A story of an incident early in my career where I came to understand that not everything you are told is the truth and what you see can be an illusion.
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East of the basalt towns scattered along the high divide in
the New England lies the fall country - rough, steep, inaccessible and lonely,
dissected by the rivers as they run towards the coast with its wide rivers and coastal
plains and lots of people. The high country and the coast are tenuously connected
by a few ridge hugging highways and narrow meandering routes, barely roads,
which track the rivers carved deep into the landscape. Between the connections lie
vast areas almost untouched by humans. The populated east coast of Australia
hides wilderness forested to the horizon.
We met up in Glen Innes and climbed into his shabby old
Nissan scarred loudly with bush experience, and headed east; an hour on the
asphalt and the another hour and a half on the track which rose and fell,
twisted and turned and carved a convoluted path from the high ridges to the
river lying far below. Glances through the trees brought nervous gasps as from
the narrow path all that could be seen were the tops of trees hundreds of feet
high and then distant mountains.
Our driver was entirely at ease. He oozed rough country
demeanour -his skin tanned and leathery and his hands gnarled and etched with
embedded grime. They had seen many a shovel, axe, tyre and chainsaw. His
clothes were utilitarian to a fault, solid soiled boots with folded socks, boxer
shorts with scattered tears and a stained tee shirt which barely held together
over his wide shoulders. Three score and ten was my guess and most of it spent
working for tin, while dreaming of sapphires and gold.
His reputation had preceded him. This was a man who wanted to do things his way.
Government, which my colleague and I represented, was all just unnecessary
rules and restrictions. So to hell with it. Do it anyway and, if they find out,
then worry about it later. Deep in the bush you can often do that.
We bounced and bumped down the increasingly steep track to a
point where it forked. “The old track was no good” said John, “so I dropped the
dozer blade and slid it down”. I nervously looked down the hill and said “I’ll walk
a bit (or scramble as it turned out) and have a look at the rocks on the way”
as I quickly swung out of the cabin. Low-range was engaged but the vehicle
continued a semi-controlled slide for 50 metres down the rubbly path til it was
brought to rest on the narrow alluvial flat covered in casuarinas next to the
river.
“This is one end of my lease application area” said John in
his slow country growl. “There’s gold everywhere”. It was hard to believe that
this now gentle stream had carved its way through a kilometre of rock to create
the amazing spectacle before us.
A sharp eye could pick up that we were not the first to reach
this wild place. Traces of water races tracked along the banks and piles of
stones were scattered amongst the trees. The old-timers rarely missed anything.
“But they left so much” said the prospector offering to wash
some dirt from the river bank in the gold pan he pulled from the back of his
truck. My National Parks colleague and I stood and watched as the slow and
steady swirling on the river’s edge reduced the pan of dirt and rocks to a thin
string. “There, just look at that” he said emphatically. The twinkle of gold in
a pan is unmistakable and it was there in abundance. Throughout the long day we
were ushered to several more sites each with bountiful gold. We were impressed
by the gold, the scenery and the stamina of this rugged bushman. His offers to
wash the dirt, gave us opportunity to mull over what impact this bonanza might
have on the enveloping wilderness.But it did not end there. In the weeks following I drafted a glowing report recommending approvals but others who visited the site without the bushman could not duplicate our experience. Perplexed I withheld my report and gradually the truth emerged like the gold from the pan. We had been taken for mugs by this wily rogue. It’s amazing what you can do with raised expectations and a few sprinkles of gold dust from your boxer pockets into the pan. Before his applications had been formally refused John had on-sold his rights for a handsome sum, telling some starry-eyed investors of the wonderful results that were soon to be reported by “those blokes from the government”. His fortune made, the bushman disappeared, as if into the forest, no doubt believing in due government process.
The area is now lies undisturbed in the centre of one of the largest wildernesses in New South Wales and the little gold that is there slowly migrates to towards the sea.
