South Africa

Cape Town to Plettenberg Bay

After my last trip to South Africa, I said that I would one day return and continue along the coast and the famous Garden Route. Seeing as I had to fly back to Perth from Johannesburg anyway I decided to extend my trip (after a surprise 2 weeks in the UK) and booked a Nomad Africa adventure tour travelling from Cape Town to Johannesburg over 20 days.

Table Mountain, Cape Town

I flew from London to Cape Town arriving on Thursday 19^th May, ready to start the tour the next day. Unfortunately I didn't have much time in Cape Town, which is a shame because I had forgotten what a fantastic city it is. I find everyone to be very friendly there and it has a great atmosphere, and my Air BnB host for the night, Johann, was very welcoming.

Bo Kaap, Cape Town

Day 1 of the tour started with a township tour to the District 6 museum and out to the township of Langa. It's something I chose not to do last time as I felt uncomfortable taking a tour to see what life was like in an impoverished township, however I'm very glad I did it- it was incredibly eye-opening and emotional at times. The apartheid in South Africa is something I was always aware of but knew few details of, and to see it described and displayed in the District 6 museum was very difficult. There were pictures of the towns and communities around Cape Town- not slums as I had imagined but normal, working class families and homes- which were destroyed as part of the apartheid. Huge numbers of people were displaced into these townships to live in appalling conditions, most of the time being evicted with less than 24 hours' notice and leaving with very few personal belongings, all so that these could be made into whites only areas. District 6 itself was not even put to a useful purpose, the buildings were almost all torn down and to this day the area remains open and unused.

A typical family home in
Langa township

From the museum we were taken to the township of Langa and were shown around and into the homes of some of the residents living there. There were a variety of types of housing, the oldest being a hostel with several bedrooms leading off from one communal kitchen and living area. In each bedroom, barely big enough to fit three single beds, would live up to three families and as many as 15 people. Work is underway to improve this, and new housing is being built where one family lives in one home, but these are still very small and rudimentary. The townships are constantly growing, with people coming to Cape Town from neighbouring countries in the hopes of finding work. The growing areas are no more than shacks built from wood and corrugated metal, with dangerous makeshift electrics and high levels of disease and flooding from the local waterway.

The amount of rent that one family has to pay per year in one of the newer homes would have paid for two nights of my accommodation the previous night, which really puts things into perspective. However the township tours and the tourists do bring a valuable source of income to the residents, as the tour guides are from the townships and the locals are able to make and sell souvenirs.

The view from the winery

Beautiful scenery en route to Oudtshoorn

Following the rather sobering morning in Cape Town we headed out to the beautiful university town and wine growing region of Stellenbosch where we had wine and cheese tasting (as it turned out at a winery I visited last time I was here!). That evening we stayed in Somerset West and had our first meal as a tour group. There were 10 of us in total from all over- Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.

Day two of the tour and we were driven through some spectacular scenery as we drove along Route 62 and through some beautiful mountain passes. We stopped in at Ronnie's Sex Shop, so named because one of Ronnie's friend's vandalised his newly painted shop sign and the name stuck. It's little more than a pretty odd country pub in the middle of nowhere, but they do alcoholic milkshakes and I can recommend the rum and banana!

The unique Ronnie's Sex Shop

In the afternoon on our way to Oudtshoorn we stopped in at an ostrich farm and were given a tour of how they breed and rear ostriches and the types of feather they harvest and sell. Painted and carved ostrich eggs are very popular souvenirs and the egg itself is the equivalent of 24 normal hens' eggs- it's very rich as we had some for breakfast the next morning. That night was the first night camping for the four of us who had chosen the camping option- everyone else had paid to stay in accommodation for the tour. The tents are very easy to put up, and quite comfortable when you have a couple of mattresses to yourself!

Ostrich at Oudtshoorn

Ostrich racing

Day three and we visited the 'famous' limestone Cango Caves in the morning (which were pretty much the same as any other caves I've ever been in). In a change to the planned schedule the group voted that in the afternoon we would drive to the Bloukrans Bridge bungee jump... where I would be doing a bungee jump! The bridge is the highest commercial bridge bungee jump in the world, and is 216m high. I have bungee jumped before but that was a mere 30m in New Zealand. I had several hours to mentally prepare myself, however as we drove over the bridge itself, nothing could prepare me for just how high 216m actually is when you're jumping off it!

