Fun and Games on the Gaika
A house on the Gaika Mine
Fun and Games on the Gaika
Living on the Gaika Mine was almost as good a living on a farm. There were so many places to discover. First there was the scrap yard behind the houses with all the old mining machinery and equipment to rummage through wondering what it had all been used for in its day. Obviously, boys having imaginations fuelled by the comics they swapped gave them plenty of opportunity to convert old water tanks into forts or army tanks.
Fun and Games on the Gaika
Like the Globe and Phoenix Mine, the kopjes surrounding the Gaika Mine were honeycombed with ancient mine workings and derelict mine shafts with treacherous holes which Keith Keitzmann and his friends threw stones down to hear them splash far down in the dark. These tunnels were also home to creepy crawlies but the biggest fright Keith remembers was the time they disturbed a big owl that flew straight at them.
After a while they lost interest in deep dark holes and turned to the glare of the mine dumps. They were out of bounds. Robbie Mawdsley’s brother had suffocated there when a tunnel he and his friends dug collapsed. Keith and his friends were careful to stay off that particular dump: it was softer, more sandy, closer to the mine and next to the road and the mine offices.
The dumps were of different ages, each had it’s own character. Some were still being built up by the mine sludge, some were very old and withered by the rain with deep gullies and lots of places to hide and live out their dreams as cowboys and Indians or Foreign Legionnaires in the Sahara. Gavin James and his brother from the Roasting Plant (just over the railway line) Ken Nicholson, Dolf and Les Landman, Trevor Bowden, Morris and Clive Menhenick and many more joined in the fun. The dumps held many attractions, from riding up and down (pre BMX riders) to hopping onto bits of corrugated iron and tobogganing down the slopes.
The dumps kept their interest for many years until the swimming pool and the pinball machines at the café caught their attention. But that’s another story…
Many thanks to Keith Keitzman of New Zealand for a copy of the painting by Patricia Turney given him by Dolf Landman for his 50th birthday (many moons ago!) and all the memories.