old timer in WA

https://www.facebook.com/264557191711/videos/132479238907081

things you some times miss, I haven't seen this one before.
Not much fat on this old fella.
feel free to add to this thread.


cheers   moredeep

Good one moredeep. One could say there weren't much fat on any of the old timers prospecting for gold back them there days, considering prospecting for gold consisted of a lot of pick & shovel work, as well as having meagre food rations in ones possession. Something of which todays modern prospector, would be trying to avoid at all cost.  

Cheers Kon.

Tough old bugger they don't make em like that anymore.

Now you know why we use Metal Detectors. Somewhere in the early 1980's I went down a shaft 90ft deep that a couple of old prospector were working a deep lead. At the working face it was less than a meter high and the old timer was using a small hand pick getting the pipe clay to wash. You will not find too many, that keen on gold.

Thanks for the link. I used to live at Williamstown and at the peak of the great gold rush there were 300 ships anchored in Port Phillip Bay without crews as most of the sailors had headed north towards Ballarat and Williamstown. Most of the blokes walked and I never go up into those areas in winter without thinking of how tough it must have been down in some of those valleys searching for gold in those freezing winters. I can imagine traipsing through the bush to some distant supply store, returning to my camp, sitting down and thinking, "Bugger. I forgot the matches."

It says much about how gruelling life was for ordinary men that living out in the bush in the most primitive conditions was a more attractive proposition than working for measly wages back in civilization.

Yep it was a tough life Harry, I think the average life span was about 45 for the digger.
When I'm out in the dark dank hills as I was tonight I tend to imagine trying to keep warm in a little canvas tent or a bark hut trying to keep sane.
I reckon the average digger would have hit the sack and slept heavily after a day digging some of those massive holes we see.
A bottle of rum would of helped


cheers moredeep