Downunder question about all our PT Diggers

[kokopup]

I know another nickname for you Aussies is Digger/Diggers. One of your famous V8 Supercar champions, Marcos Ambrose, is now an American Nascar driver. I have read that his pastime when not racing is panning for Gold. How prevalent is this as a pastime in the general public? Are any of you real diggers or just in name A seaweed wants to know.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features..._ambrose-sport

[cloverfdx]

I live in Central Victoria (Ballarat to be exact) and we are/ were a huge Gold Mining area back in the 1800s and 1900s. There is still mining going on underground near where my Pop lives in the city.

Sovereign Hill is also popular with visitors to our lovely City .

http://www.sovereignhill.com.au/

[kokopup]

It looks like Sovereign Hill is still cashing in on the old gold rush. We have the
same sort of thing in tourist areas out west that were gold rush areas, these brought a lot of dreamers back then hoping for riches. Some of these became
ghost towns and others prospered for other reasons once the gold was gone.

[wombat2u2004]

There was lots and lots of gold found here around Armidale, places called Uralla and Hillgrove. They still mine gold in Hillgrove, but the main ore they mine is antimony......gold and antimony are found together. Most of the gold bearing areas around Hillgrove are under lease by mining companies, so fossicking and panning is out of the question there.
Uralla on the other hand, has had it's day, and all that remains there are old diggings and lots of government owned fossicking areas (which are for the public). I have been to a few of those areas, but never found any gold, just a few sapphires (there are lots of gemstones around Armidale area).

A few months back I actually went on a dig to a place called Nundle, about 2hours drive from here. There is gold there to, but I go to Nundle to dig fossil coprolites (fossilised dinosaur dung). Near where I dig for these fossils, is an old disused open cut gold mine. The open cut in some 60 feet deep, and at the bottom of the cut is a 3-4 foot layer of smooth rounded river pebbles, an indication that there was a prehistoric river there many millions of years ago....we refer to that as a DEEP LEAD.
I want to go back there again soon, and dig up some of this old river gravel, and take it home to pan it out.....I've been told a fair bit of gold was found there by the original miners.

Just a bit more info on the gold/antimony mine in Hillgrove. I have a mate here in Armidale who used to work there many years ago. They would mine the antimony, and put it into hessian bags and load the bags of ore onto trucks to take down to the coast. At the end of each day of loading those bags onto trucks, my mate's arms would be the colour of gold, as if someone painted his arms a golden colour. Such is the amount of gold dust that is found with the antimony.

[wombat2u2004]

I know another nickname for you Aussies is Digger/Diggers.

The nickname 'Digger' is attributed to the number of ex-gold diggers in the early army units and to the trench digging activities of the Australian soldiers during World War I. The actual origin of the name has been lost in time but the Australian soldier is known affectionately around the world as the Digger.