Only myself and two of the others in the group were to do the bungee jump, and after being unceremoniously weighed and categorised (clearly I've been snacking a bit too much...) we were rigged up with harnesses and made the long journey out to the jump site. This involved walking along a cage-like walkway suspended beneath the bridge over the valley, so we could see all the way down to the valley floor as we walked out. I actually think this was far more terrifying than the jump itself! There was a pretty large collection of people jumping, and they alternate jumpers between lightest and heaviest and they accurately record the total weight of people jumping so that the bungee cords can be changed regularly for safety purposes.

I was supposed to fit somewhere in the middle of the group of people jumping, however I got bumped up as I was part of the tour group. What I didn't know at the time was that they were waiting to change the rope so I would be the first person to jump on the new rope. I think I would have been much more nervous if I'd known that before I jumped! I saw the other two members of my tour group do the jump, as well as a fair few other people and all the while I'm dancing around to the music and chatting to people, trying to distract myself from the inevitable doom awaiting me.

Cango caves world heritage site

Finally it was my turn, so I sit down and one guy is attaching a safety cord to my harness (so that if for any reason the cord around my feet fails or my feet slip out- it never has happened here before) then the harness will catch me. Then another guy comes along and attaches the bungee cord to my feet. And then they shuffle-hop me out to the platform which I'll be jumping from, and I'm still laughing and joking and psyching myself up to jump off this bridge. 

And 3... 2... 1... bungeeaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

is a fairly good approximation of what came out of my mouth (perhaps accompanied by a choice swear word or two). Increase that by several decibels and extend for as long as you can scream until you run out of air and you have Sarah bungee jumping. I think I was aiming for an excited 'wahoo' but it came out more as a blood curdling scream. Apparently I was the loudest screamer of the afternoon!

Preparing to bjump

The last time I bungee jumped I don't remember what happened immediately after I jumped. I now realise that was my brain's way of preserving itself from re-living the sheer terror you go through as you jump and expect to be landing on solid ground any second, only to find that you won't be landing on solid ground at all and that you are in fact in freefall, hurtling towards the bottom of a valley several hundred meters below you. 

And then you're at the bottom of the cord and it feels as though your feet are slipping, even though they're not, so you force out your feet as far as possible and you tense your thighs (as if that is going to help anything). But then it feels like everything is OK again, only it's not because next thing you know you're being pinged straight back up into the air again and although this part isn't too unpleasant, all you can think is 'the higher I go up, the longer I have to fall back down again.... please stop please stop please stop' and then you're free-falling back down again and you go through this several times. Apparently the first time you rebound you then fall as far again as the bungee jump over the Zambezi river, so you've basically done two bungee jumps in one.

The look of pure terror

Being hoisted back to solid earth

And EVENTUALLY you stop free-falling and you're bobbing upside-down at the bottom of the cord, looking down at the valley bottom and you start having a conversation with the ground about how you're thankful it's down there and you're up here (and you're still tensing those thighs and penguin-footing your feet just in case). And this little guy abseils down and hooks your harness to his seat and swings you back upright and starts to hoist you back up to the bridge. He asks me how I am and I start speaking French (clearly a bit discombobulated by the entire experience) so he starts speaking French back. So now I have to admit to him that I've pretty much expended all the useful French I know, only now my English isn't working too well either so the entire journey back up to the bridge he's trying to understand what on earth I'm saying (and I'm not too sure what I'm trying to say myself). 

Then I'm being hauled over and back onto the bridge like an over-sized fish (the video is not pretty), and I grab onto that bridge for dear life as they untie my feet and release me to my fellow survivors. They bring me in for a massive group hug and we're all grinning like madpeople, and all swearing that we will never do that again (although if another higher one happens to crop up on my travels then I might think about it...).

