Bushwalking in search of mines

[G0lddigg@]

I found a ripper place on the weekend right out in the bush,
I came across this shaft whilst following an old road in my truck so i decided to investigate further, there were around 35 shafts in the end on this hill and quartz veins the size of highbankers. so I followed the pits down the hill until I found the Adit, I didn't have the balls to walk in plus i'd seen some idiot had dumped a whole heap of chemical barrels in the pit at the top
I am always filled with confidence when i see sandstone because its usually associated with gold I did find one little piece and probably would ahve found more if I wasn't crawling around exploring.

I rescued this from the creek looks like an old piece of the mine, I wouldn't normally take relecs but this was rotting on the creek bed below.

Very happy with my little specimen its the perfect example of slate crossing through quarts with laminated gold fractures

 

[Ag Man]

Very nice report & cool finds!
Thanks for sharing.
It's sad to see, so many times, rubbish dumped in old mines...

I hope you get the chance to go back & find some more gold there.

 

[farmeroz]

Very nice. They sure did do a good job making the mines. Just how clean and well shaped the sandstone enterance and the one going straight down..

Hats off to them back in the day..

 

[loamer]

Excellent pics and story. The throw-outs look very good. I have found that a VLF on these quartz dumps is spot on. Well done!!

 

[Nugget]

That's awesome, it reminds me of some tunnels we explored while at Hill End about 13 years ago. We had nothing more than one of those little pencil torches and eventually came to a fork but decided not to risk getting lost down there. One thing I remember was the size of the mosquitoes, they were like small birds

Thanks for sharing G0lddigg@

 

[Kwa]

That's awesome! I don't blame you for not going in, such a shame it's not being filled in or maintained and what sort of jerk dumps chemicals in the bush?

 

[G0lddigg@]

Very nice report & cool finds!
Thanks for sharing.
It's sad to see, so many times, rubbish dumped in old mines...

I hope you get the chance to go back & find some more gold there.

thanks mate will go back for sure its only 35 min drive, yeh it pisses me off especially state parks where they maintain the roads so us 4wders, bike riders, prospectors and family bush walkers can enjoy the scenery and they guys come in at night and offload

 

[G0lddigg@]

Excellent pics and story. The throw-outs look very good. I have found that a VLF on these quartz dumps is spot on. Well done!!

spot on these mounds are the exact reason i settled on the GMT VLF, the problem i have is too many signals the damn things will pick up a flake(0.001) sometimes

 

[Wintersnake]

Looks a lot like my area SW of Ballarat.

I've found drums and barrels in 95% of the shafts around here (approx. 300 found so far), some of the shafts I've come across take a serious amount of bush bashing/4wding to get close enough to drop heavy items down.

 

[HeadsUp]

thats what i call sexy looking holes .

lol

wish i had those in my neighbourhood to run over with the detector

those are actually very sound looking structurally i would go in there no problem if i had someone at the surface

its tempting to report the dumpers to the EPA but the risk is they might close off the shaft openings so we cant get in for a dig then

 

[G0lddigg@]

structurally these are sound however without someone topside I play it safe

 

[The Green Wanderer]

Looks like you had a good day golddigg@, just on a side note too, these types of drums can be recycled for the plastic as long as their empty. We sell and get returned to us a fair number of the smaller 20L containers every week, then pass them on to one of the larger chemical companies in Cairns for $3 a drum. Not sure what the larger ones are worth but would assume their a bit more being either 100 or 200L volumes. Collecting enough could very well offset your days fuel if you were able to get them back to town. If any of the drums are leaking or still have liquid in them I wouldnt recommend moving them though, not without heavy gloves and a face mask as you never know what they used to contain..

 

[G0lddigg@]

unfortunately these drums all have chemicals (i assume) in them and it looks like the labels have been scrubbed out, all i know from my old hotel management days is that black plastic drums are made to hold some nasty shit! i.e. hydrochloric acid and i don't intent on repelling down 50 feet to retrieve it

 

[Wintersnake]

Most likely drums from farmers in the area, if you recall there was a nation wide dangerous chemical & pesticide recycling program and if the farmer didn't declare their chemicals straight away they had to pay for the disposal if caught with them.

I think it's safe to say farmers don't like paying for anything.

 

[HeadsUp]

Most likely drums from farmers in the area, if you recall there was a nation wide dangerous chemical & pesticide recycling program and if the farmer didn't declare their chemicals straight away they had to pay for the disposal if caught with them.

I think it's safe to say farmers don't like paying for anything.

sometimes batch numbers on the drums can be used to identify who they were sold to

reckon they were sold to Mister lowlife Inc

as far as i knew there were collection centers where you could take them to for free disposal ?

 

[G0lddigg@]

i suppose from a danger perspective if they were going to dump this crap anyway i'm glad its in a big hole where it hopefully wont hurt anyone rather than just tossing it in the bush to really do some damage.

 

[Wintersnake]

Yeah well......Many of these old shaft seep straight to the water table, farmers irrigate from bore water. Especially in the Ballarat area!

 

[Wintersnake]

Most likely drums from farmers in the area, if you recall there was a nation wide dangerous chemical & pesticide recycling program and if the farmer didn't declare their chemicals straight away they had to pay for the disposal if caught with them.

I think it's safe to say farmers don't like paying for anything.

sometimes batch numbers on the drums can be used to identify who they were sold to

reckon they were sold to Mister lowlife Inc

as far as i knew there were collection centers where you could take them to for free disposal ?

I can't be 100% yet I believe there was a dead line, pretty sure they (the gov) sent inspectors around after a while to check store rooms.
My father inlaw has serviced the ballarat farming community all his life, I recall him telling me at some stage.

 

[gcause]

Be especially careful around old mines like these some of those shafts can be 30-100 metres deep and are often covered by bush so you don't know they are there until the last minute. The edges of these shafts can be very brittle due to erosion and whilst they may look sound they can give way easily.

Be careful going into old mine adits as there can be noxious / toxic gasses that sit in these mines the deeper you get into them. Given this ones been used to dump chemicals the chances of bad air is high.

 

[G0lddigg@]

Be especially careful around old mines like these some of those shafts can be 30-100 metres deep and are often covered by bush so you don't know they are there until the last minute. The edges of these shafts can be very brittle due to erosion and whilst they may look sound they can give way easily.

Be careful going into old mine adits as there can be noxious / toxic gasses that sit in these mines the deeper you get into them. Given this ones been used to dump chemicals the chances of bad air is high.

your spot on mate they can be dodgy, luckily I grey up around these type of shafts so they are no stranger but for the unaware i hiker Look out!