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Presentatie van Goudkoorts of: Hoe ik dacht rijk te worden in de Australische outback
waar: Pied a Terre, Overtoom 135, Amsterdam
wanneer: 9 september
tijd: 16.30
SPECIALE ACTIE: ZOEK ZELF NAAR GOUD.
ER ZIJN TIEN ECHTE GOUDKLOMPJES TE VERGEVEN
Boektrailer voor ‘Goudkoorts of: Hoe ik dacht rijk te worden in de Australische outback’
vanaf 9 september in de winkel:
Goudkoorts of: Hoe ik dacht rijk te worden in de Australische outback.
Ambo
250 pagina’s
ISBN: 9789026323515
Cover Goudkoorts
Dit wordt de omslag van mijn nieuwe boek Goudkoorts of: Hoe ik dacht rijk te worden in de Australische outback. Ik heb het manuscript deze week bij de uitgever ingeleverd. Volgens mij is het een onderhoudend, spannend, grappig en hopelijk hier en daar aangrijpend boek geworden.
Goudkoorts verschijnt eind augustus bij Ambo|Anthos
ISBN 9789026323515
When writing…
When writing you constantly doubt what you’re doing, you fear everything you produce is drivel, you despair, you want to throw the whole shebang out of the window and get an ordinary, decent paying job. Still, you plod on. And then something comes through the wires that picks up your spirits immensly, that sort of makes you REALLY want to go on, that makes you realize that someone out there, actually likes what you’re doing. Yesterday I received this e-mail:
Hello Jeroen, I am in Gambia at the moment…I was lucky that the ferry was running promptly, and I’ve just traded in your book to the Timbuctoo bookstore for a third off the next book I picked up. I’m currently on my way to Cape Town from Malaga, Spain, and have so far been following a similar route but by public transport. I can’t remember where I bought your book. Probably at a bookstore in a train station in the US, but maybe I ordered it from Amazon. I meant to read it for ages, and then when I was packing up for my trip around the world (tenth anniversary of the first time), I threw it in my bag as the only actual paper book. The rest are on my Kindle, which is a wonderful invention but a real pain for maps in the Lonely Planet. I read your book in the horrible back crunched-up corner of a Peugeot Sept-Place from Dakar to Banjul yesterday. I enjoyed your book immensely! It was well-written and an absolute pleasure to read. The writing was smooth and paced well, and had just the right amount of humor. I liked the little breaks tracing the history of your Mercedes. Anyway, I’m not only writing to say I enjoyed your book, but also because I thought you’d appreciate knowing that it’s found its way to a Gambian bookstore. Of course, nothing is ever thrown away in Africa, except for plastic bags (ugh), but I’m sure you appreciate that your book will be traveling much as your Mercedes did. Best,Marie Javins
www.MariesWorldTour.com
“Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik” Seal Press, 2006.
Now, how cool is that? Reading My Mercedes is not for sale in the back of a Peugeot on the way to Banjul (where one of my previous Mercedeses could still be residing) and my book (temporarily, I hope) ending up in a Gambian bookstore!
Aan het werk
Dit is de plek waar ik sinds oktober mijn dagen spendeer: op de zolderkamer, achter mijn laptop. Het boek dat ik aan het schrijven ben, heeft al een (voorlopige) titel: Goudkoorts of: hoe ik dacht rijk te worden in de Australische outback. Het gaat dit najaar verschijnen bij Ambo|Anthos.
Terug in Amsterdam
Na een jaar down under terug in Nederland. Het komende half jaar werk ik aan mijn boek over goudzoeken in Australie, maar nu eerst genieten van ritje door regenachtig Amsterdam.
It’s getting better…
And relaxing at the campfire after a hard day’s work:
Another picture of that huge nugget
Another picture of that huge nugget I blogged about yesterday (thank you BoingBoing). It’s called the Ausrox Gold Nugget by the way, named after the company that brokered the deal. Not a very original name, I am afraid, but then again it doesn’t like anything either. My suggestion would be: the blob nugget.
For all Dutch readers: het boek waarin ik verslag doe van mijn pogingen zelf goudzoeker te worden, verschijnt volgend jaar bij Ambo|Anthos. Lees verder »
The third largest gold nugget in the world
Last weekend the Western Australian gold prospectors assembled for their annual meeting at the pub in Ora Banda, a hamlet in the Western Australian outback. At the end of the meeting a nugget buyer from Perth, a guy named Andy Comas, made quite an interesting announcement: he recently acquired and sold a nugget weighing 23.26 kilogram, making it the world’s third largest gold nugget in existence (just after the Hand of Faith at 27.21 kg and the Normandy Nugget at 25.5 kg). When Andy showed a picture of the monster the bar went dead quiet. People just couldn’t take their eyes of it. This was of course what every prospector dreams of and keeps him going: the bloody big one!
The nugget had been found a couple of weeks ago with a metal detector somewhere in the goldfields around here. Through various tests it had been established that the thing has a 92% purity. With today’s gold price of around 40 US Dollars a gram, the gold value of this baby would be around 860.000 dollars. But of course, nuggets of that rarity go for two, three times the gold value.
Anyway, Andy said that the prospector who found it, and who wishes to remain anonymous, gave him a week to sell it. Andy sold it for an undisclosed sum within a couple of days to a buyer in the US. No Australian could come up with the money, somewhat surprising with all the filthy rich mining executives around here.
Most prospectors in the room expressed regret or even outrage that this nugget would leave the country – although no doubt they would have done the exact same thing: sell it to the highest bidder.
And they even might get their wish because the story doesn’t end here. The Australian government might declare the nugget a National Treasure – and I think they should – and then Andy wouldn’t be able to export it.
And remember: this hasn’t been reported on anywhere, you read it here first.
Gold buyers Rob Sielecki and Andy Comas of Ausrox Gold with the world's third largest nugget in existence
update: It seems like this nugget is not the third largest nugget in the world. Larger nuggets – even larger than the Hand of Faith – were found in the eighties in Brazil, and are kept in the museum of the Central Bank of Brazil. It seems the Pepita Canaã is the largest nugget in the world at 60.82 kg.
update 2: Picture of the frontpage of the Kalgoorlie Miner, annoucing the news below Lees verder »
Five o’clock in the morning at the Superpit
De superpit is de grootste goudmijn van Australie, ik mocht een dagje mee met de vrachtwagenchauffeurs die de gouderts uit de pit halen
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