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TV Show looking for Gold miners

Fancy yourself as a Gold mining TV star then check out this new TV series

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Permalink Reply by Gollywobbler on August 11, 2011 at 9:41

Hi Mike

Many thanks for the link. I'm going to e-mail Amy and get the lowdown. I'll let you know what she says.

This idea was tried on British TV about 15 years ago, whilst my late husband Jim was still alive and he and I were planning a trip to Australia to visit my family in Perth. About 6 weeks before we left the UK there was a documentary on TV about gold mining in Oz. According to the documentary, if you fossick around and find a nugget of gold, you get the prospecting rights to a huge area of land around where the nugget was found.

I don't have that sort of luck but I reckoned that Jim did. So I planned that he and I would go to Kalgoorlie for 2 or 3 days to go fossicking. I felt sure that Jim would find a nugget of gold.

We reached Perth in the middle of February and I must say that it was seriously hot, though my sister and Aussie bro in law (Elaine & Neil) live about 15 minutes drive from a beach in Perth and they get the benefit of the near-constant sea breeze.

After about 10 days, I told Neil that Jim and I wanted to go to Kalgoorlie. He looked incredulous and wanted to know why? I explained that we wanted to search for gold.

Neil poured scorn on the idea from a great height. He said that there have been very hi-tech surveys of all the land for thousands of square Kms round Kalgoorlie, done by people who actually know about the type of soil where one might find gold etc. He said that there probably is more gold in Australia but the seams are out in the middle of the desert somewhere and that the average tourist stumbling around vaguely out there is more likely to get lost and to die of exposure than to find a nugget of gold! He also pointed out that tourists who are wilting in the heat even close to the coast would stand no chance 600kms inland in Summer, so he said that if Jim and I wanted to visit Kalgoorlie, we had best return to Perth one winter.

That was that. I told Jim quietly that Neil was so negative about the idea of visiting Kalgoorlie that he might feel insulted if we defied him, so the most diplomatic solution would be to ditch my idea of gold-fossicking and say no more about it!

Cheers

Gill

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Permalink Reply by Mike on August 12, 2011 at 15:00

Thanks Gill, I'm really am enjoying reading your replies - you're a great writer. You don't fancy doing some features for the main site do you? :)

Was just looking at Kalgoorlie on Google, it looks so parched from a distance, completely surrounded by red and brown. So strange to see places like Bombay Palace, Best Western & Beijing Chinese Restaurant as you zoom in.

I wonder what it would be like to live there?

Mike

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Permalink Reply by Gollywobbler on August 13, 2011 at 11:29

Hi Mike

I've yet to go to Kalgoorlie myself but i plan to go there sometime. I need to get an Aussie AQF I qualification first, though. (Similar to NVQ 1 in the UK.)

Most of the "developed" countries in the world seem to have spent millions of bucks on compiling lengthy lists of all the possible occupations a worker in that country might have. In the UK the document is called the SOC, which I assume means Standard Occupations Classification.

In Australia the equivalent document is called ANZSCO - the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations.

In the main mining towns in Australia, prostitution has always been legal. It is not a crime to be a tart in Kalgoorlie and apparently there are even organised brothels, so that the miners need not kerb crawl and the girls need not freeze. That sounds very civilised, dunnit?

According to ANZSCO, a Sex Worker "provides clients with sexual services or social companionship." Please see the link below:

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/4F295DA51570...

If you zip through the list, you'll soon find Sex Worker 451813. It is Skill Level 5, so the Sex Worker either needs an AQF I or s/he needs at least a year of relevant work experience. I can't claim to have any relevant work experience so, clearly, I need an AQF I qualification instead.

Armed with my AQF I, I could then bang on the door of a brothel in Kalgoorlie and tell the Madam in charge, "Now see here. I am a fully kwalifyed Prostitute. I have an AQF I certificate to prove it. Admittedly, I don't have any relevant work experience as yet but that's why I've come to see you. Now - GIMME A JOB!"

I don't think that a degree in Law from the University of Cambridge has quite the same sort of compelling cachet as an AQF I certificate would have. I've got the former but I do not also have the latter, so I feel that I ought to get cracking and get an AQF I. Surely not all of the punters want thin bimbos? I reckon that there must be a market for middle aged battleaxes like me as well in the Sex Worker field in Kalgoorlie.

Cheers

Gill