Panners come to Ballarat in pursuit of gold

THE spirit of goldpanning is well and truly alive in Ballarat, even at Lake Wendouree.The 2011 Australian Goldpanning Championships came to the lake’s foreshore on Saturday, drawing people from across the country and even New Zealand.Although numbers were slightly down on last year’s contest, organisers considered it a successful event.Panning bays were installed at the lake for the event, in which competitors were allotted a bucket with a certain amount of gold flecks scattered throughout.Across a range of competition sections, the first person to pan out all the pieces was declared the winner.Victorian Goldpanning Association president Marcus Binks said there was strong rivalry between competitors as they sought to find the elusive one-millimetre specks of gold.“The pans nowadays are so much quicker than the old style pans,” he said.“They all get pretty competitive, it gets pretty close.”The overall winner of the event, Matt Kelava, won flights and accommodation to attend the 2011 world championships in Poland. Mr Binks said there were plans to apply to have the world championships in Clunes in 2014.