I dug the helmet out and attached it to my Honda 90cc motor bike, and away I went to the Sportsmans Bowl where Tony lived. It was all of a five minute drive from Wally and Auntie Kay’s house.
Tony was ready and waiting when I pulled up to the house. He strapped on the helmet and we departed for regions unknown. At the highway he directed me to drive south. Upon entering town he told me to go up Fairview Road.
We went up out of the orchard lands, passed Murfitts, passed the open pits by the road and continued to climb. The Honda 90 wasn’t fast but it did a great job hauling us two light weights.
Somewhere along the line we turned off the roadway and then I knew where we were going. I’d been there before, but not by motorbike. We pulled up to the tunnel entrance.
This was the entrance of the old Fairview gold mine that had been shut down during the late 1950’s or the early 1960’s. I’m not sure when it was closed, perhaps one of my readers could enlighten me.
Anyways, the entry may have been boarded up at one time but it wasn’t that day. I parked the bike, we left our helmets on, and proceeded to enter the tunnel. I understood the reasoning behind the crash helmets as I repeatedly banged the helmet on the walls. Tony had a couple of flashlights which we turned on when we couldn’t see any more daylight.
I don’t know how long we walked, but eventually we came to a huge cavern, close to the size of a two story house or larger. I gazed in awe. Tony led and we started going downwards, slipping and sliding down the tailings.
We went into another tunnel and eventually came to another huge cavern of similar size as the first. It was there in a side tunnel where Tony showed me a box of old dynamite with the glycerine oozing from the paper covered sticks, we didn’t touch it.
Again we headed in a downward direction and eventually leveled off. We walked down another tunnel until I saw daylight in the distance. Soon we broke out into fresh, sunny air. Tony said we had just walked out of the bottom level. The motor bike was at the entry of the top level.
There were three levels, top, middle, and bottom. Gold had been extracted from them all. There were tailings everywhere. One of the levels still had the steel rails upon which the ore cars had traveled.
The middle entry was full of water and impossible to cross, so it was not explored. That summer, we went into the mine several more times and explored as much as possible, until other distractions took our attention.
The following year, Tony went back to explore again but said there had been a massive slide inside and he wasn’t going to go back in because he felt it was too unstable.
Fifty years plus have gone by since our youthful curiosity took us into that old mine. Now my curiosity is more about its history. Any takers to tell us that story?