Another exploratory trip, found something this time

Today I went on an exploratory trip into the back country of southeast NSW, Australia. This area is fairly remote and contains a lot of wilderness, and requires off-trail walking (bushwhacking) through dense forest to explore. Sometimes I walk the valleys and creeks of the area prospecting for gold. I decided to do a reconnaissance trip near the old gold rush area that was prospected in the 1800’s.


Driving in.


The only vehicle I passed!


A creek crossing. An old bridge used to be here I assume.


Getting up into the hills.


I reached an area of thick rainforest, and decided to park the ute there and head into the forest. I like hard terrain because it’s a little less likely that the old timers explored there, given they had to push wheelbarrows around.


I went light, wearing just my hiking belt. This is the belt I wear fishing in the snowy mountains - it lets me carry a headlamp, flashlight, spare lures, multitool (pliers) to pull out hooks, etc. - but it doubles for hiking and other adventures.


The largest pouch (third on the left) carries a (recently acquired) skinny Ash-1 (Thanks Petey2.1). Take note other Aussies, I had to bribe customs in Sydney not to redirect this to Andy!!






Cont...

 

Reached the bottom of the valley.


A leech.


A bottlebrush


The creek here is running from the right and downhill towards the left. So what is that mound in the middle? I went over to have a look, and found a dam across the creek, maybe 10 metres high. It was old, as seen by the size of the trees growing out of it.


A race? Or overflow for the dam. This has to be for working gold! The old timers would funnel water into races and put sluices in them, then shovel gold-bearing dirt in by the tonne.


Some kind of stone wall, not sure what purpose it served




Looking further around I found this…


It’s an old chimney, on an area of the slope that was dug out and leveled. There must have been a house here. I found other leveled areas around - there must have been a bunch of people living there at one time. I was getting very confident that this was an old gold-working site.


Walking around further I found a sure sign - large piles of quartz, with a ditch in the middle of them.

 

It’s not a ditch - these are obviously gold workings - it’s a vertical shaft.




Further on, another mound with a hole in the middle…


… and another deep shaft.


Another one, but this time with a tree fallen across the hole.


I walked (very carefully) out onto the log to look down.


It was deep! It disappeared into blackness so I couldn’t tell how deep.


Another shaft.


I had to belly crawl to the edge of this one…


… and hold my hand out over the edge to take a pic.

 

I kept exploring, and found a hole in the bank hidden in the vegetation.


This isn’t just a hole! It’s an adit (a horizontal shaft). Is it the entrance to a mine?


I think it is a mine.


The gold rush was in the late 1800s, so this mine would be 100 to 150 years old. Old mines can be dangerous. I’m not sure if I had all the right gear for this, but at least if there was a cave-in I could dig my way out with this! Right?


The floor was mud and I went in to over my ankles. Every step I had to pull my foot out of the sticky mud.


It went for 50 metres, then a hundred, a hundred and fifty. There were a lot of weird sounds ahead. Squeaking and rustling, but very loud.


I found a vein of quartz. This would be the kind of thing they would follow to find gold.


Bats started to appear, hanging from the ceiling. I guessed this was the noise I was hearing.




A lot of bats!!

 

The tunnel kept going. More noise ahead, and it echoed a lot; it was a creepy and unsettling kind of sound.


More bats. The noise ahead was getting louder.




Then bats started flying down the tunnel towards me, a lot of them.


I couldn’t get a decent photo, but they were all around. They were even flying into my face now and then and I started walking with my hand in front of my head to try and shield my eyes.


After a while the floor rose up and almost blocked the passage.


So I had to get on my belly and crawl. There was an opening in the ceiling above.


Looking directly up… there was a vertical shaft that disappeared upwards, maybe to those vertical shafts I’d seen on the surface.


On the other side of the hump, the dirt floor descended into a pool of darkness.


Once I crawled down, it turned out it was actually a pool of water.

 

There were tadpoles, despite the fact it was maybe a couple of hundred of metres in from the surface.


An underwater shot of one of the big ones.


I stood up and found this right next to my face. It was huge, about the size of my palm!!


Should I go on? It would require wading through the pool of water.


I decided to keep on. The water was only up to my shins at this stage. I could still hear noises ahead, more than before. Maybe more bats? But it seemed too loud for bats, and not really bat-like. Bats mainly use ultrasound i.e. beyond the range of human hearing, so I wasn’t sure what I was hearing, because it was definitely very audible. It was getting cold. Then a breeze started to blow down the tunnel. I noticed it because there hadn’t been any air moving before, the whole time I’d been in the tunnel, and this was a sudden wind that came out of nowhere.


I was taking a bunch of photos, clicking the button repeatedly to see if I could catch some bats flying around (assuming that was the sound I was hearing), but at this point something happened that I can’t really explain. Something like mist appeared ahead of me and moved down the tunnel. It was moving at about a slow walking pace.


It came down the passage and blew past me. My view went white as it passed over my head and through the torch light (I had a headlamp on), and I froze in place. But nothing happened beyond that. It just looked like water vapor.


Afterwards it faded slowly away again. I assume it was some kind of atmospheric effect, but, what exactly? Is this a normal thing in mines? I googled it but nothing came up about cave/mine fog or mist.


I had intended to go to the end of the tunnel. But at this stage the water was above my knees and was getting deeper. And I felt a little spooked I admit. So I turned around.


The way back. I was moving quickly and now was pretty keen to get out.

 

Eventually a light appeared!!!


At this point a lot of bats started flying around again, flying into me, and I had to protect my face like before.




Almost out!


Made it!! I felt a strange sense of relief.


I hadn’t left the cave completely behind though, I still had a bunch of it on my shoes.


On the walk back out I found more walls and holes.


The drive out.


It got dark before I got home. There is a full moon tonight. This was the view along the way.


Thanks for reading!!