A Day in Thames - Hitchhiking, Iron Lungs, and Mine Shafts

Today I hitchhiked down to Thames to spend the day exploring the town. (The weather forecast wasn't that nice so I didn't want to go kayaking on a cloudy day - the water wouldn't be all pretty and blue like it would on a sunny day.) I got a ride down to Thames with a nice guy - but I wasn't really sure how it would work out when he pulled up. At first I was somewhat hesitant to get in his car but I hadn't been having that much luck with rides. I did decide to get in and then instantly thought that maybe it was a bad idea. In the end, however, he turned out to be a nice guy who knew the road pretty well and got me there fairly quickly. The road to Thames is very hilly and windy and hard to drive and he did a good job. He works in IT so we hit it off on that point, being that my last job was in IT at MoneyGram. Towards the end of the drive, however, he got off on some tangent about IT that turned in something about democracy and something else and I don't know. It got kinds long towards the end and I was just trying to stay awake. But he took me right to the mall where I needed to go and I arrived in one piece. Yay!

I went to have my cowboy boots looked at about getting repaired. He said he could do it but the that they were in such bad shape that it wasn't worth it because they're going to fall apart soon anyways. (Mom - you'll probably have to send me my new pair in the next few months.) Saved me money so that was nice. After getting the news about my shoes I wanted to fine the local i-Site (information center). All over NZ the information centers are called i-Sites. I assumed that everyone in NZ knew that but apparently they don't. I asked multiple locals where the i-Site was and they kept sending me to the optometrist. It wasn't until I asked for the information center that I actually got to the right place. When I told the girl at the i-Site about this she said that yes, people in NZ just refer to it as the information center. Anyways, the girl who worked there was very helpful and gave me lots of information on places all over NZ. Now I have lots of brochures to look through and activities to plan!

I then walked down to a cute cafe, Sola Cafe, for coffee and to look over my new brochures. After that I headed across the street to Cafe Melbourne for lunch. The fires were really good but the sliders were a bit dry.

After lunch I went over to the Thames Historical Museum where I bought Kauri Gum for the girls at the cafe as gifts and got to see an Iron Lung in person. It was such a random thing to be in the museum but it was pretty cool. I never understood what an Iron lung was up until this point but now I understand. Here's some photos and a description of the Iron Lung:

Creepy mannequin...

After I left this museum I headed down the road to the Goldmine Experience. 

It was $15/person and since no one else was there I got a private tour. Pretty sweet, right?! Anyways, I got to go through real gold mine mine shafts on the tour and see how the gold was extract from the quartz. I did a similar tour in Coromandel Town a few weeks back at the Gold Stamper Battery but there weren't any mine shafts on display at the tour so I did this one as well. Here's some photos. I'll share some facts with you at the end.

Mine shaft. This is a real mine shaft that was used when this mine was operational. The earth here is clay and thus the walks are fairly "soft" and damp. By soft I mean they are not hard rock. 

A cart used to move the quartz from inside the mine to the outside where they would pulverize it and extract the gold. That cart there would hold about 300kg of quartz - pretty heavy. The tunnels did not have lights where they were operational so people would have been traversing them in complete darkness. The person pushing the cart would have likely been a 14 or 15 year old boy.

My guide, Phil.

Making holes for the dynamite. The workers would have a few candle near where they were working to provide some light.

Going from level 3 up to level 2. The mine I was in was originally 7 levels, with the lowest level being 300 meter underground. The 7th level was dug out under the ocean and was eventually flooded with ocean water resulting in many deaths. There were no good records of exactly how many people died. Once the lower levels of the mine were flooded there was no way to pump out the water and thus they became unusable. With modern technology they have now been emptied of water but were not usable for many years.

A quartz vein through the clay. The quartz is where the gold and silver is located. They would dynamite out the quartz and then refine it for the gold and silver it contained.

Here I am in the mine shaft with my hard hat on. It wasn't actually dangerous in there but the ceilings were low so you wore a hat just to make sure you didn't injure yourself in case you hit your head.

An old mining tunnel that has a collapsed roof. You can see all the tree roots dangling down from the vegetation above.

The exit/entrance of the mine.