After the terrifying hanging-cage walk to get back off the bridge, we met the rest of the tour group who all congratulate us and tell us we're crazy and that they were watching the entire thing on a live video feed. They thought my dancing around on the bridge was me chickening out of doing the jump (as if!). Our accommodation for the night was the incredibly fancy Dunes beachside resort in Plettenberg Bay- no camping for us tonight!

Journey from Cape Town to Bloukrans Bridge

Detailed  map of the trip so far

Zambia

My trip to Zambia was my first overseas business trip, and after a shaky start with my flight booked under the wrong name I landed in Johannesburg early on Sunday 17^th April. Sue- the senior geologist and my host for a few days- picked me up from the airport and took me back to her house where I met her two beautiful ridgeback dogs Heidi and Terra.

Johannesburg wasn't at all what I was expecting- it was much more pleasant. Granted I was staying in a more affluent part of town and wasn't going anywhere near the dodgy parts, but the city is incredibly green- it apparently has more biota than any other city in the world- and although there is a heavy security presence and plenty of barbed wire protecting properties it is all blended in quite well with the neighbourhood. The weather was wonderful and we were able to go for some great dog walks and run some errands.

Sue, Riccardo and Brian assessing the pit

Harry, T-Bar and Joe ready for work

On Tuesday 19^th April I caught the train to the airport for my flight to Ndola in Zambia which is where the company I was consulting for, Mukango Resources, is based. Ndola international airport was a fairly relaxed affair, and it took a while to get my visa sorted. We were met at the airport by Luca and Riccardo who head the project, two very charismatic Italian-Zambians.

The first few days were spent as a team doing a run-down on the project, making a plan of action and getting equipment ready for the field. Ndola is the third largest city in Zambia, but is still fairly small compared to Australian or English cities with less than half a million people living there. It's close to the copperbelt, Zambia's copper mining region and also close to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

We set out for our first stint in the field via Kitwe to the west, Zambia's second largest city, to stock up on supplies. Kitwe has quite a different feel to Ndola and is much more lively and commercial, although also much more run down. The mine site wasn't too far from Kitwe distance-wise but took us 2 hours to get there as the access road was a poor quality dirt track. On our way we passed lots of little rural communities and homesteads, which were not much more than a collection of simple mud brick houses with grass roofs and a central grass roofed communal area.

Mapping the pit

Zambia's Kafubu mining area where the project is located is actually patrolled by the military due to the it's value. Once we were through the checkpoint it was only a short drive to get to the Mukango mine, passing by some of the bigger emerald mining operations in the area- Kagem and Grizzly. The mine camp was a hive of activity as we arrived, with 20 or so guys all busily unpacking our vehicles and getting to work setting up new tents for us. In Australia we would probably only have one or to people on the site to do this, but here they employ many staff so that several people might earn a small wage as opposed to a couple of people being paid a bit more.

Mukango mine camp

The camp was well set up considering its remote location, with a few basic toilet blocks with showers, a rustic outdoor camp kitchen and a communal area for us to eat and work in. There were power points and lighting wired in, with a generator and solar panels powering the batteries to supply the electricity. We slept in large canvas tents on stretcher beds- probably more comfortable than I will be on my trip around Australia!

Traipsing through the undergrowth to survey the mining lease

The area was incredibly lush and green as Zambia has several months of rain during their summer rainy season. This means that all mining work needs to be done during the drier winter months giving a limited window of opportunity. The grass and plants were taller than I am in places making navigation and field work quite tricky, and there are several old workings and abandoned pits to be cautious of. The Mukango pit itself is quite large, and about 19m deep, however work on excavating the pit has stopped while we do a scientific review of the project in order to better target further drilling and excavation work. The company also has access to several other areas in the Kafubu mining district, so another element of the work to be done is to evaluate the potential of these areas.

After a couple of days walking around the lease a plan was made for the geological and geochemical work that needed doing, although at a much slower pace than I'm used to! I had planned a program of geophysics whilst in Ndola and had acquired quotations, and so my job was to help with the field and pit mapping.

