Humor:

All that glistens is not gold, but it's worth a look

It's tough being a gold-miner, but I suspect being a clown is even tougher.

My son Jack, 5, and I panned for gold last week at a gold rush theme park, Old Mogo Town, on the New South Wales south coast.

All we found, however, was that our hands went quite numb in the water which was icy cold.

"Let's go and sit by the roaring fire in that tavern back there and have hot drinking chocolate," I suggested to the minor miner after just a few minutes of perseverance.

"But we haven't found any gold yet!" Jack said. "Mummy said we weren't to come home without it."

"It's okay - I think mummy was joking," I said. "Anyway, you did find something you can take home to her."

Oh yes. Just before we arrived Old Mogo Town - which has been set up to show people exactly how the miners worked and lived in the 1850s - Jack found a laminated business card on the side of one of the main streets of the new town.

"Put that in a garbage bin," I barked. "It's rubbish!"
I have become very used to issuing this command lately because Jack has become something of a collector.
I cannot count the number of times he has found interesting "treasure" when we're out walking. I'd guess that 999 times out of 1000 it turns out to be nothing more than trash though.

"But this is IMPORTANT," said Jack as always. "I want to keep it."
He showed me the card.

It advertised someone called Clarry the Clown from South Australia.

"South Australia," I said. "That's thousands of miles away! I didn't even know they laughed in South Australia, let alone have clowns."

"Perhaps he came here to look for gold, like us?" Jack said.

Mmm. Possible, I guess.

At the height of the gold rush in the 1850s, 30,000 diggers are believed to have flocked to the Mogo area.
They came with their picks and pans from all over Australia and from overseas, up to 7000 of them from China.
They could make many, many times more than the wage considered average for a clown before the rush - possibly four pounds a week.

But the card looked kind of new to me.
I doubt they had lamination back in 1850s, let alone telephone numbers.

"We could ring the number?" Jack suggested.

"I'm not ringing South Australia," I spluttered. "It would cost far too much."

"Well, what if the clown needs this?" said Jack.

"Why would he need it?" I said. "It's not like his red nose has rolled off. It's a business card. I'm sure he has more and I doubt he's even missed it."

"Do you think he found any big pieces of gold here in Mogo?" Jack asked.

"I doubt it, Jack," I said, knowing that the biggest piece of gold ever found in Mogo was actually quite small.
"He's probably just a clown down on his luck, travelling around the country trying to find a paying audience.
"Now come on, put that card away before we get to the theme park.
"We have some serious gold panning to do."

As I said though, the water was very cold and, after panning for what seemed like minutes, I suggested that a hot chocolate by the roaring fire would be a much better use of our time.

"Hang on," said Jack urgently. "I think I've found something."
Sure enough, there on his pan was a beautiful, gleaming nugget.

I knew it couldn't be gold though.
No one there had ever found something that big, even in Mogo's heyday.

"Put that back in the water," I barked. "It's rubbish!"

For once, Jack did not argue.
He tilted the pan and the nugget washed away.

The good news is that I think my wife Katherine really liked Clarry the Clown's business card.

The bad news is that she thinks I deserve it more.

Link: Old Mogo Town
1850s Gold Rush theme park (with lots of gold rush links)

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it