At the gold field we were at , we had seen these giant shafts,of which two dropped away out of sight .1 we fathomed to be about twenty metres . 1 , 30 plus .we did not see how ore could be extracted from these deep pits without major machinery. these were man operated pit mines, abandoned 130 years ago . early on our second morning I was panning concentrate from the riverbed when I noticed this sleeper set above a small mud hole near the creek . noticed person sized hole needing fook all extraction for two burly blokes ( haha 1 slightly less burly than the other )to gain access .Sunlight was quite plainly visible at the end of a shaft that went, at a guess , twenty metres into an underground chamber ! The roof was shored up with a sleeper sitting on top of two others facing down. This chamber opened up on one of the major down shafts, but was only half way . there was a giant broken pipe fixed to the wall and a giant con rod type ,steam mechanism, that had lodged into to room we were in . We surveyed the edge lying on our tums and decided we need to get some better gear !
Posted on: Sun, 07 Jul 2013 06:15:16 +0000