Kalgoorlie-Boulder and the Goldfields

Tuesday, 9 October to Saturday, 13 October 2012

After picking up our mail from the Esperance Post Office, we set off towards Kalgoorlie-Boulder. About 80kms north we had a blow-out in one of the van tyres and after changing it we stopped at Norseman to purchase a new tyre. From there we continued on to Mt Thirsty Rest Area, 23kms north of Norseman for the night.

The following morning we made our way to Kalgoorlie-Boulder, via Kambalda, a small town on the Goldfields Highway.

Kalgoorlie-Boulder is made up of two old goldfield towns, now grown together. The old buildings in the towns reflect the prosperity of the area, now and in the past. One old building, I think it is the Post Office-Mining Registrar Office has a clock tower which is capped with gold plating which shines brilliantly in the sunshine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Kalgoorlie Town Hall is also a magnificent building with a huge wooden staircase to the dress circle of the theatre area which also has cast iron seating upholstered with velvet.

 

We also visited infamous Hay Street, Kalgoorlie, when we took part in a tour of the oldest remaining ‘house’ in Kalgoorlie. This was a most entertaining afternoon with the current Madam, a real character, telling us about the history of the industry and an insight into the goings-on behind the walls.

We visited the famous “Super Pit”, a huge gold mine, hundreds of metres deep and kilometres long. We viewed it from the lookout and then Crawf went on the two and a half hour bus tour into the pit and the processing plant. The machinery used in the mining industry is huge and very expensive, for example, a dump truck costs approximately $10 million and uses about 140 litres of fuel for every 10kms travelled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boulder is also on the edge of the Super Pit and the plans are to tunnel under the town to extract more gold way below the surface. We visited the Metropole Hotel where we viewed an old mine shaft in the floor of the pub. According to the locals, several pubs were accessed by the miners in this manner as it was a safer way to get to the gold buyers who bought gold in the hotels. I think it was also a short-cut to a drink.

Many of the buildings in Boulder were badly damaged by an earthquake in 2010. Unfortunately we were unable to view the Boulder Town Hall as it was closed. It has a Philip Goatcher Stage Curtain, believed to be the last remaining curtain in the world painted by Philip Goatcher.

Sunday, 14 October 2012

While in the goldfields area we visited Coolgardie, the town where the first substantial amounts of gold were discovered by Paddy Hannan. Coolgardie is now a slightly deserted town compared to Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Many of the old buildings still stand in the very wide main street.

We completed our round trip of the goldfields area and commenced our exit trip from Western Australia by calling into Norseman for fuel and then commenced our third crossing of the Nullarbor and spent the night at a great rest area 77km east of Norseman. We also camped at Moonera Rest Area and 157km Peg Rest Area before arriving at Ceduna where we spent two nights while doing some washing, grocery shopping and indulging in some local oysters.