Blogs from Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 8

Set off on the long trip to Kalgoorlie-Boulder early on Sunday morning. The roads are endless and featureless, every so often there will be a crest or a bend, then another long road. Stopped in Norseman and Coolgardie on the way. Kalgoorlie-Boulder is the main city in the Goldfields, a town of moderate charm. Visited the super pit. Visited the famous Exchange Hotel. Along with the other drinkers, was invited to pay for the barmaids to get undressed. Turned out they were from Newcastle and Manchester. Today I visited a ghost town, went to the gym then went to the gold mining museum. Setting off towards Kalbarri tomorrow, stopping overnight at a small place called Sandstone.... read more

(Extracted from Our Summer in Australia and New Zealand Amazon.com) Having left the Indian Pacific cross country train at Kalgoorlie, before its final overnight run to Perth, we began day four of our journey back and forth across Australia, with a closer look at the town that epitomizes Australia's former Wild West. The story begins with an 1892 gold strike in Coolgardie, about 25 miles from present day Kalgoorlie, to which thousands of gold crazed prospectors rushed. Thus when rumors circulated in 1893 that another "find" had been discovered somewhere to the east, about 50 out-of-luck "diggers" left Coolgardie to discover the location of this new mountain of gold. Among them were three hapless, unlucky Irish prospectors named Flanagan, Shea and Patrick Hannon. Hannon's horse became lame and these three lingered behind for the night allowing ... read more

The conductor had given us a stern warning not to wander too far while in Cook, for once the refueling was complete the train would be leaving for it journey across the Nullarbor, and you don't want to be stranded in the middle of the outback. The Nullarbor (Latin in a way null being none arbor trees...i.e. treeless) is akin to California's Death Valley, but much larger in size. The Indian Pacific travels through this 160,000 square mile arid and treeless plain on the longest straight stretch of rail line in the world; not the slightest deviation for 286 miles. For train rides this is the longest day; a journey where the next meal becomes the highly anticipated event. Bring a good book. I dallied most of the day doing just that, reading the Fatal Shore, ... read more

We decided today that we were going to have an easy rest day. Warwick went to the office and booked in for another day so all up we stayed 3 nights. Warwick updated the blog while Marg rested and read a book; the sky was overcast in the morning and in the afternoon the skies cleared and sun came out. ... read more

Awoken up by pouring rain early in the morning so packed up and left Albany for Esperance, a distance of 455 k’s. Not much to say as it rained heavy most of day. Arrived at Pink Lake Tourist Park (fpa) late in the afternoon. Still raining when we went to bed hopefully it will get better tomorrow as we are off to Kalgoorlie to try and get away from this rain. The site we were put on has little grass and where the door to the van is they put sand down so everytime we go into the van we take a load of sand also. Too cold and wet to clean up now.... read more