Roy - the shaft - all timbered and with a ladderway - led to quite extensive drives and workings - there was air and water pipework - the whole "9 yards". In one drive there was a Toyo airdrill with short airleg all hooked up but very dusty - not used for a good while.
But we never saw any sign of mineralisation - the area is noted for ironstone containing gold, copper and bismuth. Not a thing. Maybe he was looking for something else - the area was littered with sapphires; loads of guys on the mine nearby were fossicking at the weekends.
Maybe he (apparently it was entirely his work and no one else's) was just crazier than a box of frogs and in the end decided another hill was a better prospect.
Me and the surveyor on the mine went out there after too many beers - in the dark - reckless buckos intent on proving how "not scared" we were. :ohmygod: Not our finest idea. I'd only recently read Innes's "Golden Soak" so my imagination was going a bit berserk at the time too....
I don't know now how long he'd been missing at that date (july 1978) or whether he ever turned up again but I was back in the area again in 1980 and no-one mentioned him as the surveyor had moved on (the workforce in Oz mines seemed to be very transitory and the guys I had known previously had mostly moved on).