Travelling Pete at Kalgoorlie

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Hi All,

While I was at Esperance I made the decision to end my time in Western Australia, and to head east towards home, planning to be back at Broadbeach around end of November.

Before starting the trip east, I had one last place to visit, Kalgoorlie, which is 390 kms due north from Esperance and to reach it you pass through Norseman, which is the last big town in West Australia before heading east to South Australia. (For the pedantic among you it is also the first big town encountered in WA when travelling west from South Australia).

Fortunately I was able to resist doing a right hand turn at Norseman and travelled directly north for another 187 kms to Kalgoorlie where I had a brief but interesting stay.

Today Kalgoorlie is really an amalgamation of two towns, Boulder which is nearby and settled just after Kalgoorlie and Kalgoorlie itself. Over the past 100 years each town expanded towards the other and so beaurocrats and politicians, being what they are, decided to turn two into one so to speak, and created a new town called, "Kalgoorlie - Boulder".

However I can report that the locals, although enjoying one local government, definately identify as being either from Boulder or Kalgoorlie and don't accept a hybrid identity.

Kalgoorlie (K-B) is the gold centre of WA and came into being in June 1893, with the registration of a gold discovery by Paddy Hannan and a few mates as they were looking for a lost party of gold miners from Coolgardie which was already producing gold. Within 10 years there was a population of 30,000 in the area, following to opening of a water pipeline that year which brought water 560 kms from Perth as there is little rain in the area and no permanent surface water catchments or creeks or rivers.

It was said that about 8 local breweries supplied over 90 hotels in K & B at that time and that beer was actually cheaper than "straight water". We may again be going to see this happen in eastern Australia as our water supply costs skyrocket.

Almost from the beginning, substantial brick buildings were errected and a great number of these survive to today and are a splendid sight to see as they have mainly been continuosly in use and maintained. There is a bit of a sad note however for some of the older buildings in Boulder, where a small earthquake of 5.2 earlier in this year caused extensive structural damage and sadly a handful of buildings will not be able to be restored. It appears that Boulder is built on a water aquafirer, which multiplied the quake effect to that of about 7.5. Fortunately Kalgoorlie area was on solid rock (and gold) and the damage effect there was minimal.

There are many mines being worked in the area still, mainly underground, but the major mine now is a great big open cut mine which is the largest in the southern hemisphere and is producing significant amounts of gold. The open cut is now over 500 metres deep by about 3 kms long and 1 km wide and is simply on a scale that is beyond mere words to describe. At present every 2nd day, controlled explosions blast loose thousands of tons of gold bearing rock, which is then loaded into 220 tonne capacity trucks, carted up out of the hole to nearby treatment works.

At present this open cut mine is expected to last until 2023, and then may be still further mined as an underground mine on the "incline" method. I'll leave you to work out what this means as you can't expect me to do all the thinking.

There is so much gold in the area that loose nuggets are still being found at ground level. Last year a nugget worth over $3,000 was exposed in a suburban back yard while a back yard pool was being installed. Also in the early building days, the clay bricks were manufactured locally from mine rubble and actually have a very high gold content. It is thought some of the very old buildings could be worth their weight in gold, but heritage laws prevent this from being proven.

Due to the limited time available to me, (1 full day) I took an all day bus tour, which encompassed the open cut mine (viewing platform), a visit to the local RFDS set up at the airport, a drive through the CBD of both Kalgoorlie and Boulder with great supporting explanations and storeys and finished with a 3 hour visit to the local Miners Hall of Fame, which is a now closed underground mine, bit visitors can be taken underground to see some of the workings, live gold pouring, panning for gold and a number of restored mine buildings and interactive displays.

All very grand and most interesting, although the history of K-B and the buildings etc probably were of more interest to me. One thing we don't lack in Australia is historic mining towns and the attached tourist bits and pieces. Let me say as a very much working mining area, coupled with it's history, Kalgoorlie - Boulder is the pick of what I have seen.

So, sunset, Tuesday the 26th October saw the effective end of touring in West Australia, although it would still be several days before I arrived in SA, such is the size of, and distances to be covered in the great big "West".

The journey across the Nullarbor, will be the feature of my next blog.

All for now,

TRAVELLING PETE

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