Washing mined material to find the eneralds

For those who are interested in the geology of emeralds, and put very simply, the emeralds are hosted in metamorphosed ultramafic units, which provide the chromium content required to give emeralds their rich green colour. Where these have been deformed and faulted, hydrothermal fluids have penetrated the rocks and where these fluids have contained sufficient beryllium, they have produced hydrothermal veins containing beryl, which combined with chromium in the right quantities and the right conditions gives you emeralds.

And not only are we looking for the right spot in the right host rock which has seen the right conditions for emerald formation, we are then also trying to piece the puzzle back together as more deformation of the rocks has occurred since the emeralds were formed and has moved the deposit around. This is why the geophysical work will be so critical to understanding where better to target future exploration and mining, as the program I have developed will help with mapping the host unit and potentially also identifying where in the host unit there might be the emerald-bearing hydrothermal veins.

Driving to Lusaka past the fruit and veg stands

We spent a few days on site and then drove to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. The drive was about 5 hours, and it was interesting to pass through a few other smaller towns where there would just be a few buildings and lots of stalls selling locally grown fruits and vegetables- piles of watermelons, butternut squash and tomatoes grown by the local people. There were huge areas for cattle grazing too, with Zambeef being the major farming company in Zambia.

A hive of activity in the pit

The aim of our trip to Lusaka was to introduce ourselves to the various government departments we would be working with and reporting to, and also to see what publicly available information we could acquire. The Geological Survey Department is setup (as with most things in Zambia) based on the English system, which in theory should mean that companies submit reports on their activities, and that certain amounts of information, data and reports should be available to members of the public. The reality is quite different, which made it very difficult to get any further information from the system (unless you have an insider helping you... but I won't go into that on a public forum!). I did manage to acquire the department's most up to date airborne geophysical survey, which was flown in the early 1970's and was all but useless in that many of the critical data needed to process it was missing- deliberately by omission or because it was genuinely lost I couldn't tell.

Lusaka was a big, bustling, hectic city as you would expect from the capital of an African nation, and had plenty of upmarket buildings, malls and skyscrapers and a university. It was fairly chaotic, and I was constantly amazed at the level of skill of our driver and how he avoided hitting any other vehicle. If you hit rush hour traffic (we did) it could take you an hour to go 100m (it did), and there are plenty of innovative people selling various items in the traffic- apparently if you drive for long enough you can do all your shopping and get a pressure washer to boot all from the driver's seat of the car.

The final week of the trip was spent back on site trying to get on with pit mapping. We pumped the water out of the pit and dug a few trenches to help look at a cross section of the geology across the pit. I did struggle a little with the slow pace of the work and some of the methods used I thought could be improved upon. It was also difficult to get a commitment from the senior geologist on which geophysical options she wanted to pursue, and so I handed over a recommended program of work and quotations. I very much hope to see that some of the work will be done in the future! It certainly appears that the area the company is in is very prospective, and I think it will only be a matter of time before they are pulling out gem quality emeralds from their pit.

Some of the field crew on the last day in camp

Melbourne

Famous Melbourne graffiti

I was lucky enough back in June to have the opportunity to do a geophysics course for work in Melbourne, and when work offered to fly me out there I jumped at the chance. The course was 5 days long and very interesting- hopefully I will be better at my job for it! And luckily all the rain happened during those 5 days when I was stuck in a classroom, leaving the rest of my time there fairly dry (apart from the odd shower or 4).

Shopping in Melbourne is very good. So good that I dedicated several days of my trip just to do that, and then had to buy a new suitcase to fit in all of my purchases! I was in need of some new clothes anyway, since most of my clothes were old and mainly for Africa- not really suitable for what was turning out to be the cold Australian winter (I was not told it would be this cold!!!).

