how tuff were the old timers

[Davent]

For over 40,000 years, Aborigines inhabited Australia and the continent was unknown to the rest of the world.
There is no evidence that the Aborigines had any use for gold or other metals.

After British settlement in 1788, Australia was used as a convict settlement to relieve the over-crowded prisons and hulks of Britain.
Conditions were harsh and foreign for the new settlers and diseases such as smallpox that they imported destroyed much of the original Aboriginal population.

We bribed them with food and alcohol to show us where they had seen the large quartz outcrops with visible gold contained, but the rush was on......it was first in, best dressed back then and gold waited for no man.

We laboured and toiled all day, sometimes for riches, most times for dirty water and rotten mutton to greet us at the end of a hard day!

Up at sunrise lads, for we shall be rich tomorrow.

But I have to wait till tuesday!

 

[blisters]

I've done a fair bit of work in WA and we used to survey in lines spaced 10 to 20 metres apart so we pretty well saw all ground in many tens of square kilometers. I can't remember the name of this place but it's reputed to have cost a lot of people their lives due to lack of water. On this particular survey we came across quite a few graves particularly of the size of babies or very young children. These were easily distinguishable as they usually were surrounded by quartz or prominent quartz corners and sometimes with a mound. We occasionally saw graves in our surveys but the number in this area was well above the norm in particular the number of children. While it was particularly hard in those times not providing financially for your family and subsequently taking risks, this dwarfs in comparison in ultimately taking their lives. Whether they were right or wrong in their endeavours my hat is permanently tipped to these people for trying to provide the best for their family. The heartbreak for their losses in doing so is unimaginable.
Jon

 

[casper]

Dave,
I think I wrote this story on this forum a long while ago.... Dunno??
Anyway, a mate and I walked a fair way up the track from our place and down to some mine shafts.
It was steep, and difficult not to spill your beer....
We got to a shaft and wow, how tiny the entrance was... unreal to think that miners came out of there with ore!!
Too hard and dangerous to go into the mine ill-equipped, we sat and looked out at the view...
Not that I smoke now, but at the time, I rolled a Port Royal, and we sat, quietly...
True to this day, I heard picks and hammers and chisels and yelling and screaming and everything else that you would expect to hear!!
It was brilliant!
Anyway, realising that I was indeed daydreaming, we turned around to trudge back up the hill.....
From a differant angle, and perspective, we could see the Z track up the hill, buried in time, up to the coach road!!
The poor buggers in their day, got ore out of the mine then wheel barrowed it up to the bullock train to be taken to the mill...
Its a memory we will keep forever, and is/was a massive respect for those that were there before.

'Tis chilling when you hear the tommyknockers eh!