Prospecting

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Bleary eyed at 6am we set off from Martin and Gemma's home in Victoria Park, Perth to the East Perth Rail Station. "The Prospector" the 7:10am Perth to Kalgoorlie train was standing at the platform. We had minimal luggage for our 2 night stay in Kalgoorlie, just 2 small rucksacks. No room for shovels or panning sieves ! We boarded the train excited about our long distance rail expedition and wondering if we would find that little gold nugget to change our lives! It was a 650km rail journey taking around 7 hours. After the suburban sprawl of Perth the scenery was stunning as we travelled through the mountains and alongside rivers. Soon we could see a large water pipeline next to the rail tracks. This water pipeline was built by the great C Y O' Connor a Civil Engineer who brought water all the way from Mundaring weir near Perth to Kalgoorlie to supply the expanding population in the goldfields. The train was very comfortable with on demand films and documentaries and there was a small buffet for snacks and drinks. After the mountains we entered the vast flat plains with cornfields, sheep farms and scrubland. What a vast country Australia is! We travelled for hours in similar scenery as far as the eye could see. We had one stop at a small town in the middle of nowhere.

Finally we arrived at Kalgoorlie Station. Our first view of the town was of wide streets with single storey buildings. it was just like a scene from the wild west. We walked to our hotel, the Ibis, along the main thoroughfare, Hannan Street. There were many old buildings dating from the 1890's and early 1900's. We ended our day with a sun downer on the balcony of the "York Hotel". followed by fish and chips at the "Palace Hotel". We saw the statue of Paddy Hannan, one of the 3 miners who first discovered gold in Kalgoorlie.

Next day it was time for our tour of the "Super Pit". Nothing could have prepared us for the enormous scale of the current gold mining operations that we would witness and the size of the site. The super pit is 600m deep and uses enormous machinery to excavate and transport rock. After crushing and breaking the ore around 60kg of gold per day is extracted. The KCGM mine has 1200 workers and is a 24/7 operation. The final dimensions of the super pit in 2029 will be 3.9km by 1.6km by 700m deep.

The following day we visited the WA Museum of Kalgoorlie/Boulder. This explained in some detail the history of gold mining in the area. The old miners cottages, The British Hotel and an old police wagon had also been recreated and were very interesting. C Y O'Connor was again lauded for his role in bringing a piped water supply to Kalgoorlie. This was the longest freshwater pipeline in the world. It was called a "scheme of madness" and unfortunately O'Connor committed suicide just before the scheme was commissioned.

What a stark contrast the old mining works and ways of life are compared to the mine operation at the super pit! The harsh realities of scraping a living in inhospitable countryside with a lack of water were so different from the efficient, mechanised working at the super pit.

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