After going through the mining tunnels we went inside the workroom where the quartz was pulverized and the gold was extracted. The quartz is first crushed into small pieces. It then goes through the stamper where it is pulverized to sand sized pieces. It then flows over a vibrating table where the light weight clay/earth is separated out from the heavy silver, gold, and other metals. The gold, silver, metal mixture is then mixed in a Berdan (pot thing) with mercury. The mercury gels all the metals together so they can easily be separated from any remaining rock/sand. This mercury and metal mixture is then placed into a cloth and squeezed with bare hands to separate out the mercury for re-use. As a note, no protective equipment is used at all in this process. The mercury is being handled with bare hands and many heavy metals including lead and zinc are being inhaled as fumes. obviously not a very safe working environment - resulted in lots of brain damage. After the mercury has been removed, the remaining metal mixture is heated to burn off all metals except the gold and silver. What is left is then turning into bullion and at the time the mine was working, was sent to Perth for weighing and sale. 

When Thames was in the height of the gold rush, there were 700 stampers operating 24 hours/day 6 days/week. Each stamped weighed 1000 lb.. These were constantly running crushing rocks, day and night. The noise must have been deafening. Apparently, however, people had more trouble sleeping on the one day off, Sundays, than they did the rest of the week. 

Here's a few more photos from my time at the gold mine:

Selfie in the Mine Elevator Cart.

The old morgue building. It wasn't originally at the mine site but many a miner passed through this building back in the day.

A very basic map of the mine underground. 

Me in the mine elevator.

After the tour I headed back to Coromandel town. I got a ride from a nice guy from Auckland, Hayden. It was a very nice ride. His car had leather seats :) Oh, the simple things you really learn to appreciate! He gave me his info so I'll probably ring him when I'm in Auckland - maybe he'll show me some good night life in that city. He also has some friends on Waiheke island, where I'd like to go for at least a few days, so that'll be nice if he can put me in touch with them.

Tonight at the cafe we did a shared meal for our last night together. The girls don't leave until Monday but I work every other night this week so I won't have time for a dinner. We all made great dishes and had so much fun laughing all night. They also all really liked my gift of Kauri Gum pieces (it's like sap or amber but not expensive or worth much). I gave them to the girl so we could carry them with us and always remember each other -at least until we loose or throw out the gum pieces. 

I made a broccoli and blue cheese quiche for dinner. Here's a photo:

I got high marks on the quiche from everyone. Patricia really liked the crust, and being that she's a professional baker the made me feel very good. Here's a link to the crust recipe I used if you'd like to try it. Only thing I didn't do was use ice water - I just used cold tap water and that worked just fine. 

For the quiche I loosely followed a recipe I found on-line but mostly made it up. Here's that recipe:

Ingredients:

1 pie crust

1 cup broccoli florets

1/4 cup blue cheese crumbles (I never measured when I made it but I think this is about how much I used. Obviously adjust to taste as blue cheese has a very strong flavor.)

1 handful parmesan cheese grated

1 cup heavy cream

4 eggs

Bake crust at 200* C for about 10 minutes. Make sure to puncture the bottom of the crust so as to let out any air bubbles that may form. 

Boil or steam broccoli florets until tender. Spread on bottom of pie crust. Spread blue cheese crumbles as well. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over both.

Blend cream and eggs with hand mixer until just mixed. Do not over mix. Pour over broccoli and cheeses. Press broccoli and cheese down into egg mixture if needed. 

Back at 180* C for 20 minutes (or until done). 

Invite over 3 good friends and enjoy :)

Here's a photo of our entire meal with all the contributions present:

Lastly, for NZ news, they are currently considering getting a new flag in NZ right now. One of the options, a silver fern on a black background, closely resembles the flag for the All Blacks, the New Zealand rugby team. Here's an All Blacks are I saw today in Thames - all decked out to support the team! The guy in the front seat is not real - wow, they're really into mannequins in Thames. I saw them almost everywhere I went. Anyways, here's a link to a new article about the issue. I hope they don't take the southern cross of the flag now that I have it tattooed on my body, but I guess if they do then I'll have a piece of history on my thumb forever.

Okay, that's all for today.

Night!

Best!