St Kilda beach area

During my time in Melbourne I did lots of walking around the city just taking it all in, and did a day trip down to St Kilda, the seaside area of Melbourne in the south. I got to use my new fancy camera that I had bought for my birthday- it’s a great place to practice all the settings! On one day I went on a walking tour around Melbourne and there is a lot that I haven’t had the chance to go and see. I visited the Melbourne Gaol which was very interesting- they held the famous Australian convict Ned Kelly there until his execution. As part of the trip to the gaol they run what is called the watch house tour which showed you what happens to detainees once they were arrested. That was a real experience- up until just 18 years ago up to 50 detainees would be held at once in cold, cramped conditions before their date in court. One place I really did like was the Queen Victoria Markets, which are the largest undercover markets. These have your usual fruit and veg and retail stalls, but on a huge scale, with lots of fish, meat and delicatessen stalls as well. I wish I had visited the markets sooner so I could have had time to cook using the produce. I spent hours just walking around and marvelling at all that was on offer.

Walking around Apollo Bay

I decided to take a couple of trips away to see the surrounding area while I was there. The first was a 3 day trip along the Great Ocean Road, which runs for part of the way between Adelaide in the west and Melbourne in the east. The road was constructed for 2 reasons- the main reason was that upon returning from the war, a great number of servicemen found themselves unemployed in an economically depressed country. A bonus was that this road would connect previously isolated logging towns all along the Victorian coast.

Hiking on the Great Ocean Walk

Cape Otway lighthouse

I took a tour until lunchtime to a very small place called Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Road. During the morning we stopped at the famous Bells Beach, where an annual international surfing competition is held, and also stopped to see some koalas. I spent a couple of days in Apollo Bay, and did a 13km (8 mile) hike along the stunning coastline, stopping in at a lighthouse on the way. During my whole walk I saw 2 human beings, it was wonderful! I rejoined the tour in the afternoon a couple of days later and went further along the coast to see the 12 Apostles- a set of stacks in the ocean formed through the erosion of the coastline.

12 Apostles

  

Another little side trip I did was to Hobart, the capitol of Tasmania. Hobart is a bit of a sleepy town, and I regret not hiring a car for the whole time I was there as the countryside scenery is amazing. While I was in Hobart I visited the museum of old and new art, Tasmania’s largest (and most controversial) art collection. I won’t go into details, but the last exhibit I saw was a set of scientific equipment recreating the human digestive system, inclusive of the end product. On my last day in Tasmania I hired a car and headed for the wilderness. My first stop was Mt Wellington, with panoramic views across Hobart and out to the coast. Unfortunately the top was in the clouds (and bloody freezing) but I did get some of the views on my drive back down. Next I drove out to Mt Field national park to see the forests and the waterfalls. The part of Tasmania that I got to see had rolling hills and farmland but different to that of rural Victoria.

Wallaby at Mt Field

Mt Field national park, Tasmania

 
Melbourne is a fantastic place, and I would love to come back, but it is more of a city to live in than to be a tourist in. There are abundant cafes, restaurants, shops, bars, art galleries and museums to keep you entertained. The only downside was all the rain, but then nobody’s perfect! 

Melbourne skyline by night

Uluru

Alice Springs isn’t the biggest or liveliest town I have ever visited, but it is where our adventure to Uluru (or Ayers Rock) began. Myself and two friends from work, Steff and Clement, flew to Alice Springs and arrived into a small airport not unlike the one we fly into for work. The next day we were picked up bright and early for our 3 day organised tour out to the rock. There were about 15 people on the tour from all over the place (but mainly Germany) and we embarked on the 5 hour (yes 5 HOUR!!!!) drive out from Alice to Uluru through the flat, dry, fairly uninspiring outback where rain might not fall for years on end.

Steff, Clement and myself at Uluru

We arrived at the national park in time for a quick spot of lunch before driving straight out to Uluru where our tour guide took us on a quick walk, telling us some of the Aboriginal stories surrounding the rock and showing us some traditional Aboriginal art. Aboriginal boys, when they are ready to become men, do something called walkabout. If they return to their tribe after years of surviving on their own in the most hostile environment you can imagine, the Australian outback, they are initiated into the tribe as a man. Part of their initiation in the area surrounding Uluru involved climbing up and over the rock.

