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Background

Alan is a volunteer at the gold mine in Thames, New Zealand. He dedicates his time to preserving history and educating tourists about New Zealand’s rich mining history. This is his story:

Volunteering

Alan’s background in mechanical engineering and early time as a miner himself, led him to his now retired past time as a guide in the gold mine in Thames. He gets fulfillment from meeting new people and helping maintain a history that has been so impactful for his life.

The entire gold mine is run by volunteers, mostly old retired men that used to work in the mines in their younger years. They love getting to teach tourists about the uniqueness of the mine in Thames. The gold mining process was manually finding quartz veins to then process the gold dust and eventually sift down to enough gold dust to be melted into heavy gold bricks for sale. Many of the miners came from Ireland and other parts of the UK and were known for their drinking and competitiveness. They lived hard lives in mines with long days in darkness and dust in their lungs, working by candle light in the essentially the pitch black.

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His Perspective

Life is meant to be lived and to do what you know and love. For Alan, mining and mechanical engineering were his passions. He uses his knowledge to give of his time and energy to educate tour groups passing through his small coastal town. Although now most of the mine shafts are underwater and out of commission, he takes people through the active shafts in the mine used many years ago.

He believes preserving the past is a way to remember and honor the past and those who have gone before us. He loves seeing the new generation connect to the excitement of knowing how life was like for miners in Thames all the way back in 17th century.

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