The Further Adventures of an Idiot Abroad (39 page)

I knocked on the door of the trailer where Joe lived. A big fella with a handlebar moustache answered. He wore a whiter-than-white vest, black jeans, boots and a gun holster. It was Joe, looking
like he’d just stepped off the set of
Die Hard
. The gun stayed by his side like a colostomy bag all the time I was with him. Didn’t it bother him? I mean how often can you
possible need it?

Joe told me why he wore the gun: ‘You never know, so I always wear it. I’ve been shot at before when I was younger, so ever since then I’ve carried a gun. I don’t need a
gun, but if someone else is gonna bring one out and take a shot at me, I’m gonna be prepared, and I’ll take care of it from there.’ He went to get another gun from inside the
trailer.

Before we headed off on the search for gold, Joe brought out a box of stuff he’d found when out mining. There were all sorts of bits and pieces including a miner’s lamp from the
1800s, a broken harmonica, pocket watches and old gun barrels.

My mam wanted a metal detector, but my dad put a stop to it knowing that she’d be like Joe – just collecting bits and bobs that are pretty much useless. She finds enough pointless
stuff in the Pound shops she likes to go in without her digging up more crap. Every time I go round, she’s bought another odd thing like a gnome that whistles when you walk past it, or a
banana holder (so you can unpeel it, eat half of it, and then put it back in a plastic case), a big sticker of pebbles for the toilet seat, and toenail cutters that come with a magnifying glass
attached.

Joe then showed me a little pot that contained all the small pieces of gold he had found over the past few months that were worth a couple of hundred bucks. It turned out that his son Esra, who
wandered out of the trailer, collected things, too.

Joe is a bit like my dad in the way he would turn his hand to all sorts to bring money home and get everyone fed. I can’t ever imagine Joe using the
Yellow Pages
to call out a
plumber or mechanic, as he would tackle any problems himself. You don’t get many blokes like that, these days. That’s probably why
Scrapheap Challenge
isn’t on TV any
more. I think it’s partly due to the fact that if you take something apart to try and fix it, the warranty will no longer apply, so we’re scared to give it a go.

We got in Joe’s Ford Bronco, and he said we should do some off-roading. And with that, he put his foot down and hit the hill at speed, so the whole vehicle was in the air. When he said
‘off-road’ I didn’t think he meant it literally. I was in the back, being thrown all over the place, shouting, ‘Is there really no other route?!’ But Joe just drove
along chewing on a bag of jerky that was so tough he still had a use for his wisdom teeth. Twenty minutes later, we pulled up. Joe hopped out and grabbed a rifle out of the boot and some dynamite.
He said he was going to show me how he creates big holes in the rocky mountain to make an entrance for a mine. He placed a tub of dynamite on the rock where he wanted to blow open a doorway, and
then we retreated 50 or 60 feet back. Joe handed me the rifle to shoot the target to ignite the dynamite. I’d say I’m pretty good with rifles. I used to always win a prize at the
funfairs on holiday, which was normally a coconut. I don’t know why they gave coconuts as prizes. I never see coconuts in supermarkets, only at fairs. Saying that, right then, I’d have
been happy with a coconut, as it would have made a change from all the meat.

I took aim. Fired. And missed. The noise from his rifle shocked me, as it was a lot louder than the ones at the fair. The funfair guns only shot pellets. This one had proper cartridges. I took
another shot. Missed. But, third time lucky, I hit. The dynamite exploded and blew a hole in the rock face. Joe then packed some more dynamite into the hole with a fuse. We lit it and ran. This was
a new experience. The closest I’d ever been to doing something like this was throwing grit on the roof of metal caravans as a kid at our holiday camp and trying to get as far away as possible
before the owners came out. Not quite as dangerous, to be honest.

Joe decided that we shouldn’t go too far into the hole we had made, as it could have collapsed on us, like the song by Jimmy Dean called ‘Big Bad John’ (another song I’d
been listening to on my iPod). We then headed to the river where we would be panning for gold. Joe gave me a panning dish. It’s basically a rubber dish with grooves round the rim so you can
scoop up soft ground and then use water from the river to wash through the finer gravel until any gold you’ve gathered up is caught in the grooves. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? We did
this for over an hour.

I don’t think Joe was that bothered about becoming rich from his gold hunting. He just enjoyed the chase, a bit like my mam when she goes round those Pound shops and Oxfams I mentioned
earlier.