SA Dig .... Busted !

[SAbottles]

Went through to the Lane this morning early. Lovely weather and had just got my hole started- was going to be a big one :

when Railway Security arrived - several of them ! :

Not good news at all. After long discussion (made difficult by their battling to understand my English & my battling to understand them!) I walked over to the Workshops with one of them.

 

[SAbottles]

Had a long talk with one of the people at the Workshops, the upshot being that I cannot dig in the Lane without permission from the people who "own" the Lane - an entity called Propnet.
Our Railway System has been divided up (some might say 'shredded' !) into a whole number of Para-Statals ~ Spoornet, Transnet, Freightnet, Propnet etc etc.

I would have to go in to Cape Town, to a huge building full of "officials" and start with a Mr Buntu. I have very little optimism about this !!!

Closed up the hole and went home to sulk!

 

[bloodj2]

Blargh!! Sorry to hear it. I know how much that sucks to be shut down by authorities. We were about five feet down in a cistern when we got shut down one time. Hope it works out for you.

 

[Conch times]

Did you try......bribery???

 

[surfaceone]

Hello Dale,

Big Bad Bureaucratic Bollocks, sir!

You surely gave it your best, but knew this was a probable eventuality. Are you going to give it the old college try with Mr. Buntu?

I've tried sailing in the quasi official government entity waters and it was a buck passing exercise of the first water, with me in the role of the buck...

Best of luck.

 

[SAbottles]

Ah, Surface, I don't think I will even contemplate it. Apart from the mere buck passing, there are political and -dare I mention it - racial overtones involved here ! I do understand the problem - there is a huge incidence of cable theft along the railway areas, people dig up cable, attach it to trucks and rip meters of it out of the ground. In the light of this, no one is really going to want to set any precedent of letting someone - let alone a weird 'whitey' go digging holes near railway lines !

Any way the bottles are not going anywhere. Somewhere in the future they may do more work in the lane , put down more pipes etc - and then yours truly will be in there faster than Flint!

Now all I need is another site to dig !

 

[RICKJJ59W]

That is way I like house permissions once you get it,the stress is gone. Then we can dig in peace and listen to the birds chirp.

 

[JOETHECROW]

You mined a lot of good bottles out of there Dale!

 

[Plumbata]

Dang, that is unfortunate, but there may still be hope.

I was metal detecting some city land next to a 1910s-20s dump I was digging back in College. It was approaching dusk and this big SUV hops the curb and made a beeline for me across the grass. A guy and gal, both African American, initiate the interrogation forcefully and angrily. The woman was a city council member, and after I made it clear that I was harmless, the tone shifted 180 degrees and she was friendly and supportive, gave me her card, and said that she would talk to the mayor to help get me written permission to dig the dump. Granted, there were no language barriers to overcome.

Also had a highly influential priest friend at the same time pulling some strings to get me documented permission (the dump had a no trespassing 500.00 fine sign on it). As a side-note, the catholic priest is a good guy, and knew that I was agnostic, but he had no judgements and liked to hang out and drink fancy champagne with me regardless. Cool guy. Anyway, a week or so later I had the forms saying that I could dig all I wanted. Think the priest may have exerted more influence but having the council member on my side too didn't hurt.

I'd like to get back and dig the section that had the SS cokes someday. The ABM ones go for 200+ a piece, and I saw dozens of broken ones in a section of the dump.

Anyway, do you have any good African friends who might be able to secure permission for you (permission for said friend and other digging partners such as yourself to dig)? If the racial tensions are as severe as you indicate, it might be a good avenue to pursue. Maybe promises of landscaping/weed control could be a part of the deal? Seems like a good dump, and if you get the green-light to dig, maybe you could dig more efficiently and leave open holes (covered by plywood) so you can strip-mine the dump, throwing backfill behind you. I wouldn't give up on a place like that.

 

[madman]

SORRY TO HEAR YOU GOT BUSTED, I GOT RUN OUTTA A SITE THE OTHER DAY MYSELF , BUT YOU DID GET SOME NICE BOTTLES