I don't know anything about mining jobs, but here's one idea on how to travel
and get paid for it, Cupcakes: Go and teach English overseas (Japan pays best, but some parts are a bit radioactive, so be selective) for a year or so. Only graduates can do it.
It's very easy work (mindnumbingly so in Japan, where everyone gets a good start in English at school anyway), you can save heaps if you have the discipline, but can still experience another culture and scenery at very little personal cost.
Moreover, there'd be no damage to the CV whatsoever: Indeed, it'd probably be a bonus in the eyes of employers looking for adaptable or independent types.
In the meantime, you could be trawling career options and submitting applications over the net, or relatively easily (as I did), doing a post-grad qualification online.
The 'gap year' idea is a bit of an American rich-kids institution I admit, but it's got its advantages. You can see something of the world without blowing savings and taking time out at the start of a career (for travel, which really annoys a lot of employers who do often invest a heck of a lot in basic job skills training), and it gives you an closer (rather than a tourist's) view of life in another country.
[Postscript: I left Japan realising above all how incredibly easy we Australians have got it compared to them. A typical worker's life in Japan is incredibly more demanding than here in terms of commuting time, stress levels and cultural expectations of corporate commitment. We live in a comparative paradise from their point of view. Take their sort of determination into any job here and you won't look back.]
