Simon

After we visited the gold dredge, we drove to Nelson Creek to explore a bit in an old goldfield. Simon was very happy to drive some of us in his car. He was careful, and never scared his mom!

To get to the swing bridge, we first went through this tunnel.

If you don’t like walking on bridges that bounce, this one is not for you! Even with noone trying to bounce it, it still did a lot. I crossed it, but I really didn’t like it.

Looking upstream from the bridge—yes, it was drizzly.

I thought it was appropriate that the water was somewhat gold-colored!

After we crossed that little side creek, we started up this trail. I couldn’t possibly capture the scenery here; there were steep banks going up both sides of the trail. We were walking at the bottom of a deep ravine. It was amazing to walk through this area!

When we reached this cave, of course everyone had to explore it. It was a mining tunnel dug by the Chinese gold miners in the late 1800s. A creek runs through the bottom of it, into Nelson Creek. We enjoyed seeing glowworms in the ceiling—but our feet got cold! The water was frigid.

This is Simon, in a part of the tunnel some 20 feet above where Esther and Little Miss were standing in the picture above! He was pointing out the marks left by the mining picks in the ceiling around him. It was very dark, and my flash wouldn’t reach to where he was, so that’s why it’s blurry.

Going back through the ravine. The boys explored another tunnel they found, but some of us stayed on the path.

It lightened up a little as we crossed the bridge again going back to the car!

Simon has been telling us about a gold dredge that he likes to ride a motorbike to in the evenings after work, so we wanted to see it while we were there. It’s across the road and through some paddocks from where he lives, near the banks of the Grey River.

We drove as far as we could, then parked the vehicles and walked the rest of the way. It was drizzling, as it did the entire time we were over there—when it wasn’t pouring! There were a few five-minute times that the sun shone, but then the clouds would close in again.

This is the gold dredge, from a distance.

We crossed this bridge to get to it.

The water weeds were quite interesting under the bridge.

A close-up of the dredge. It is enormous!

Look closely; you can see buckets inside here that are used to dig 10 meters deep. They haven’t run this dredge for several years, but they would dig out gravel and sand, then separate the rocks from the small stuff. The rocks were pushed out the back; you can see a huge pile of them behind the machine. Then, they ran water through the sand and ran it over a series of riffles. The sand ran off, and the heavier gold dust stayed behind. This dredge would move back and forth to dig up all the ground, and it took the water with it—it’s always floating. They would level out the tailings behind it, and then gorse and broom would grow on the rocks. After several years, someone would spray the gorse and broom and the ground would grow grass for animals. We were told that this is the best way to make productive land in the area. Before the dredge went through, the land was swamp, good for nothing except growing sandflies; after, we saw herds of cattle grazing on it.

Since Monday the 23rd of October was a holiday, we decided to go visit Simon. We were pleased to discover that, even with our somewhat weak van, it only took four hours to get there, since we weren’t towing anything this time. We got there at lunchtime Saturday, and left right after lunch on Monday.  We enjoyed getting to spend time with our boy and the family he lives with, and see where he lives and works. This room is his sleepout, on the deck attached to the house.

All five boys slept in the sleepout for the weekend.

This is Simon’s car, which he bought a few weeks ago. Apparently, it was completely covered with moss, which took a few hours to waterblast off.

The workshop where he spends his days.

This is the house, when you approach it from the workshop.

Simon’s sleepout is at the far right.

The front of the house. This was the Ngahere Hotel until the family Simon lives with bought it about a year and a half ago. It was in quite bad shape inside, having been very neglected even though it was still in use. They have done a lot of work and turned it into a large, nice house.