braving the old mines...

Hi there,

Just been out a bit looking around old tunnels and running the detector inside along the walls and was wandering if anyone has ever had any luck doing this? I have found some places inside old mines that look great, especially those with the old river bed pebbles inside and would think for sure would house gold but so far haven't picked up a bit in one yet. Would be interesting to hear what some of you may have found in them.

Cheers,

.

Hi Goldstalker,

I have swang the pick a few times into the walls and I couldn't believe how hard the walls are. But the areas of solid rock, one can only imagine the work put into penatrating those mountains. As for the floors, they drove me mad with signals from nails to beer cans. But I'm sure your right that there's probably the odd piece that many overlook amongst that trash. I would love to see your pics, as I have always found them interesting when find tunnels in good order with the old wood bearings or the old rail tracks still intact.

Cheers,
Paul

Guys

2 Words


DEATH WISH.





Pete in WA

Oh never mind, I play it safe... I take my canary with me and a lighter just to test for any bad gas.

.

Great pics Goldstalker, thats a lot of tunnelling, have you researched the mine at all? Just to see why so much effort.
cheers.

silwane,

We went looking for and explored an old mine at Bellambil on the north coast of NSW. It took us a long time to find the entrance in the overgrown rainforest and when we did, we slid in for a look. Unfortunately the mine was flooded, but the dairy farmer who told us where it was, said that there was a vertical shaft under the water half way along the drive(in the photo).

I find it fascinating exploring these old workings. I never bother taking my detector in though.

Entrance


Inside

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

GoldstalkerGPX,

Thanks for the fascinating photos. Any more ?

Jig.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

all very cool guys, but wondering how do you test for the gases? No fart comments either its a serious question

TheH0,

I never go in far enough to worry about that sort of thing, but I thought the problem was more associated with coal mines. Perhaps silwane was not being serious.

Jig.

Goldstalker GPX,

Had they filled in the mine entrance ? Did you dig it out ?

Jig.

.

it would be great to take videos off going down and showing what it's like with lights on and off. i have seen some videos on youtube over from the USA...i reckon it would be great to do this...
cheers
stoppsy

.

Have done a bit of mine exploration over the years!
I have confined space training now thru work, anyone entering an old mine without a gas detector and good safety equipment has a death wish!
Bad air and gases can and do frequently occur in all mines not just coal. I had my gas detector alarming off on nearly every mine we ented one w/end.
It was on Carbon monoxide, which leaches out of the rocks especially when a cold front passes thru. I was warned off this by a geoligist but did not
really understand it until i seen it myself.
Over the years Parks Vic & DSE have done exploration to asses derelict mine risk to public safety, the intention is to close & backfill every hole shaft
& entrance, running out of funds for the program is the only reason things have slowed up over the last few years? Perhaps if we loose a couple of forum members
things might start happening again?
I can not believe you guys are actually digging inside the walls & roof, how can you be sure they are stable?

Awesome pics!
More!

I know a couple of old cement hills that old timers dug under. So from outside it looks like a hill, but inside of the hill is mostly missing. Walls are all made from cemented riverwash. Just know there is gold there, but i am not game to crawl inside.

Hi all,

Thanks to the guys for posting those pic's, they look great especially those in that tunnel with the old timber still in place. I have been in plenty around Blackwood and spent a good portion of my childhood doing so. But haven't been in to many since I have been detecting, hence asking the question of detecting inside. But reading some of the more cautious statements made by some forum members it makes me cringe at the thought of some of the places I had got into as a young bloke. Some times climbing 30 feet down shafts to belly crawl along tunnels at the bottom.
Anyway thanks again for all the interesting posts and pic's, and I was joking about getting around with a canary and a lighter to test for gasses..

.

Thanks GoldstalkerGPX (it feels a bit odd calling you this mouthful).

The entrance to the adit would have originally been at the floor level of that stunning drive in your photo. It's hard to figure out how it has ended up as a rabbit hole entry, well above the floor level.

That mine is a work of art and I wish I had been with you when you explored it.

