Russell Metal Detector Tag | The Ring Finders

How to find a Manhole Cover – Russell, Bay of Islands.

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)

Had a call from Gary – He’d lost a manhole cover!
A big, heavy, cast iron manhole cover… put down over a water bore in the early 1990’s.

Now normally a manhole is an easy target, except this one wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
Going off the 30 year old recollections of the previous caretaker who was present at the installation showed that memory can be a fickle thing especially with the passage of time.

As more memories came in, the story about the location became confused and strewn with ‘red herrings’. Was the manhole even still there, or had it been replaced with wood, or had the plastic bore casing and alkathene been sealed and backfilled with no metallic targets to find?
Consulting old aerial photos online , and even the Regional Council borehole database didn’t help improve the odds of refining the actual, or even general location given the database showed it was out in the adjacent estuary.

With the bore stated as being « 60cm below surface », the orchard started to show the effect of false, but promising targets.

An old fencing stake buried vertically below the surface was chased downwards in the hope it was marking the bore (that was a big hole!), and even a spoon made an appearance in another hole as I hunted for a potential deep brass, copper or galvanised fitting.

As the final remaining pockets of grass among the trees were cleared, the detector – set for maximum sensitivity for a deep target, suddenly overloaded the headphones – and there, just under the grass was the edge of a manhole cover.

Fortunately only 6cm down, and not 60…

A significant expense to drill a new bore had been avoided.

Diamond Ring and Necklace Lost in Russell – Both Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)

This one is a little different.

The story below was written by the owner of the found items and sent to me as I made my way home from the recovery – Really unexpected, and a very nice gesture on her part.

Sally writes:

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Nearly 17 years ago, on our 3rd date, my now husband bought me a diamond necklace. I have worn it almost every day since then … including our wedding 12 years ago.
A week before Christmas we came up to Russell for a holiday. On our first swim my husband remarked I had not removed it or a ring before coming down on the beach. He took them off for me and ran up to our bach with them and then we had our swim.
Afterwards we went to Kerikeri to visit friends for Christmas and came back to find the lawns had just been mowed by the local contractor.

The next day my husband remarked that I wasn’t wearing my necklace and I asked where he had put it? He thought about it and then made the dreadful realisation that he had put it on the car wheel while we were swimming.

Then we both realised that we had driven off and the mower had been and in all likelihood it was gone forever. He searched the lawn several times during the rest of our holiday. Nothing.
Feeling resigned to losing it we came home to the Waipa and thought it would be an insurance claim in the New Year.

Today I saw a post on The Russell Noticeboard about someone having lost earrings and I was interested to read comments. That is where I saw the reference to Northland Jewellery Recoveries. I thought it was worth a try and called Pete McGhee and what followed surpassed my hope or expectations.

He said there was good reason to be hopeful and he set off from an hour away, and within 30 minutes of arriving he texted me the photo of the two items he had found: the pendant and ring… right where we had searched thoroughly.

I can’t recommend him more highly. Thank you so much Pete.

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Unfortunately, the very fine gold rope chain was not located. It is likely the mower effectively ‘vaporised’ it. However, the thin chain being so fragile probably saved the key components enabling them to be recovered unscathed.