QLD'S OLDEST GOLD MINES

We took part in some great underground exploring in late November of 2021, right on the NSW/QLD border. Our exploration coincided with one of the hottest November days on record at nearby Tenterfield. We have several detailed maps of this area and hoped to enter the only remaining main adit and walk the entire way through the mountain. The adit until very recently was open for 500 vertical feet and drove under and up into a huge open stope. We were only one recently collapsed airshaft of being able to complete that full mission. In the photos you can see Mr Echidna sleeping on what looks like the recent collapse, most likely dozed from above. We guess that collapse is only a few years old. This chapter of QLD mining history was originally planned as a two-part series; however, a second trip is no longer a possibility. This valley is now very much off-limits to the public as there are more modern mining operations and exploration teams working in the same area as this historic claim. We can only hope and pray that these historic workings are not completely obliterated if large scale modern mining takes place. A lot of caution was needed when inside the stope as the main shaft there was sunk to a depth of 200 feet. After the shaft was sunk the old-timers cleaned out the entire vein. The footwall has been cleaned out of every speck of the deposited quartz. The hanging wall is poorly defined, unstable and contained minimal gold. The main shaft is currently capped and bulldozed in at 60 feet, so we assumed that to be a danger zone at the risk of the cap failing. We set up a rope traverse on the footwall to get past it. The fluid replaced deposit narrowed to only 2 feet on average, so the vein took a very long time to clean out and was very dangerous work. Most of the charge holes were done by miners working the stope with a hand chisel and hammer (single jacking) The powder man was then sent down into the stope to charge the hand-drilled holes. The vein was in most areas far too small for the miners to run their air lines into so this method was repeated for years until most of the gold was mined from the deposit Location information is not disclosed during this episode as this valley already has issues with illegal mining and prospecting activity taking place. We could see several areas showing evidence of small-scale mining in the creeks and ravines. We can only hope the old workings are preserved in this valley. These are some of the oldest mines in the entire state of QLD Ebenezer (QAM)