From Kalgoorlie-Boulder we've spent the past week driving west towards the coast through the Western Australian Wheatbelt.
We've been travelling through one of the most geologically stable areas in the world across the rim of a huge volcanic crater hundreds of kms in diameter, stretching to Esperance about 500km to the south.
First stop on our westward trip was the town of Southern Cross, with the town slogan "Southern Coss, a Five Star Town". The streets are named after stars and there's even an observatory in this little town. The Yilgan History Museum is in the building that was WA's first Registrar's Office and Courtroom where Arthur Bayley and Paddy Hannan registered their claims for the Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie goldfields.The memorial and lookout over the town celebrate and remember the town's farming and mining histories.
There are several drives around the area to explore the huge granite outcrops. We stopped off at Frog Rock, a popular picnic area before driving on to Mt Hampton and then to Dulyalbin Rock with its huge water tank.
The next day we hitched up and drove the 125km through the town of Bullfinch to Mukinbudin where we stayed in a 5 star council run campground for a couple of nights. We'd heard about this park and are glad we stayed here as the amenities are first class - something for many other caravan parks to aspire to! At the Visitor Centre we picked up a free booklet and CD set of drives through The Wheatbelt Way. We also stopped off at the local Arts Centre where the weekly sewing club was in session, and had a chat to some of the locals.
The next morning we fired up the CDs and headed for Bencubbin, 37kms away, for coffee and a look around. This area was a big sandalwood growing area in times past. There are still a few stands of trees around although nothing like what was here 100 years ago.
One of the things we wanted to see here is the Pergande Sheep Pens. The granite sheets were split from the nearby rock using water and fire and were carted down the hill to the nearby homestead where the sheepyards were placed. Nearby Marshall Rock provided great views of the countryside, with the bonus that we could drive up to the top.
Yesterday we drove to Wongan Hills, through broadacre crop farms. Harvest is in full swing with plenty of "boys toys" to be seen. It's been interesting to see the different farming styles with hay bales and stacks unlike those we've seen before.
Today we made the short journey, only about 100kms, to Bindoon, about 90kms north of Perth on the Great Northern Highway, last seen at Mount Magnet. This is an interesting town which we're visiting to track down some family history information for a friend. One place we visited is the Catholic Agricultural College which in a past life was a boys home for post WWII evacuees from the UK. It was featured in the movie "Oranges and Sunshine" about Margaret Humphreys a social worker from Nottingham in England who lifted the lid on the abuse suffered there by many of the boys.
Dinner tonight was "Bindoon Bangers". The local butcher took out First Prize in the National Sausage King Awards. They were delicious! Tomorrow we're off to Perth. We'll be based in the Perth area for a couple of weeks, with a quick trip to Melbourne in the middle to attend Cherryl's niece's wedding on Saturday. It will be good to catch up with family again.
A week in Kalgoorlie-Boulder and there's still plenty for us to see on our next visit. This is another city to put on our "must come back to" list. We've been staying at the Discovery Caravan Park - Kalgoorlie, which is actually in Boulder. It's a big park with not many campers at the moment. The weather is heating up, 28C-36C while we've been here. It gets much hotter in the summer.
The two towns of Kalgoorlie and Boulder were merged into the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder many years ago. After gold was discovered here in 1893 by Paddy Hannan and his 2 mates Thomas Flanagan and Daniel Shea, many mining towns were established as miners flocked to the area hoping to make their fortunes. These days the old towns have either been gobbled up by the "Super Pit" (more about that later) or have integrated into the city area.
We've been doing the tourist thing at a leisurely pace. The streets here are full of red and yellow kangaroo paws and purple jacarandas in flower. Interestingly there's plenty of green too as the council uses artificial grass in its streetscapes. We've noticed this trend in a number of places where water is scarce. It looks fresh and cool and keeps the dust down.
