THERE'S GOLD UP THAT RIVER.

                                                      There's Gold Up That River.        

 The year was 1979 I was 19 years old. When I had a conversation with old Snowy, while fishing on the banks of the Shoalhaven River. Snowy told me there had been a considerable amount of gold found many years ago way up the river, in a secret place that not many people had been to. He asked me how far I had ventured up the river, and seemed surprised when I told him I had tracked it to it's origion. He seemed even more surprised that I knew of the landmark known as the bones. As I described to him a waterfall sixty-five miles up the river, with large mysterious bone shaped rock's, seemingly scattered at the base of this beautiful waterfall. As Snowy packed up to leave that day, with his feed of Bream and Mullet, I asked him if he believed all the gold had been found way up the river. He replied with a simple one word answer, ''Nope''.

That was it, that was all I needed to ignite vision's of grandure involving a massive find of gold nugget's. I informed my wife of one month, of my intentions to imbark on my one month adventure and the abundance of wealth I would be returning with.

Packing my swag, complete with garden tools, and a tea strainer for a sive,and packing up my old trail bike, with what I considered enough supplies for my expedition, I kissed my wife goodbye, and with enough petrol to get me about 50 miles, I set out to find and stake my claim in the wilderness, 60-70 miles up the beautiful Shoalhaven River.

I covered the bike with leaves and branches where it ran out of petrol about thirty miles up the river, it was almost dark but already a full moon hung in the sky, I decided to travel all that night by the moon light and covered another ten miles by morning ,I ate camp pie for breakfast with a few toasted buns I had brought, and injoyed the buns I knew it would be some time before I would taste bread again.

I traveled all that day disturbing eagles in the trees along the ever narrowing river,and sending mobs of kangeroos bounding across the short flats into the thicker bushland. As I slowly made my way along the riverbank the bush got thicker for a few miles. I was tired when I reached the lucky stone flats that spread out two miles in front of me. The river from here carved it's way through the stone flats, to the base of the mountian,where it narrowed even more as it started it's climb into the mountians.

I decided to camp here for the night and tried my luck with a small cork fishing line with a piece of left-over camp pie for bait. To my surprise, I caught a two pound Golden Pearch that I slowly cooked in the coals, and thoroughly enjoyed for dinner. Lying there under the stars, with a full belly, feeling pretty pleased with myself, I remembered thinking that Grizzly Adams had nothing on me. As I drifted off into a much needed sleep on the riverbank that night. The next day, feeling refreshed and full of beans literately (I had baked beans for breakfast) I set off on a beautiful warm summers day, admiring the wild life and the crystal clear water, as I headed towards the base of the mountain.

I arrived at the landmark known as the bones, about a quarter of the way up the mountain, just after lunch that day. My heart had already begun to beat faster, as I realised I was only a couple of miles away from the place Snowy and I had spoken of.

With renewed vigour in my step, I arrived at a spot where the river leveled out and had several large deep holes, about eight foot deep, swirling in eddy's. This was not the place I had intended to start my search for any traces of gold, however it was an extremely hot day, so I decided to have a swim in these extremely inviting pools.

On diving into the first one, I noticed one inch wide yellow rings, around each of the large lucky stones, on the bottom of the pool. Holding my breathe as long as I could, pinch by small pinch I began to collect what appeared to be a dull yellow metal substance that seemed to glow. 

Bursting from the water, gasping for breathe, holding the palm of my hand containing this precious metal towards the sun, I screamed to the mountains in glee"GOLD". Scrambling from the water, to retrive my gardening tools and tea strainer, I returned and commenced the long process of extracting and seperating this beautiful, shiny metal, from the sand I had mined over the past eight hours.

This became my every day routine every day I would dive sometimes for 10 hours a day emerging from the water like a burnt dried up sultana just before dusk to start a big camp fire that would bur all night ,to seperate the gold by fire light. Every night I could seperate about half a small jar of gold flake by flake,and after about four weeks, I had quite a few full tins and jars of pure gold.

My food had run out about a week ago and except for an eel I had caught, I was starting to get very hungry, and quite weak. However I persisted my mining operation for almost another two weeks, eating two more eels in that time. With what I considered to be at least ten pounds of pure gold in my backpack, I commenced my long journey back down the Shoalhaven River to inform my wife all our family need never worry about money again.

Luckily I bumped into two young guys who had been out hunting with their dogs in a ute. I rode with the dogs all the way back to civilisation, where I quickly found a telephone and informed my wife I was waiting to be picked up ten miles away, but to hurry time is of the essence.

She picked me up in our old car, skiding to a halt and was already yelling about all she had been through while I'd been off, most likely having a party with some floozy. In a very matter of fact, and stern manner, I said "Get in the car woman you're speaking to a very rich and powerful man". On our ten mile drive home, I told her I had discovered the gold I set out to find and it is enough to build every member of our family a mansion.

Upon arriving home, we went straight to the bedroom, where I poured out the pure gold onto fish and chip paper, spread out on the bed, my wifes eyes bulged as she ran her fingers through the enormous pile of beautiful sparkling gold. I don't think either of us slept much that night, as we inticipated the whirlwind we knew such money would bring into our lives. We planned to take the gold to town tomorrow and convert it to cold hard cash and start the ball rolling to our new and happier lives.

Dressed in our Sunday best, we pulled up outside of the jewelers in our old bomb car with ten and a half pounds of pure gold in the boot, leaving my wife in the car, (After removing the keys) I strode into the jewelers with a sunshine milk can full of gold and with quite a loud bang, dropped the can of gold on his counter.

He seemed to step back, startled as I pulled out my pocket knife to open the lid of the tin, however he soon stepped up to the counter as I asked him was he interested in buying a large quantity of pure gold found locally, as I poured a large pile of gold onto his counter. He took a sample on a square piece of glass, over to the counter behind him for analasis. As he did his test, I looked around the jewelery store at several diamond rings I intended to leave the shop with and drop in my wifes waiting lap.

As I watched this small balding jeweler from behind, his back was convolting up and down I thought at first the mere sight of so much gold had caused him to fit, however as he turned around it soon became clear it was a laughing fit. When he had composed himself he said "mate, I haven't heard of a bloke getting sucked in by (FOOLS GOLD) in about twenty years, thank's buddy you've given me something to tell my mates about tonight at the club".

The next two jewelers I went to, confirmed the technical name for my precious metal, of which I can't or don't want to remember. Surprisingly my wife and I never spoke about it for many years , however towards the end of our 15 year marriage, she seemed to take great pride after a few drinks bringing up the fools gold episode, always careful to exclude her own reaction that night, running her fingers through that beautiful shiny gold.

                                                                                  Darcey Downes