Forest Boot VI - Mining

Forest Boot VI – A Tribute to New Zealand’s Gold Mining Past

There’s something haunting about how the land reclaims what we leave behind. Forest Boot VI - Mining grew from a visit to the Mitchells Gully Gold Mine on the West Coast of New Zealand, where the forest quietly folds history back into itself.

This drawing shows a still moment above an old mining tunnel now hidden by nature. A weathered leather boot rests on the forest floor, its sole split by a tree root. Native bush pushes up through the tunnel entrance and a worn cart that once hauled soil to the stamp battery sits half-buried in moss. It’s a scene of quiet resilience as earth disturbed long ago breathes life again.

Created with India ink and fine art ink pens on A3 Fabriano Watercolour Paper, this black and white piece explores how time turns scars into stories. The tunnel that once rang with sweat and ambition now lies beneath moss, roots and peaceful silence.

Progress on the Forest Boot VI drawing - one stroke at the time

A Glimpse into the Gold Rush

In the 1860s the West Coast of New Zealand drew hopeful miners from around the world. They dug tunnels by hand through quartz-bearing rock, using pickaxes, shovels and black powder to break the earth. Then they hauled the soil to stamping batteries, great machines that crushed ore and freed flecks of gold.

Mitchells Gully Gold Mine, where this drawing began, still lets you walk through original hand dug tunnels and see rusting equipment left in place. In those damp, narrow passageways you almost feel the lives that passed through here, driven by hope and hardship.

What stayed with me most wasn’t the gold or the machines but the way the bush has returned. Trees push through collapsed shafts and ferns curl around old carts. The forest has claimed it all not to erase the past but to carry it forward in its own quiet, patient way.

Nature Reclaims

This drawing began as a meditation on how the land remembers. A long-lost boot now holds a tree upright and the bush wraps even the hardest histories in green. Forest Boot VI reminds us that human marks may fade but nature keeps moving, healing and growing through what was.

The original piece is still available and prints are in the works. If you’d like to be among the first to own one, join my mailing list or follow me on social media.