TG Newsletter: GOLD DIGGERS
Gold Diggers
(22 - 24 February 2019)
AU
…better known to the world as the element for gold.
…better known in South Africa as the expression of astonishment.
Stig-kita and Skinny saw a golden opportunity to spend a weekend adventuring the Lowveld. It was time to stretch our Mitas again and lay some rubber on the long roads to the East.
Being almost 146 years late for the Mpumalanga gold rush, we decided to take the shortest route to Pilgrim’s Rest.
CULLINAN
The first town on our map is better known for another sjaainy stone called a diamond. The biggest of these are currently resting on the forehead of a lady called Elizabeth.
We followed a neatly drawn line to a station. The train was late, probably the same one Oom Cyril was using?
The hotel offered ‘sleep’. We topped it up with a warm cuppa and some crispy bacon.
During the formation of Earth, molten iron sank to its center to make the core. This took with it the vast majority of the planet's precious metals — such as gold and platinum. In fact, there are enough precious metals in the core to cover the entire surface of Earth with a four-meter thick layer.
It rained a few days before and there were puddles and foaming streams everywhere.
Through the small town of Tonteldoos
Walls are all the rage these days, but this one had a spectacular view. Yet not insurmountable, it still took a few minutes to clamber over it.
A quick butt-flexing exercise before we rolled over Korfnek Pass.
Gold and platinum shouldn't be rare on Earth—they shouldn't be here at all! Or at least, they shouldn't be in Earth's crust. Nearly all of the gold in Earth’s crust came from meteorites that bombarded the planet over 200 million years after it formed. That would make your wedding ring 100% alien!
We crossed that bridge when we came to it.
The only thing we’d probably pull out would be a GOLDfish…
At Loskopdam we savored the golden liquid of bottled hops.
A golden lock dangling on the gate, the Viro of love.
Every silver lining’s got a cloud that wants to rain down on me!
The clouds rolled in faster than our 700cc horses could flee. Big wet blobs started to pelt our visors.
How quickly plans can change! We picked a short-cut to Mashishing, hoping that we could keep most of us dry.
Gold is a highly effective conductor. A small amount of gold is used in almost every sophisticated electronic device. This includes cell phones, calculators, GPS systems, AND EVEN THE HUMAN BODY. There is a small concentration of gold in everybody’s blood. I meant it when I said I’m worth my weight in gold!
On Robber’s Pass we found Africa’s BIG 5!
One of these days they will probably only live on in story books and folk legends. They are already scarcer than gold. We outran a herd of elephants, rode a zebra, wrestled a croc and patted a giraffe.
*We can be lekker daft, but we’re not nincompoops… These were all animal sculptures from the artist Dick Heysteck*
The ghost town of Pilgrims Rest welcomed us with open arms. Well… there weren’t any arms, but we imagined they would have been open if there were any. The town has an original diggers tented camp. If you sat quietly contemplating life on your koos, you could still hear the squeak of old Wheelbarrow Patterson’s worn trolley.
Mankind's attitude to gold is bizarre. Gold is boring, it’s dull - it barely reacts with any other element. Yet, of all the 118 elements in the periodic table, gold is the one we humans have always tended to choose to use as currency.
Why?
A simple process of elimination:
We would struggle to carry the gaseous elements around. Same would go for the liquids. It would be hard to identify the colourless elements. Some are poisonous, radioactive or even explosive. A few are nearly impossible to melt. Then there are the ones that corrode easily. And we won’t even bother to look for the ones that are too rare to find.
It turns out then, that the reason gold is precious is precisely that it is so chemically uninteresting.
We turned off a small track into the woods to go stake our own claim. When the sound of hammers and the clanking of the waterwheel faded to a soft hum, we planted our flag.
Happy souls make happy bones!
A magical joeniecôintjie came galloping in with cake (shaken, not stirred), balloons, party props and champagne (on dri-ice nogal). We had a bos-birthday with candles that wouldn’t die and a fire that wouldn’t start.
Waking up next to the last glowing coals, with pine needles in your hair and golden rays peeping through the canopy so not to stir, you know you’ve already struck it rich.
White gold!!!
We freshened up at the falling water of the forest, rinsing off yesterday to make space for new memories.
Gold digging started in earnest!
Panning For Gold
How undeniably sarcastic earth can be with us mortals?
The element of gold is valued for its consistent and changeless nature. While we value water for its fluidity and flexibility. We therefor use that which connects us all - to extract that which isolates and separates us.