11 August 2012
PLEASE NOTE: Due to hardware failure, all video and photos from Lake George Mine have been permanently lost.
Tech support are unable to recover the files so another trip to the Mine will have to be re-scheduled.
Lake George Mine - Captain's Flat NSW
From Wikipedia:
Captains Flat is a town in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia, in Palerang Shire. It is south of Queanbeyan.
It is suggested that a bullock named "Captain" from Foxlow station, 12 km away, grazed here and hence the place name.
The area was originally inhabited by Ngarigu Aboriginals prior to European settlement. The town formed as a result of mining for gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper and iron pyrites in the hills surrounding the upper reaches of the Molonglo River. The town boomed from 1881 to 1899 then went into a rapid decline until 1939 when rail access revived mining activity for another 23 years.
Copper was found in the area in 1874 by JE Wright of Foxlow station. The Molonglo goldfield was declared in 1882 and mining for gold and silver commenced at two mines, Koh-i-noor and Commodore, which were operated by two mining companies. Two blast furnaces were built in 1885. The two companies merged in 1894 and formed the Lake George United Mining and Smelting Company. Up to that time the mines had produced mainly copper with some silver and a small amount of gold. Processing was made harder because of the presence of zinc. To convey ore to the bins at the smelter, the company built a 2 ft (610mm) tramway in 1897. Trains of small 4-wheel dump cars were hauled by a Krauss steam locomotive. The tramway appears to have closed about 1902. In the early twentieth century the mine produced gold and copper. Mining activity ceased in 1920.
The impact on European markets due to World War II meant mining operations were subsidised by the government through power and freight concessions as the foreign revenue was seen as important to the Australian economy. In 1940, 550 people were employed and the local population was 1700. The mining company, Lake George Mines, built 152 fibro cottages for married miners, a hostel for single men and some of the population lived in tents. The company also built a theatre, hospital tennis courts and a swimming pool, paid for the medical staff, the provision of street lighting, electricity and water.
There were some significant strikes by the miners in the 1940s and 50s. The strike of 1948/49 and the lockout of 1954/55 both lasted for seven months. The mine closed on 11 March 1962 due to the lack of viable ore. To that point men had worked in tunnels extending 840 metres (2,800 feet) below the ground. From 1939 to 1962 just over 4 million tonnes of ore was extracted containing 1.5 million tonnes of concentrates: 39% of which were zinc, 33% pyrites, 24% lead, 5% copper, and small amounts of gold (2850 tonnes) and silver (155 tonnes). Immediately after the closure the Lake George Mines dismantled and sold the infrastructure including removing many of the cottages.
Evidence of the past mining activity remains above Captains Flat with a stream that flows into the Molonglo River
The railway closed on 31 August 1968 but reopened for a few weeks in 1969 for the filming of the movie "Ned Kelly".
The impact of sulphur and acid rain produced by the smelting has resulted in the area around the mines having a stark and somewhat alien landscape reminiscent of Queenstown in Tasmania.
In the 1939 and 1942 mine tailings and slime dams collapsed into the Molonglo River. The resulting pollution severely damaged the ecological communities of the Molonglo River downstream from the mine site, and eradicated all native fish populations. Despite Federal and NSW government funded remediation programs of $2.5m in 1976, toxic leachates still enter the river from the Captains Flat mine site. The remediation works covered the waste dumps with impermeable clay and vegetation designed to reduce the risk of catatastrophic failure of the dumps. The owners of the mine were not held accountable for the pollution nor contributed to the remediation of the environmental impact. A large stretch of the Molonglo is still devoid of native fish and waiting for native fish species to be re-established.
Prospecting has commenced in the area again, begun by Monaro Mining and apparently now largely taken over by Ironbark Gold
GTA Visit to Captain's Flat Mine - Easter 2012
(NB - As of 11 August 2012 the photos and video from this trip are yet to be properly analysed due to a Hard Disk Drive failing. Should this footage ever be able to be recovered an analysis will be conducted)
Date: 7 April 2012
Location: Captain's Flat, NSW
Crew: Savo, Petar, Josh, Gabriella and Zane.
Weather: Fine, calm and clear.
PLEASE NOTE: With the exception of the public areas which are clearly marked, nearly all of the Lake George Mine Site is on PRIVATE PROPERTY and entry to the site without permission will lead to prosecution. The owners do not run tours nor do they grant permission to the general public to enter the old mine site day or night.
With the permission of the mine owners, GTA spent an afternoon and evening exploring the Lake George Mine site on the Easter long weekend in 2012.
This is a place with an amazing history, a spectacular outlook over the surrounding country side and plenty of remnants of a once booming mining town. As we walked around the old buildings, silos and footings, you could easily imagine hundreds of busy miners toiling above and below the rocky outcrop.
Over the years that the mine operated, there have been 20 reported deaths at the lake George Mine. Most of these deaths occurred in accidents underground and it was the spirits of these passed miners that we hoped to encounter.
It was getting towards late afternoon, so after meeting with the mine owners, we headed off and began orientating ourselves; starting at the 1937 mine entrance (photographed above). Unfortunately, due to safety reasons, the NSW Mining Authority has sealed all of the entrances to the underground mines, but there were still plenty of places to see and investigate.