Ayers Rock

There are many traditional sacred sites around the rock, including parts solely for the use of men or women (known as men’s and women’s sites). You are not allowed to film or photograph these parts of the rock, which is why you only ever see one side of Uluru in photographs. Traditional Aboriginals will not have their photograph taken as they believe this will trap part of their soul when they move onto the next life, and you cannot publish the name of a deceased tribe member. You are able to climb up Uluru (and it’s not an easy climb, trust me!) however the local Aboriginals discourage this for many reasons including health, safety and cultural reasons. I did the walk around Uluru which took several hours. And yes, it really is just a pretty big rock.

Kata Tjuta

That evening we drove out to a viewpoint over Uluru to eat dinner and watch the sunset over the rock, which was pretty special. That night we camped out under the stars around the campfire in big, thick, waterproof sleeping bags called swags. It was surprisingly warm and comfortable despite the cold outside. The next morning we were up at 5am to catch the sunrise over Uluru, then after breakfast we headed onto the neighbouring rock formation called Kata Tjuta (also known as the Olgas). Both Uluru and Kata Tjuta were formed at the same time- both started life as huge basins (bowls in the ground) with a river flowing through them from the nearby mountains. In the first basin all the big, heavy rocks dropped out of the river, which eventually became Kata Tjuta. The second basin contained the finer sands and silts, and this formed Uluru. Both are made from the same rock but both have very different appearances. We did another long hike through the beautiful Kata Tjuta formation.

Looking over the edge at King's Canyon

The next day we visited King’s Canyon, Australia’s answer to the Grand Canyon. Again we were up bright and early to avoid the blistering heat of the midday sun, and hiked through the canyon for hours. I was pretty worn out by the end of it! We rounded off the tour with a visit to a camel farm. Did you know Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of camels- us Europeans thought they would do well in the desert? They did.

The next day we did a day tour to the nearby West MacDonnell ranges, which are a series of hills around Alice Springs. We spent the day driving along the ranges, seeing features along the way. Not quite as spectacular as Uluru but splendid nonetheless. Alice Springs itself is not all that lively, considering the volumes of people that pass through on their way to Uluru. It is named after the wife of the explorer who founded the town- a mission that took several attempts and many months in order to connect Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north.

 

Myself, Clement and Steff at Ormiston Gorge along the West MacDonnell Ranges

Perth



Ruth, myself and Anna on Christmas Eve

 The first day I arrived in Perth, it rained. And it has rained a lot since. But it has been sunny, and it is a great place to live. The house I live in is in a suburb called Carlisle- about 10 minutes away from the centre of town on the train, south of the Swan River. The house is enormous considering there are 3 of us living in it- myself, Anna and Ruth. I have the peasant’s quarters, so named because I had no job when we moved in and inherited most of my furniture from other people. Now I have a job and have splashed out on a bedside table. Last year we had a housewarming BBQ and we hosted Christmas dinner for us and a couple of friends and their family who were over here visiting.





Perth city from King's Park



Perth is a massive city, divided into hundreds of suburbs, each big enough to be called a town. On the train it can take over 30 minutes to get from the outskirts of the city into the city centre. It is an odd place, a little backwards in some ways, like a lot of Australia. For example, most shops in Perth are not open on a Sunday- and 24 hour supermarkets are non-existent. You’d be lucky to find one that stays open until 9pm. The metro train system is designed specifically to irritate the commuter; you will often see your connecting train leaving the station a mere 20 seconds after you arrived train 3 platforms over with no hope of making the train on time. And you know your next train will be leaving in 30 minutes. Sometimes though Perth will astound you with something (nothing comes to mind right now) and you think ‘why on earth hasn’t anyone else thought of that yet?!!’.

  

The centre of the city often has street performers and has some very good shopping. Just a short walk away is the Swan River, running all the way out to the west to the coast. Perth is only about 20 minutes’ drive from the nearest beach, and has some spectacular beaches all in an easy drive (I say drive because you invariably need a car to get to anywhere you actually want to go to). Just down the road is the coastal town of Fremantle, which is a great place to go and eat and shop and just walk around. We often go and watch the many ships coming in to port- it recently hosted an international sailing competition like Cowes week.

