A young Aussie gold hunter has revealed how her friend became $20,000 richer after stumbling across a huge gold nugget while on a bushwalk.
Tyler Mahoney, 27, said her mate found the nugget in Kalgoorlie, a gold-mining town 600km north-east of Perth, Western Australia, purely by chance.
‘It was just sitting on the ground,’ said Ms Mahoney, who is a professional gold digger known for starring in the reality TV series Gold Rush.
She said she couldn’t believe her friend’s luck given how remarkably rare it is for someone to ‘strike gold’ by accident.
‘They found it sitting on top of the ground as they were walking through the bush,’ Ms Mahoney said of the discovery.
She dubbed the 146g heart-shaped nugget a ‘sunbaker’ because it was found on the surface, not underground.
After being cleaned up, the nugget was truly a sight to behold, with Ms Mahoney’s social media followers stunned by both its size and how it was found in plain sight.
Aussie gold hunter Tyler Mahoney has revealed how her friend became $20,000 richer after stumbling across a huge gold nugget while on a bushwalk. (Pictured above is an example of an expensive piece of gold Ms Mahoney previously found on a walking track)
Ms Mahoney, 27, said her mate found the nugget (shown here) in Kalgoorlie, a gold-mining town 600km north-east of Perth, purely by chance. She dubbed the 146g heart-shaped nugget a ‘sunbaker’ because it was found on the surface not under ground
Pictured right: a rare ‘sunbaker’ nugget hiding in plain sight is highlighted in a red circle. Ms Mahoney is pictured left
‘WOW! That is huge. What a beauty, crazy good find,’ one follower said.
‘Jesus, I’d love to accidentally stub my foot on one of those walking through the bush,’ another joked.
‘It’s an actual heart of gold,’ added a third.
Tyler, a former model and fourth-generation gold prospector, works on her family’s prospecting farm in the gold fields of WA.
‘I don’t get a set salary from gold prospecting,’ Mahoney said. ‘I get paid in gold.’
It takes a trained eye to recognise a gold nugget among rocks as they are usually tarnished and covered in dirt (left). A selection of professionally cleaned gold nuggets are pictured right
Tyler, a former model and fourth-generation gold prospector, works on her family’s prospecting farm in the gold fields of WA
‘Every day is different and it depends on what we are finding. It’s not a secure income at all. Some days it’s baked beans and some days it’s lobster,’ she explained.
While the $20,000 nugget was found by chance on the topsoil, Ms Mahoney said it still required an experienced prospector to be able to spot it.
‘To be a prospector you need to know how to read the ground and follow the gold,’ she said.
Tyler’s memoir, appropriately titled Gold Digger, describes her journey through the male-dominated industry of professional gold prospecting.
‘As a woman it is very hard to get a place at the table and then when you’re at the table it’s bloody hard to be respected and heard,’ she said.