In pitch black, underground miners near the historic town of Coolgardie in Western Australia have just broken back into old gold diggings which were last mined before World War I.
The timber ground supports are still doing their job, although they inspire less confidence than the modern steel mesh that runs throughout the rest of the newly-installed workings.
This is Burbanks, one of the richest gold mines in Western Australia in the early 1900s, where modern-day miners are back to see what the original diggers left behind.
"When they got back [from the war] their mine was full of water."
Historic records show Burbanks, 9 kilometres south-east of Coolgardie, produced 324,479 ounces of gold between 1885 and 1961.
There has been only limited mining and exploration at Burbanks since the 1980s.
But with Australian dollar gold prices trading near historic highs, old mines like Burbanks have a new lease on life.
Mining was restarted last year on a trial basis by ASX-listed Greenstone Resources and privately owned FMR Investments.
The plan was to establish underground drilling platforms to explore for new ore reserves.
Greenstone Resources managing director Chris Hansen said the early signs were good, with the deepest drilling testing 450 metres below the surface and hitting visible gold.
"Historically, operations only mined down to about 140-150 metres," Mr Hansen said.
"To put that into broader context for you, a number of the other mines within the region will often mine down to 1,000-1,200 metres below surface quite comfortably.
Increase in mining activity
Once home to 15,000 people, Coolgardie is known as the "mother of the Goldfields" with entry statements telling passing motorists it was home to "Australia's greatest gold rush".
Since 1892, historic and modern mining has produce in excess of 2.8 million ounces from the Coolgardie area.
The gold fields have been picked over by prospectors and small-scale miners for more than a century, but largely left alone by bigger miners chasing riches elsewhere.
But amid WA's latest mining boom, there has been renewed interest in the region.
Last year, Evolution Mining purchased the Kundana gold operations which had been running since the 1980s, paying $400 million in a clear sign the company believed it still had a long life ahead.
Beacon Minerals is a relative newcomer after pouring the first gold bar at its Jaurdi mine, 35km north-west of Coolgardie, in September 2019.
But already the company has celebrated production of its first tonne of gold last year and is drilling to extend its mine life.
Focus Minerals, in which China's Shandong Gold holds a 49 per cent stake, shapes as one of the biggest potential gear changes for the local economy.
The company has been building up its gold reserves through exploration and working towards a restart of its Coolgardie operations since it closed in 2013 when the gold price crashed.
Focus' landholdings also include the historic Bayleys mine, just a stone's throw from where gold was originally discovered at Coolgardie.
Another Chinese-controlled miner, Norton Gold Fields, has also been quietly progressing a feasibility study to develop the Bullabulling gold project, west of the town.
Mr Hansen said the increase in activity could be a sign of things to come.
"The junior sector of the market is starting to wake up to the prospectivity around the Coolgardie region," he said.
Busier than last boom
The Shire of Coolgardie is hoping to cash in on the economic boost and estimates an additional 900 workers are needed to meet growing demand from the mining industry.
Shire president Mal Cullen said the last significant gold boom for Coolgardie was in the 1980s.
"One of the biggest obstacles to that is getting employees to work on all these sites at the same time.
"In previous years, one commodity was always up and the others down a little bit, so workers would transfer between operations. But with all commodities being up it has created a major shortage of employees."
Geologist and drilling company owner Andrew Pumphrey, who works out of a yard in Coolgardie which has an old mine headframe out the front, said there was no doubt the region was booming again.
"It's pretty obvious to me that we've got a pretty severe skills shortage right across Western Australia, especially in the exploration sector," he said.
"We're busier in this boom than what we were in 2008.
