hi all as you may know already im a mad man who loves going down the old mines in vic by rope.
I start by finding a area on Google maps like say ballarat where's there's old mines near the area and then I look for all the mining reports like what they got what they wore digging in alluvial ect then the fun part I drive out to the places and find them if they are on private property I ask if I can go on then on the mine site I check for chemicals such as old cyanide pits and mercury pits around the mine then if its reasonably safe I suss out the mine its self and put a mouse or rat in a cage tired to a small 20m rope and let the rat or mouse dangle on the end of a 20m rope down the shaft I wait about 30mins to 1 hour then I take it back out of the hole if its dead I do not go down it if there alive I simply let them go back in the paddock that I catch them in if its a tunnel I my self get a gas mask on and go 10 to 40ms down the tunnel and place a rat in a plastic open to the air box same thing as the shafts if they die I don't enter even if there's 1000s worth of gold still left in it so far ive only come across 5 that have gas or bad air 3 shafts and two tunnels the next step I do when its all clear and safe is go in with a long steel pole and wack the floor of the tunnel I go in to every 1 foot so I know its solid ground im walking on not wood boards for shafts I make shore there's no hanging rocks on the sides if there is I take them out with a hammer if there not too big and continue down the shaft by rope as the same for tunnels too. the second last step is I go exploring the whole shaft/tunnel for quartz reef still left in the walls I have this big steel stake its about half a meter long i use this to chip out large amounts of quartz out of the floor or walls with of Couse a mallet hammer whacking it then i put my samples in a bag and carry them out of the tunnel/shaft i go in/down I always take about 15 to 20kgs out to test it even if i don't think its worth lugging home i take it anyway just incase it has then i pre crush my rocks by dolly pot by hand then i crush them even finer to almost dust by my disk rock crusher then i pan it all in an old bath tub and after panning i record what i get for how many kgs of quartz i took out and i label my crushed up rock to i don't get mixed up where i found what and that's that that's how i look for my gold i sometimes pan in creeks aswell but i find going into the old mines is more exciting and some times more rewarding for the time and effort
I start by finding a area on Google maps like say ballarat where's there's old mines near the area and then I look for all the mining reports like what they got what they wore digging in alluvial ect then the fun part I drive out to the places and find them if they are on private property I ask if I can go on then on the mine site I check for chemicals such as old cyanide pits and mercury pits around the mine then if its reasonably safe I suss out the mine its self and put a mouse or rat in a cage tired to a small 20m rope and let the rat or mouse dangle on the end of a 20m rope down the shaft I wait about 30mins to 1 hour then I take it back out of the hole if its dead I do not go down it if there alive I simply let them go back in the paddock that I catch them in if its a tunnel I my self get a gas mask on and go 10 to 40ms down the tunnel and place a rat in a plastic open to the air box same thing as the shafts if they die I don't enter even if there's 1000s worth of gold still left in it so far ive only come across 5 that have gas or bad air 3 shafts and two tunnels the next step I do when its all clear and safe is go in with a long steel pole and wack the floor of the tunnel I go in to every 1 foot so I know its solid ground im walking on not wood boards for shafts I make shore there's no hanging rocks on the sides if there is I take them out with a hammer if there not too big and continue down the shaft by rope as the same for tunnels too. the second last step is I go exploring the whole shaft/tunnel for quartz reef still left in the walls I have this big steel stake its about half a meter long i use this to chip out large amounts of quartz out of the floor or walls with of Couse a mallet hammer whacking it then i put my samples in a bag and carry them out of the tunnel/shaft i go in/down I always take about 15 to 20kgs out to test it even if i don't think its worth lugging home i take it anyway just incase it has then i pre crush my rocks by dolly pot by hand then i crush them even finer to almost dust by my disk rock crusher then i pan it all in an old bath tub and after panning i record what i get for how many kgs of quartz i took out and i label my crushed up rock to i don't get mixed up where i found what and that's that that's how i look for my gold i sometimes pan in creeks aswell but i find going into the old mines is more exciting and some times more rewarding for the time and effort
