Goldy lochs - and keys...

(- inspired by Karl)

Once there was a gypsy migrant chap called Sadim (his friends called him “Midas”[1]) who loved looking for gold. Along with his mate Dedlig, he’d often be found digging down creeks and waterways, sluicing for gold dust, gold chips & nuggets, and fishing through creeks and other gutters or seismic fissures where geological events had intruded across gold laden quartz veins throughout the countryside.

They had worked out some of the basics and knew where to look, and how to use the native properties of gold to distinguish between the weighty gold, and the flecks of iron pyrites which mimicked it.

When they went out dredging for gold for a week-end, or a week, they often found enough to pay for all their camping equipment, transport costs, gold dredging equipment costs, food, - and a bit more.

In their search for gold they discovered a number of interesting, and sometimes contrary, things about place names. For instance, some  names that claimed an association with gold, such as “Gold-Dust Cafe” were simply an expression of someone’s dramatic tendencies, or hopeful wishes for more gold-dust, or, a long dead and now empty, past.

But contrary to that there was another phenomenon where a name like “Gold Creek Road” on the map, often meant that in years gone by the road had been in, or beside, a creek bed that had at some time given leave of some quantities of gold. And sometimes careful noting of the topography of the place, and the lay of the land could give rise to hidden or overlooked “pockets”, where gold-dust or even gold-chips, could still be found - if one knew how to look for them.

Where a name communicated something of a place’s history, there was always the question of which kind of name was this? - Was this a dramatic ploy trying to encounter more of the desired substance (gold) in the present day? Did it indicate an insight into a real, but long-gone and now-empty history? Or, was this an incidental insight inviting further cunning investigation?

Once, this conundrum showed itself quite markedly. They were in an area around Orange, where gold mines had existed in the past…

Dedlig noted something on a map of the area… (t.b.c.)

[Dedlig and Sadim sometimes differed as to which category a particular naming instance was an example of. Sometimes there was no answer to be had by theorizing, they had to get out, and do the work of thinking and looking for gold! And when they thought, worked, and looked together they noted more, and got more. Thus they learned to trust their buddy’s inklings, as well as their own, and to trust ordinary logic and the stability of reality too.]

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[1] Midas was the name of the king who was granted his wish that everything he touch should turn to gold, and it is also Sadim spelled backwards.