Hi Everyone,
After an impromptu decision to go away last weekend I headed out to an old gold mine and town called Mt Palmer. It was such an awesome trip. It took five hours to get to from Perth as its just out of Southern Cross. This photo is of the lake right next to the gold mine and you can see Emu tracks in the middle leading off into the distance.
Mt Palmer was named after Augustus Palmer who found gold there. Mt Palmer was an extremely rich strike as it produced 68g of gold per ton whereas the super pit produces between 3g to 5g of gold per ton. People were extremely excited and started to peg the area as quickly as they could. Unfortunately for Augustus Palmer he forgot to actually peg a claim and never made a cent from the find!
The mine only lasted 10yrs as the gold eventually ran out and because the Second World War was on, the mines struggled to get labour. The mine produced in todays terms $93 million dollars worth of gold in that short time. Pretty impressive. Apparently there was actually a lot more gold removed from the area but because it was stolen it was never recorded. Interestingly, a number of small ‘shows’ shutdown the moment the main mine shutdown.
This gold mine supported both underground mining and alluvial gold mining.
We camped right next to the old Mt Palmer hotel (photos of that to come) and the stars were absolutely sensational and I miss seeing them in the city. Now I’m not usually one for camping but I came up with a new solution to the thing I hate the most about camping
After I setup this contraption I was really comfortable camping and I most certainly could’ve stayed out there a few more days. It was also great spending time out there with my Dad and a great friend as well. We are now planning the next trip away.
Also finally my car wasn’t the one needed to be recovered. I had to use my car to recover my Dad and I’ve got the evidence right here. You can see Dad and my friend digging the mud out from underneath the front tyres of his car. Range Rover wins this time round!
Thanks,
Jamie Paterson
10 Comments
Great story Jamie, the top image is a cracker! Nice bit of lateral thinking on the latrine.
What happened to Mrs Palmer??
Hey Tim,
Thanks very much mate. Glad you liked the image. I’m guessing if there was a Mrs Palmer and daughters she would’ve dumped him after his mistake.
Jamie
Hey hey mate, that’s my specialty. Wide Open Spaces is (c) me ok? You do your King of the Waves thing mate, I do not want competition this good in the wide open spaces!
Jamie this is really sweet. I would love to see it wider and it’s very blue for me, but it is magnifient wide open space allowing the viewer to escape infinitely to infinity. I hate you now 🙂
Hey Flemming,
You’re still the King of Wide Open Spaces! I just try different things to keep ‘thinking’ photographically, I think its easy for us to become comfortable with what we do and get stuck in a rut. I must admit I found this image hard as I had to completely change my mindset from ocean to space.
Jamie
cracker Jamie, well done mate.
Hi Andrew,
Thank you very much mate.
Jamie
i definitly thought that said “mrs palmer trip” .. i was like.. oh really 😉
haha, beautiful shot jamie
sounds like a lot of fun
Hey Chloe,
It was heaps of fun! I’m going to go out bush again soon I think.
Jamie
Jamie you did well. Composition is great. It does look very blue/cyan, I might have warmed it some, but the feeling of expanse is captured well!
Hi Flemming,
Thanks for that mate. I am going to tinker with this a little more and see what I come up with. Your suggestions have certainly given me some more ideas. Stay tuned for the ‘final’ product.
Jamie