Striking gold is the dream for thousands of Australians. But there’s a ‘paradox’ holding them back

Dig, doze and detect is how Matthew Carkeek expects to strike gold on a historic plot of land at Dunolly, in one of Victoria’s richest gold regions.

Carkeek, the owner of a specialist concrete construction firm, is one of hundreds of thousands of Australians prospecting, fossicking and mining for the elusive precious metal as the soaring price of bullion underpins a mini modern-day gold rush.

The 50-year-old father is a rarity – a prospector and fossicker who has gravitated to become a miner in his own right. He has outlaid about $1.5 million on land, equipment and permits, and spent two years navigating government bureaucracy for licences and approvals, before he expects to fire up a bulldozer and start digging in two months’ time.

“What I’m going for is about as simple as you can get,” he says. “There’s no treatment plant, there’s no wash plant, no chemicals or anything like that. It’s literally dig, doze and detect.”

Thousands are following in Carkeek’s footsteps, lured by the yellow metal’s lustre.

The price of gold, and its sister metal silver, tends to spike in response to globe-shaking geopolitical or economic events.

“Gold’s often referred to as a misery metal,” says Warren Pearce, chief executive of West Australia’s Association of Mining and Exploration Companies.

“The reality is this safe haven asset does very well when things are going wrong in the world, when there are multiple conflicts and a real lack of confidence around the global economy,” he says.

Bullion’s most recent years-long rally can be traced to early October 2023, when Hamas launched its devastating attack against Israel. US President Donald Trump’s subsequent trade wars, soaring oil prices and the US-Iran conflict are further boosting its shine.

Gold’s price hit an all-time high of $US5597.23 an ounce in January, jumping from $US1800 when the Hamas attack began. It’s now trading near $US4475.

In Victoria, a state with a long history of prospecting and gold rushes, applications for miner’s rights licences surged 40 per cent last year. There are now 113,000 active prospectors. Interest in other parts of gold-rich Australia – particularly NSW, Queensland and Western Australia – is booming too.

“In 2025, over 18,000 miner’s rights were purchased and the rush to get involved shows no sign of slowing, with over 6500 purchased so far in 2026,” says Laura Helm, an executive director with Resources Victoria. Fossickers need a government-issued miner’s right to keep any gold they find.

Similar rules apply in NSW, where Fred Krebs, president of Sydney’s Prospectors Home Club, says he has seen a steady surge in new members.

“Prospectors helped build this country,” Krebs says, aware of the rich history he and fellow club members are following. They organise regular events such as an annual fossicking frenzy and bi-monthly outings.

“We go out looking for gold, and then the second trip we might have a detecting on the beach, or a picnic, or a barbecue,” he says.

A wealth of popular amateur gold hunting shows, such as Tassie Boys Prospecting and Vo-Gus Prospecting, are inspiring and educating new enthusiasts on the internet. They’re chasing alluvial deposits, on or close to the earth’s surface.

The shows cover topics such as identifying gold-bearing geological formations, metal detecting, panning in creeks and rivers, and even “sniping” – whose proponents plunge into rivers with a snorkel and mask to extract small, dense flakes of gold that have settled naturally in cracks and crevices in the deepest, hardest-to-reach parts of waterways.

But there are downsides. Finding gold is often hot, hard, dirty, physical work involving lots of walking and digging in remote and difficult-to-get-to locations, prospectors say. The metal, coveted by humans for thousands of years, is valuable for a reason – its scarcity.

Strict state rules cover how and where you can prospect, often banning mechanical equipment such as sluices, pumps and explosives, and limiting access to private and public land. Vegetation and Aboriginal objects must not be removed or damaged.

‘[People] join the club, and they quickly realise it’s not as easy as it looks. You probably spend more money looking for gold than actually finding gold.’

Pearce says farmers and larger exploration companies in WA are finding many more prospectors straying on to their mining tenements or pastoral leases. “A lot of the grey nomads or seniors are to some degree doing it as a hobby. Some are out there doing it to make a living,” he says.

“It causes some problems, not just with explorers and miners, but also with traditional owner groups and environmentalists.”

For Sean Ashcroft, from the NSW and ACT Prospectors and Fossickers Association, there are too many regulatory limits. His organisation has fought to create 27 local government fossicking districts in NSW and is pushing for more miners’ rights in state conservation areas.

“The problem in NSW is the regulatory attitude that doesn’t want the little guys,” he says.

Given gold’s value, aren’t fossickers reluctant to reveal good sites and finds? Krebs says new members often ask: “You will tell us where to go?”

“That’s ironic, isn’t it? It’s a bit of a paradox. If we don’t tell and if we don’t promote it, it [prospecting] will disappear,” he says. “They join the club, and they quickly realise it’s not as easy as it looks. You probably spend more money looking for gold than actually finding gold.”

Australia’s gold fever is not just confined to individuals.

Gold is set to overtake coal and natural gas to become the nation’s second-largest export earner this year, piling a forecast $60 billion into government coffers. The share prices of big miners like Northern Star Resources and Evolution Mining have jumped sharply over the past two years.

Even junior mining companies, such as Lunnon Metals, originally a nickel explorer with tenements in Kambalda, WA, are pivoting. Hit by the recent crash in nickel prices, it switched off its rigs in 2024 before finding a gold deposit at Lady Herial.

“We’re now mining this little deposit. We’re on schedule to put $40 million in the bank by the time it finishes in August,” says managing director Edmund Ainscough. “It’s only 16,000 ounces. It really is extremely modest … [but] we found another deposit called Hustler, a little lower grade, and likewise, we’re busy looking at optimising that.”

Adelaide-based Minelab, founded in 1985, is now one of the world’s largest makers of sophisticated metal detecting machines. Sales rose 16 per cent in the 2025 financial year on the back of surging precious metal prices and the launch of two new gold detector models suited to Australia’s highly mineralised soils, says Ben Harvey, its executive general manager.

Gold’s soaring value has clearly raised interest, says Mick Brown. He owns the Top End Prospecting shop in the Northern Territory, where most customers are hobbyists spending a “modest” $3000 to $5000 on equipment.

“Some people just get some pans and mess around looking for a bit of gold. Others say they want to get a metal detector, and then they’ll go out looking with that,” he says.

Brown’s claim to gold fame is a 2.7-kilogram nugget he found in Victoria in 2015. Asked if he’s had similar finds in the NT, he replies: “There’s only small stuff up here.

“Here, people like fishing, of course, but bloody petrol costs too much. Everything costs too much, right? Instead, they can have one outlay [for equipment], get in the car, and go camp out bush. I see a lot more people just wanting to get out, wanting to get the kids off the couch.”

Carkeek’s efforts to mine his 40-hectare plot halfway between two of Victoria’s great gold towns, Bendigo and Ballarat, follows a 30-year fascination with gold. “I’ve recreationally prospected with a miner’s right, and had visions of going a bit further into small-scale mining.

“It got rushed in 1861, 1863 and 1871 and there were some considerable size nuggets found,” he says.

But his focus is not on getting rich. “It’s as much a passion and interest for me as anything.”

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