THIS weekend, Fosterville Goldmine will open the gates to the family members of employees and the wider community.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s there for the community to come and get an insight and understand what it is that we do on the mine site,\u201d said Will Wettenhall, environment and community manager at Fosterville.<\/p>\n
Visitors can participate in a range of activities such as a surface tour of the mine\u2019s facilities that includes the entrance to the underground mine, the processing plant, and other surface infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat gives people a bit of an insight inside the fence that they wouldn\u2019t otherwise get, and it\u2019s pretty rare to get that visibility and access at an operational mine sight these days,\u201d Mr Wettenhall said.<\/p>\n
The day aims to be family friendly with activities for kids, including panning for real gold mined at Fosterville.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople can grab a cold pan and mine for their very own bit of Fosterville gold,\u201d said Mr Wettenhall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat attracts not only the kids but plenty of adults get gold fever and jostle for a position and some people spend hours panning for gold.\u201d<\/p>\n
There will also be the opportunity for visitors to have their photo taken with a bar of gold.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment the value of gold bar, the size of the bars that we pour is over a million dollars, so people get a kick out of holding a million bucks in their hands,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A series of marquees and displays will also be set up to demonstrate different aspects of the business and enable visitors to learn about geology, mining processes, and equipment.<\/p>\n
Fosterville is expecting up to 16,000 people to visit the mine this Saturday, and Mr Wettenhall said there\u2019s usually a broad cross-section of the community that attends.<\/p>\n
One of the key drivers for the event is to provide the community with first-hand knowledge of gold mining operations, which Mr Wettenhall said he hoped would help promote factually accurate information relating to modern mining.<\/p>\n
\u201cImportantly for us it\u2019s getting a higher level of awareness and understanding of what a modern mining operation looks like, particularly a modern gold mine,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The open day will run from 9.30am to 4pm at Fosterville Goldmine this Saturday 24 February.<\/p>\n
Tickets are free but need to be booked via Eventbrite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THIS weekend, Fosterville Goldmine will open the gates to the family members of employees and the wider community. \u201cIt\u2019s there for the community to come and get an insight and understand what it is that we do on the mine site,\u201d said Will Wettenhall, environment and community manager at Fosterville. Visitors can participate in a […]<\/p>\n