Heavenly Beverley : Welcome to Bonnie Vale

Our first night was cool, very cool. Due to our arrival right on dusk, we chose the first suitable spot to set up the gazebo and our bed. Fortunately, our sleeping bags kept the chill at bay. My only moments of awareness involved deliberately draping my body around a decidedly cold Michael after he'd returned from necessary nocturnal ablutions. Once Michael's defrosting was concluded, we both fell back to sleep.

Early morning was clear and bright, quiet except for the chirping of the local inhabitants. Sunrise promised warmth, so I scurried around moving boxes into the shade. Leaving the confines of our camp to attend nature's call, I found our first collectable between my feet - a tiny handmade nail. Leaving the padded toilet seat as a landmark, I wandered just out of view of our gazebo's roof for further exploration of our immediate vicinity. Bonnie Vale's fragments were everywhere - bricks, broken glass, shattered pieces of crockery and oodles of metal objects. Scattered amongst all of these artefacts was greenstone - a telltale sign that gold had been present.

We fell quickly back into our camping routine. The dinner dishes were washed and packed away. We commenced breakfast - porridge on the gas hotplate, kettle on our fire. We thoroughly enjoyed our sustenance, and then, earlier than we would usually be organised at the House that Rocks, we set off to search the nearby environs.

Armed with our boots, gloves and carry bags, sensibly dressed in jeans and shirts, with our hats and water bottles, we spent all morning on this very rewarding quest. We stumbled across the town's rubbish tip, quite close to our camp. At the other end of the site, we identified the pub, its cellar and its rubbish heap. We found a veritable treasure trove of metal, which was very surprising given Bonnie Vale's location only fourteen kilometres or so north of Coolgardie. We had expected that Bonnie Vale would have been well and truly picked over with limited metal goodies to collect. Instead, we ended up with very heavy carry bags and hot and weary bodies.

With Michael's excellent sense of direction, we backtracked our way cross country to our camp without any difficulty. We removed our boots and socks and helped ourselves to additional liquid refreshments. After being on our feet for four or so hours, we decided to stay put for the hottest part of the day. Our stretcher bed was looking very inviting for an afternoon snooze.

Just then, we were dismayed to hear the approach of a vehicle. We were concerned that we would be instructed to Move On. Thankfully this was not to be. Brian rolled up next to our gazebo in his functional, if a trifle battered, Landcruiser ute. Supplying transport to the nearby drilling and rehabilitation programme, Brian's torso was clad in the "uniform" of a high-vis orange shirt and a well-worn cap jammed on his head. Even though I couldn't see his lower half, I suspected that he was sporting work pants and the usual steel capped boots.

He had followed our tracks to discover our intentions. He'd had to deal with both lunatics prospecting with their metal detectors and generally nasty types who quickly found themselves ejected. The area was honeycombed with private mining leases. Once he worked out we were innocently camping and fossicking, he was delighted to stay for a chat - all part of his job.

Brian turned out to be an excellent source of knowledge and wit. Whilst advising us where we shouldn't go (stay away from the next ridge over there as they'll shoot first and ask questions later), he was a fountain of local information, whetting our fossicking appetites.

He was originally from Tasmania, but he outgrew the island. Working his way up in the mining transport industry, first in Port Hedland and now based in Coolgardie, he was in charge of large-scale movements - trucks, machinery and road trains at the Bonnie Vale operations. Married with children, he replied with an emphatic "no" when I asked him if Tasmania would beckon him back. He worked hard and enjoyed the wild western lifestyle. He chain-smoked in front of us and eventually Michael caved in and begged for a couple of fags.

That was the only slight dampener on Brian's visit. He assured us that our location would remain unknown to him or anyone else for that matter. And he told us that the work crews would depart around five and that would be an ideal time to visit Bonnie Vale's original mine shaft, famous for the daring rescue of a trapped miner named Modesto Varischetti in 1907. He even gave us approximate directions from our camp.

In the meantime, we settled down for our nap. The only snag was that the gazebo had lined with the afternoon sun and we were being burnt as we tried to sleep. Without further ado, we decided to move the entire camp lock, stock and barrel about twenty-five metres into a shadier spot. We repositioned some of our boxes, the groundsheet, and our stretcher bed into the new location. Michael then crawled onto the bed and was instantly asleep. I continued to organise our belongings into their new positions. After Michael surfaced, we completed the relocation of the gazebo over our bed. After further finishing touches, we were ready to venture out towards the old mine.

Needless to say, this wasn't an entirely straightforward exercise. Armed with Brian's directions and vague memories of Google Earth research at home, we set off into a lather of optimistic fervour. A myriad of tracks and absolutely no signage by the Shire of Coolgardie (who were supposed to maintain the old mine as a tourism site) caused us a few headaches. After a series of dead ends, we hit the jackpot. Behind a wire fence with a few neglected information boards was the huge collapsed shaft of the original mine.

The metal was all gone, except for a single stamp head battery base plate. Drawn to this piece like a magnet, it was stunningly rusted, worn into an interesting shape and beautifully coloured. I showed the base plate to Michael. He was instantly in love.

Our information had been sadly lacking in describing this extraordinary site. Apart from the main shaft, which descended twelve levels, there was an almost moonscape of crowded diggings, massive piles of broken rock and surreal hillocks of dirt. Although short-lived, Bonnie Vale had attracted immense interest and obvious profit to those who struck gold amongst the greenstone. Michael, in all his fossicking life, had never seen another abandoned mining area with this numbers of individual shafts. The entire location would have been stripped of vegetation. Now the Goldfields woodland was busily encroaching in and around was must have been desolate and denuded. And Brian, who we'd met earlier in the day, was one of the crew currently revegetating other disturbed parts of Bonnie Vale.

According to the faded and indistinct tourist boards, Bonnie Vale was gazetted in 1897. In 1907, a thunderstorm had flooded the mine and our man Varischetti was trapped in an air pocket on the tenth level. Divers were transported by train to Coolgardie, which broke all speed records for the trip from Perth. A daring rescue took place and Varischetti was brought out alive. The stuff of legends.

There was one other plaque behind the fence, barely legible, a touching tribute to a stillborn baby. We left, not knowing the story behind this sad little memorial and returned to our hidden hollow amongst the trees.

With the setting sun, we enjoyed another of our "surprise" meals I'd brought, a couple of glasses of vino and a sampling of some port. Once happily anaesthetised, Doctor Michael attended to a thorn in my foot. Then, under the glorious theatre of a Goldfields night sky, we retired to our warm bed.