The Pinnacles

 Over Christmas we did a bit of travelling around to see some more of the area. There’s Caversham Wildlife Park where we got to see all sorts of native Australian wildlife, and I saw my first kangaroos (I ate them before I got to see them, and very tasty they are too). We went to a beautiful park called Yanchep where there are wild kangaroos and I saw koalas for the first time. A few hours’ drive to the north is the Pinnacles national park, which are thought to be ancient fossilised trees or tree roots (nobody is quite sure), and the coastal town of Cervantes.

Feeding the 'roos at Caversham Wildlife Park

My favourite place in all of Australia so far though has to be Margaret River, 3 hours to the south. This is the premier wine growing region of Western Australia, and is very English countryside in its appearance. It is a beautiful part of the world, with sandy beaches, turquoise seas and plenty of wine and good places to eat. There are also caves and lighthouses to see. I have been twice so far with various friends, and can’t wait for my next trip down there (my wine cellar is getting a bit low!).

Sunset at Margaret River



Wine tasting in Margaret River

On the beach on Christmas Day



 

The Midas Touch

A drill rig: the tall vertical bit is the drill which pumps sample
into the big red thing where the offsider is collecting the
samples in green bags- one bag = 1m of drilled earth

Producing gold isn't quite as easy as having the Midas Touch- it takes several years of work to go from a bare stretch of land to an operating gold mine. Firstly, if an area looks like it might have some gold, you have to acquire a licence to explore that land (it doesn't mean you own the land, and means you are only allowed to do a certain amount of work on that land).

Next, you need to make a plan about where you are going to look for gold and why. Most of the time the land that we take on has already been previously explored by another company so there are historical datasets and reports that we can look through to see what they have found before. We use this, and the geophysical data we have along with fieldwork to compose proposals about what we want to do next to further explore the area. This could be a soil sampling program, further geophysical surveys or if you are pretty sure about an area, we would propose a drill program.

Out doing some fieldwork in the sunshine

Once you have chosen where you are going to look for gold, you have to get environmental and heritage clearances on that land to make sure there isn't any particular wildife of historic aboriginal sites that you will be disturbing by working there.

Depending on the size of the area the drill program could be 10 drill holes or it could be 100's, and there are multiple different types of drilling you can do depending on what the ground conditions are and what information you want to get from the drilling. The cheapest type of drilling cannot drill very deep and only produces rock chips, but it is good when you are first exploring an area to see what might be out there. Usually you don't hit the gold deposit using this type of drilling, but when gold is formed in the earth there are a lot of chemicals associated with it and from these chemicals you can judge where the gold may be at depth.

Using the information from your first pass of drilling and you have a better idea of where the gold is, you can do a second phase of drilling which still gives rock chips but can go deeper and gives you more information about the bedrock. With all drill holes, samples are sent off to the labs to test for gold and other key chemicals that could indcate gold. While you are drilling, you keep a log of what rock types there are, any structures you see and whether the rocks have been altered by chemicals.

Me and Vaughan on a visit to the Kalgoorlie "superpit"- the pit that keeps Kalgoorlie in business! It produces
850,000 oz gold every year, which at $1400/oz is some serios money! The bucket that I am standing on is one that's used to shift all that ore!

If it looks like you have a really good gold deposit then you can use diamond drilling (which means the drill bits have industrial diamonds in them for strength). Diamond drilling produces a cylinder of rock that can be 100's of metres long (not all in one piece though!). From this you can clearly see the structures in the rock and the areas where the rocks have been altered- often you need both to find gold. However this is the most expensive kind of drilling, so you only use it when you know you have something good!

A field trip in January to learn about the local geology- 8 cars
in a row!

This whole exploration process in itself can take years and cost $100,000's, and sometimes the area you target just doesn't have enough gold in it and so it gets thrown out. But if you find a deposit that is big enough to mine, you pass that area onto the resource development team, who spend many months doing further modelling and drilling to define exactly where the gold is.

 

When the directors are happy that the target is going to make enough money, they will give the OK to mine it. At Integra we currently have 2 open pit mines (meaning we dig a big hole to get the gold out) and we have just started our 1st underground mine, and we have several more targets that are almot ready to mine.