Hanging around Leonora...

If you had asked us last month where we thought we would be in July it certainly wouldn’t be in a donger out the back of Leonora eating camp food and abseiling off mine sites. We have managed however to do just that.

Firstly, back to Thursday morning…. Marilyn managed to book us in to go underground at Bellaire, a Goldmine 30k out from Kambalda right in the middle of a Salt lake, (which makes it one of the wettest mines in the Southern Hemisphere). We arrived at 9.00am signed our lives away at the gates, then we were kitted up in overalls, gumboots, safety glasses, gas masks, head torches, earplugs, gloves, basically all safety equipment known to mankind jumped into a very dirty and rusty version of Bob and headed 470m underground. Down into the pit then down into the dark we drove, down and down. We were not prepared for was how incredibly beautiful it was down there. Most people know that by now we are very familiar with stalagmites and tites and everything else that goes with caves, however the salt crystals down in the mine were absolutely amazing! They were everywhere, even cascading down the walls of the pit before we entered the mine, was thousands upon thousands of salt crystals. (Unfortunately I couldn’t take my camera down, I have a few pics from Marilyn’s camera but they will have to be uploaded at a later date). The tour went pretty smoothly, until the end. The guide managed to get us stuck in a disused but most beautiful part of the mine which was absolutely bucketing down with salty water. The water was so salty as soon as you stepped out of the car you could taste the salt on your lips. Being a disused section and the wettest part of the mine meant to enter into it you had to drive through a massive set of orange gates which then closed behind you. They decided they didn’t want to let us back out so we sat in the cruiser water torrenting around us, while we waited for someone to some and rescue us and whisk us back to the big wild world upstairs.

Anyway back to why we are chilling out in a Donga. Thursday afternoon we Left Kambalda and headed to Kal to stay the night a Craig’s place. (Friend of Brett’s Brother.) Craig currently runs a Mine rescue training company and after a few Beers Brett and I had signed up to Vertical Cave Rescue course at a Jaguar mine 60k out from Leonora. So that’s where we are now. Yesterday morning was spent doing theory and the afternoon abseiling off the side of a nickel crusher. Today we spent the whole day undertaking rescue scenarios off the mill.

The whole experience has been pretty awesome, you don't normally have the chance to throw you self off the side of a mining site and we still have a whole day left of it tomorrow. Off to bed to catch some dreamtime and up at 4 tomorrow morning to hang off some more buildings.

Photos coming soon.......