Joining me at the mine was Josh, Gabriella, Zane and my brother Petar. The air was crisp and still as the sun set and you could straight away feel that the entire site still had it's energy of the old mining days. The area was huge. From the top of the hill where the uncovered (but unfortunately sealed) main entrance is located, up to the mine head ruins and then down to the smelting and storage silos lies a lot of history.
Apart from the sheer size of the area, the biggest thing we noticed, and what would prove to be a major problem later in the night; was the constant sound of dogs barking. The property owners have established a breeding stud for Alaskan Husky dogs and the constant and loud barks of these dogs echoes all throughout the site. That aside, we were impressed at the still present layout and structure of the Lake George Mine.
Appreciation done, B roll shot and lay of the land complete, the GTA crew awaited nightfall.
We started out our visit at the bottom of the old mine site, near the footings of the warehouses and lower tunnel entrances. The area echoed continuously with the dogs barking making it impossible to try conducting any EVP sessions. The EMF meter was running but never changed the whole time we were amongst the lower part of the mine site.
As we began to make our way up the hill, as I crossed over the processing plant floor, I suddenly felt uneasy. I pulled out the camera and started taking photos of the area that I felt the uneasy feeling was coming from. Sure enough, there was two orbs exactly where I thought the presence was located. To validate the photos, I continued snapping around the whole area, and not a single orb was again photographed anywhere at the Lake George Mine site. Over the course of the night I took hundreds of photos, in tunnels, in ruins and above ground but there was not a single other orb, or dust reflection photographed at all. Not until I again went back to the processing room area, and I again photographed another orb. (Photos in the GTA Photo gallery)
Walking down the hill, we came across an old tunnel entrance, collapsed about 20 metres inside. As I entered, night vision cam running, a flock of starlings nesting inside came flying out scaring everyone! Again, due to the dogs barking, an EVP session could not be conducted. It was a great insight into what the entrances to the mine would have been like back when the mine was operating.
We continued to make our way up the rocky outcrop, filming, photographing and checking out the environment with our various iPhone apps. While there were a lot of interesting places to see, the meters really didn't pick up on anything and nothing was revealed in our photos that we saw at the time.
We made our way to the front of the old storage silos, which are still mostly intact, the sulphites still leaching out from the bins. Surprisingly, the dogs had stopped barking and the entire site was very, very quiet. We could even hear a local couple walking about 100 metres away as they discussed with each other how we were "Ghost Hunting".
Zane was using his EMF meter and as he walked about the silos, he noticed some slight spiking on one occasion and as it was spiking he suddenly felt a cold chill move by his side. The feelings stayed with Zane for a few moments, hairs standing on end and chills down his side and then passed, as did the EMF spikes.
The rest of the time spent moving up the site was uneventful. No EMF readings, no EVPs captured and nothing photographed or felt. The dogs started up their barking again and the peace and quiet was gone again.
Then we got to the mine's main entrance.
The terrain of the entrance meant that it was a very quiet, still location; perfect for an EVP session. Before starting the session, I felt a very strong emotional pull towards the now completely bricked in entrance. I took out my iPhone and turned on the EMF meter. I'd been using the EMF all night and it hadn't moved a bit. But, as I brought the device to the bricked entrance, the meter went off the scale! I pulled it away, and it went back to nothing. Back to the wall and again it constantly had high EMF readings. I moved the EMF to every single rocky outcrop, pole, post and anything else I could see in order to get a reading. Nothing. The only time that the EMF gave any kind of reading was as it was placed close to the brick wall sealing off the mine.
There is no electricity at the site, nor is there any metals in the hill that would cause such a significant EMF reading. The brick wall was constructed purely from besser bricks and cement. The combination of emotions I felt there and the high EMF readings right against the wall have me thinking that maybe, just maybe the miners killed in this mine may still be there; just behind the wall.
Putting away the EMF I sat against the mine entrance wall with the EVP recorder, Gabriella had the camera and the rest of the crew sat back and watched. The EVP session had no response, with the exception of some unusual clicking noises after I asked a question to the miners. I can't say if the clicking was coming from inside the mine, or if it was a sound from outside, but none of the GTA crew there at the time heard those noises at all!
Check out the EVP on our Facebook page.
Well, that was it for the main mine site. On a hill opposite the mine sits another old and ruined complex of rock rollers and processing tunnels; so we made our way up there.
This part of the mine is definitely off limits to the public, but is one the most intact and recognisable of all the Lake George Mine features. By this stage of the night, the moon was out an a glow had come across the valley. We crossed over the fence and straight into an uncovered tunnel that made its way under the huge metal and timber rollers sitting on top. The tunnels were very short and were used as run off channels from the above rollers when they were processing the ore. Apart from a few bats, there was nothing to be found or photographed in this area.
Interestingly enough though, as we made our way up to the water tanks, Zane again stopped dead in his tracks and said "I've just gone all cold, someone is here". Feeling Zane's arm, which he said had pins and needles, it was cold despite him wearing a jumper. The EMF showed nothing, there was nothing seen on the video or in the photos; but was another interesting experience for Zane.
With nothing else seen, heard or felt, the GTA crew made our way back to the car and called it a night, having one more stop over at the tunnel entrance, which was still showing high EMF readings.
Once I am able to analyse the video, audio and photos from the mine I'll update this page with whatever I find; if I find anything.
www.facebook.com/Ghost.Towns.Australia