There are a number of great tours and we booked into the popular "brothel tour" for the day after we arrived. It's a tour of the Questa Casa Bordello and was a very entertaining afternoon. We learned a lot about the history of Kalgoorlie and it's seedier side from the Madam who has owned the brothel for 23 years. Until a few years ago, the sex industry in Kalgoorlie was very closely regulated. The working girls were "contained" which meant that they could not venture outside of the Hay Street area without their Madam escorting them. The prostitutes were kept very separate from the town - Kalgoorlie was a "family town". The Questa Casa was one of 18 brothels and was opened in 1902. These days it's the only one left (deregulation has had a huge impact). In its heyday there were 7 girls working there, now only 2. We toured the 3 remaining working rooms and got the rundown on current pricing and practices and well as some great stories. We'll be able to dine out on this one for a while!
When we had a cooler day, we picked up a couple of audio tour headsets from the Visitor Centre and set off on foot to experience the Walking Tour of Kalgoorlie. It's been great to visit a town which is not dominated by shopping malls. There are plenty of strip shops lining the streets which adds to the character of the town. The buildings are all well maintained since the town "cleaned itself up" and they all look great. The architecture style is "Gold Boom Architecture" with a smattering of Art Deco thrown in. Along the footpath the Sporting Hall of Fame has plaques honouring local sportspeople.
We began our tour at the Paddy Hannan Water Fountain, the result of a 1928 competition to commemorate Paddy Hannan. We walked past the Endowment Block, shops taken on by the Council to prevent illegitimate traders from hindering the town's development. Then on to St Barbara's Square with it's statue of the patron saint of miners. The Government Buildings are dominated by the 33.5m high clock tower which is topped by a dome coated with 24carat gold.
There are many pubs in Hannan Street which is the main street of Kalgoorlie, and anyone who took on the bet of start at the first pub with 1 teaspoon of beer and double it at each pub on the street was bound to lose. That 1 teaspoon managed to increase to 2 glasses before the drinker (sucker?) was half way. There are still plenty of drinking holes, some intersections still have a pub on each corner, and many are fine architectural examples with elaborate iron lacework.
We interrupted our walking tour to visit the WA Museum Kalgoorlie. These regional annexes of the WA Museum have all been excellent to visit. This one has The Vault which houses examples of gold bullion, this gold bar was the first gold bar processed in Kalgoorlie; antique gold brooches, jewellery was a good way for miners to store their gold; and gold nuggets.
One example of the ingenuity of the miners is this bicycle built from wood. There is also a climate controlled room with magnificent embroidered silk Union Banners.
The British Arms Hotel was the narrowest pub in Australia, it's only about 3 metres wide, and is rumoured to be haunted by the ghost of the publican's wife who died when she fell down the stairs. We didn't see her, but many have. There are some lovely old buildings and some gold company offices. This office was bought from Perth and rebuilt here. It has a secret hidden door (escape hatch) and gold plated power points.
We rode the lift up into the head frame where we had sweeping views of the area.
There are several lookouts around town and we've visited a couple of them. They all have panoramic views of the area. The Mt Charlotte Lookout is at the site of the reservoir which provides water to Kalgoorlie Boulder. The water travels 560km west from the Mundaring Dam near Perth and is pumped up 390m. The tank can hold 9million litres, 4.5 olympic swimming pools, of water.
Yesterday we did the Super Pit Tour. This bus tour allowed us to get up close to the mining operations of the Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mining organisation. We took plenty of photos but can only show the ones we took later from the tourist lookout on this blog.
The Super Pit came into being when Alan Bond converted the vertical mines into an open pit mining operation in 1989. 260 individual mining leases joined together and the operation covers 26,000 hectares of leases. The pit mines were deep, some were up to 1.5km deep. The Super Pit is BIG!! It's about 2km wide, 4km long and 600m deep; so there's still about 1km of gold underneath the current mining operation.
We saw plenty of BIG TRUCKS. The trucks in the above ground operations carry 250tonnes of rock and for every 8 trucks full of rock, a golfball sized block of 24carat gold is extracted. There's plenty of gold in the rock, the business is all about how much it costs to extract the gold.
Are the streets really paved with gold? Yes! The rock used for road base and gravel and used in paving the roads was sourced locally. Gold flecks can still be seen and picked out of the bitumen.
We'll be leaving the Kalgoorlie area tomorrow and will be heading west towards Perth.
