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Going Down? A Working Mine in Bendigo
After spending a night in Echuca and taking the paddle-steamer cruise on the Murray River the next morning, I drove over to the gold mining town of Bendigo, which was the most active mining town in Australia back in the 1800s. Surprisingly, and unlike a lot of other old gold mining towns, it's still thriving. In fact, with a population today of about 50,000, Bendigo is downright hopping. The architecture here is impressive, with many buildings in the downtown area dating back to the opulent gold rush days of a century ago.
As I was strolling around Bendigo, I popped into the Visitor Center and browsed through the brochures, one of which caught my eye. I took the brochure to the front counter and asked the nice woman there about it. She told me that, yes, there was an active gold mine right in the middle of town (huh?) It was called the Central Deborah and it offered tours to the public (huh??)
I've been fascinated with gold mining ever since I was a kid when my dad bought a share of an abandoned gold mine called the "Lucky Dog" in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, north of Sacramento. Now, you should understand that my father was no miner. In fact, at the time he was the Dean of the School of Education at San Jose State University – probably as far from a miner as you can get. But he did have an adventurous streak a mile wide. I've always been thankful for that because our family had a lot of interesting adventures when I was young, including being part-owners of this 1870s-era gold mine in northern California where we occasionally spent our weekends, a hundred years after the mine had shut down.
Many years after my father sold back his shares of the Lucky Dog, I learned even more about gold mining during the six summers that I worked as a ranger in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. That area was filled with abandoned gold mines from the 1800s and, to a history buff like myself, was a wonderful place to work. But despite all that, I had never been inside an active gold mine.
This was my chance, so I drove over to the Central Deborah and paid US$20 for a tour. As it turned out, I was the only one on the tour that day, which was led by a couple of friendly retired miners named Roy and Brian. Roy directed me to the changing room, where I donned overalls and boots, then he fitted me with a helmet light. Then the three of us squeezed into a very tiny elevator cage and quickly plummeted 300 feet straight down the chute. During the rapid descent, Roy kindly suggested that I keep my hands inside the cage unless I wanted to lose them.
For the next two hours, I followed Roy and Brian through the dark and damp mine. Halfway through, we took a short break for tea, rolls, and jam while sitting at a picnic table 300 feet below the surface and talking into each other’s helmet lights. Roy and Brian were great guys and taught me a lot about mining. As I learned during the tour, mining is VERY loud work, with air drills, rock blasting, and ore-carting, all of which (except for the blasting) I took a crack at.
It was a fascinating tour and well worth the price. But I’m really glad I have a desk job because, after spending two hours in the bowels of the Central Deborah mine, there’s no way I would ever want to be a miner. My ears are still ringing.
Above left: The Central Deborah is a working gold mine in downtown Bendigo. Here's the change room where I donned my overalls, boots, and hard-hat. Above center: That's me ready to head down the shaft. I guess most real miners don't carry cameras – or two, in my case. Above right: Here's an old photo from my collection, from the place in Colorado where I used to work as a BLM ranger. These are miners during the 1880s standing next to their compressed-air drill. They drilled holes into the rock, filled them with dynamite, blasted the rock, then repeated the process. Gold miners today essentially use this same drill-and-blast process.
Above left: Here's Roy demonstrating an air drill at 300 feet below the surface. The spots are from the steady mist, used to capture the rock dust. I operated the drill too, and my ears rang for a long while afterwards. Above center: Roy operating a mucker, which picks up blasted rocks and throws them into a waiting ore car. Like the air drill, this thing is incredibly noisy. Above right: It was an interesting two-hour tour. Mining is loud, hard, and dangerous work, and I'm really glad I'm not a miner.
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