Well, I guess you could say we did find the mine, although really only the general area where it is located. The pit itself has remained elusive in the thick, long grass; it is far too dangerous to go tromping around looking for it!
ABOVE: Is this a likely spot for the location of the mine shaft? Probably, but the grass is so thick, it is really unlikely you could safely find anything in that tangled mess.
There have been several fires through the property in recent years and people have seen the mine after these, when all the grass has burnt away. I would not wish a fire on the property, so the mine shaft itself may remain hidden until that time.
According to those that have seen the mine, it is a ‘man-sized’ – about 6 feet square – shaft straight down. It is about 20-25ft deep and then another shaft goes off horizontally from the bottom of the main shaft, also for about 20-25 feet along and about 6 feet high.
There is a creek a little way downhill from the mine and I suspect they might have panned for gold there and then looked for a source of gold further up the hill. There are two ‘costeans’ dug about 2 metres into the soil near the mine site, which are barely visible through the gamba grass today. A costean is a trench dug through soil down to the rock underneath, to expose any ore and determine the course it might take underground.
So quite an excavation, given it was all done by hand with picks, shovels and buckets!
Chinese Coins
A previous owner of the property did find coins with Chinese symbols and a square hole in centre, which places Chinese miners in this area in the early 1890’s, which fits with what we already know about the mine and the region.
I have been told that if they found gold, the Chinese miners left these coins as a “thank you” to the gods for their find. So that might answer the ‘did they or didn’t they find gold?’ question…
Also found was a pocket watch from WWII, which is also plausible, as there were many soldiers camped in this region during the war. Maybe some soldiers came by to try their luck at the ‘old gold mine’ and lost a watch instead?
ABOVE: Just a mound of dirt, but presumably dug up out of the mine shaft, which I think is actually pretty interesting!
Still, there are still fascinating things to see around the location of the mine, if you look closely. There are mounds of dirt, presumably dug up out of the shaft and lifted up in a bucket on a rope, to be dumped nearby. And I found what I think is one of the costeans.
ABOVE: I did put a long pole down here and didn’t touch bottom…
I suspect this is probably one of the costeans, so not as deep as the actual mine shaft… BUT it gives a good idea how the actual shaft itself could be well hidden by the long, overgrown grass. The edges are crumbly and if you slipped, you would just keep going until you hit the bottom, I reckon!
ABOVE: But most interesting, I think, is the miners cooking hearth, built nearby and where the miners presumably camped. I am fascinated it is still extant after 130 or so years in the bush!
So this might be as close as I get to the actual mine. I still find it fascinating that someone has come through this country, looking for suitable ground to dig for gold and decided that this was a likely spot. And supposedly, some time later, after a lot of hard work in the heat, humidity, dust and dirt, they left… abandoning the mine, supposedly when the gold ran out.
