what the coins were on the ship.

thanks Maureen & Neville

You're right Maureen we were really rapt with that find.

Neville

This was in the early seventies and detectors were still in their infancy.
We BOUGHT the detector at that time and hoped to later use it for gold.
It was a Pommy machine (called a C scope I think)and later turned out to be hopeless in the heavily mineralized soils of the goldfields.

By the way all Australian gold contains some silver.

Cheers Terry

That was a good buy then Terry.

Yes one of my better ones