Terraces mined since 1866 and redolent with nostalgia and authenticity have been re-opened both to win gold and to demonstrate the original methods used to extract the precious metal from ancient raised marine deposits.
Here, as nowhere else, one steps quite literally into the past. In a tranquil bush setting a restored battery, driven by an overshot waterwheel, pulverises gold-bearing ‚cement‘, which is then washed over copper-mercury tables designed to trap the gold. A miner’s hut, gold-mining equipment, a system of water races and a host of tunnels, dug last century to exploit the rich ‚beach leads‘, may also be inspected. The claim has been worked by one family into the fifth generation.