Monday, June 28, 2010

Searching for the Diggers Graveyard mine

All of us who live or have lived in New England have our own perspectives of the place based on where we lived and our experiences. I have written on this quite a bit in one way or another, attempting to bring different perspectives alive.

The gorge country that forms the eastern edge is a unique world in its own right. This was once flat country with rivers flowing to the west from distant eastern mountains. Then came continental drift and uplift. Western flowing rivers were forced to flow east, creating great gorges and a sometimes crazy river pattern.

20100512-09-42-40-diggers-graveyard-mine--valley-view Gordon Smith often explores this country in his lookANDsee photo blog.

Just at present, Gordon is searching for the Diggers Graveyard mine. This photo shows the valley view before descent. Gordon's caption reads:

  If I’ve got my bearings correct, this is looking upstream (north) as we descend into the valley with the Macleay River just visible behind the trees in the foreground (left of centre). At this point we’re about 13 km (8 miles) south of Hillgrove.

It's beautiful if very rugged country. Perhaps it's time for another geography post!     

4 comments:

Augustus Winston said...

Hi Jim I have just come back from the Congo. The DR Congo to be precise as opposed to the Republic of the Congo and the landscape is eerily like that of New England. With native forests and hills. So too is the political climate with much talk of overthrowing the corrupt governing body and secession from its economic ties to South Africa. You may remember the Belgian Congo war. And like New england the Congo has vast resources that could be tapped for its own use. I'm all for it and I now have a deeper understanding of New England's fight for self determination. Unfortunately most of them speak french and I was not always able to make them aware of the parrallels that exist between their struggle and yours. I think a good first step would be to make Kinshasa, the capital, a sister city to Armidale but I'm not sure of the process. I have written to the Department of Foreign Affairs and I await some advice on this.
Cheers
AW

Jim Belshaw said...

Hi Augustus and thanks. What were you doing in the Congo?

Augustus Winston said...

Hi Jim I went to see the Okapi which is something I have been wanting to do since February 2005. You probably already know this but in case you don't an Okapi is half horse, half zebra (the rear end is zebra the front is horse except for the head which is similar to a taper. I have a picture of one but am not sure how to post it on this site.
Cheers
AW

Jim Belshaw said...

Hi Augustus. No, I hadn't heard about the Okapi. If you want to email me the photo, ndarala(at)optusnet(dot)com(dot)au will run it.