Again, thanks for the photos,

Jigalong

I found a few pics of a drive at Warrandyte while I was surfing just now : http://users.tpg.com.au/tashmick/goldmines2.html

bugger me they done it hard back in those days...
cheers
stoppsy

Wonderful pics Goldstalker,

You know how affiliated I am with the subterranian world and I can sure agree with the distain of sewer's, stormwater tunnels etc. My massive bulk of 5'7" allways saw me as "first in" when I was with the brigades at animal rescues or investigating contaminated drains etc. Give me a good hole/shaft anyday!
I remember caving once at Wombeyan and we needed to remove our helmets to get through a particulary tight squeze, i.e. head sideways sprawled flat on the belly, that certainly was a keep calm situation!

Out and about recently found this winch situated near a shaft, did a drop test with a rock and was a little surprised at the depth which I estimated at around 150 meters!



At the top of the shaft the remains of the poppet head had collapsed



When I got back home I researched this area and was quite surprised at the LENGTHS these old timers went to indeed.
The shaft was known as the "blue shaft" and is 467' deep. (Gulp!)
It has two minor drives at 100' and (?)150'
Then... a major drive at 208'. This drive traveled for aprox (my calcs. here) 536', took a bend of aprox 30 Degrees and then direct for a further 2,140' before bending again at around 80 Degrees and finished about 800' further along. So to get to the end of the shaft you would need to go 3,684' !!!!!
So imagine diging about 1.2 kilometers underground with primative lighting and all by hand....

They were tough blokes.

My best ropes are 60 meters long and I don't fancy doing 3 by-passes just to get to the drive, so I think I may give this one a miss. Could be a few air issues down there as well.
Sorry I didn't get any pics of the shaft as well, it was a little dodgy around the top.

Cheers Phill.

Man that is a cool pic of the old winch that must be steam powered judging by the piston on the side?
I too have poked around a few drives on the coromandel in NZ and was amazed at the lenghts the old timers went to, the one thing that nearly got me unstuck was they had a habit of sinking shafts into the floor of the drive, i guess to tip ore down to a lower level? and then covering the shaft back over with timber planks to keep access..... all good untill 100 years later and the planks are rotten
apart from the gas thing watch your footing...

cheers Tom

If anyone wants the location of a few tunnels in the Castlemaine area PM me with an email addy and I'll send you the directions.
I live opposite Forest Creek and what is locally known as "Hollow Hill" and it is riddled with tunnels...some more safe than others.

Take care in any tunnels...some tunnels will have shafts in the floor going down to lower levels ..it may just look like a puddle on the floor but it could be a flooded shaft...they are traps for the unwary...always take a long probe to check the floor, a spare torch and a candle ..if the candle goes out or won't burn brightly...then you get out pronto.
Keep out of tunnels that have tree roots coming through the roof or areas where the roof or walls have started to collapse.

I'll only provide directions to tunnels that I have been in and think are safe enough for my partner to go into.

Don't go hacking at the roof with a pick unless you have life insurance and want to make someone wealthy....feel free to make me a beneficiary lol.

You can learn a lot from tunnels...see the narrow veins of decomposing quartz 1-2" wide with the mineralization colors that are all shades of the rainbow, quartz crystals shining like diamonds in the torchlight and now and again a little sprinkle of gold specks....that was what they were looking for.

I have just been in a tunnel today that has bands of decomposing quartz 0.5" wide and spaced about every 3 feet along the tunnel...they were not chasing each vein of quartz ...they were cutting through the veins at 90 degrees and sampling them until they found one with gold in it and then they followed it into the sides of the tunnel.
I only went in about 100 feet ( it kept on going beyond where my torch beam reached ) but there were thousands of pick marks on the walls...what a massive effort..it must have taken months of hard labour to dig that 100 feet of tunnel through rock ,slate and sandstone....I hope it was worth it for them.

Oh yeah..if anyone comes out here detecting...fill in your bloody holes...every week I fill in over 30 holes that are left open by a few a-holes ...some locals have taken to noting rego numbers and then photographing holes that have not been filled in as part of their push to have prospecting banned in this area....don't give them any ammo.

.

.

The roof of a adit,tunnel,drift or drive is the back..the side walls are the ribs..a shaft inside a adit,drive etc. is called a winze.Short and narrow drives here in the motherlode of California are called Coyote holes.. an animal somewhat similar to Dingo's.