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Thursday 1 December 2005
Day 224
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 Off to Kalgoorlie today, I’m looking forward to going somewhere a
bit warmer and I think Kalgoorlie
should be an interesting place to visit.
Esperance to Kalgoorlie is nearly
400km. We stopped about the half way point, Norseman, for petrol and some
lunch, arriving in Kalgoorlie
mid afternoon.
We got a few
more photos for the ABC’s of touring today, stopping at Grass Patch, Norseman
and then Kalgoorlie.
8 letters to go and the SA and Vic borders.
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Friday 2 December 2005
Day 225
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 This morning we
went for a look around the twin towns of Kalgoorlie
and Boulder.
There are some fabulous old buildings, built when the towns were first rich
with gold; a lot of them are pubs. We also visited the tourist info centre to
find out what time the blast at the mine was going to be. We bought a toy for
the toy run that we’re going on tomorrow.
We went back to
the caravan park and had some lunch while we worked out what sightseeing we
would do today.
 After lunch we
went to the Super Pit, the world’s largest open cut gold mine. The Super Pit is
approximately 3.3km long, 1.2km wide and 350 metres deep. Each day the tourist
information centre is notified if there is to be a blast in the pit and the
time of the blast. Today’s blast was to be at 1pm but because of wind
conditions it was cancelled.
As we were
heading to the bike we got talking to Brian who works for the mining company.
Tony was wearing his Ulysses top and Brian has a friend who is also a Ulysses
member. He asked if we intended going to the Mining Hall of Fame. We told him
we’d been travelling a while and money is getting short and he said that if we
go to the front desk tomorrow there would be tickets in an envelope for us, how
fantastic is that! We talked with Brian for quite a while, he told us where to
find a ghost town, we were going to go to Gwalia, but it’s about 230km from Kalgoorlie and that makes
for a big day if we were to ride there and back.
After leaving
the Super Pit we went to have a look at the gift shop at Langtrees, one of the
legal brothels in town. You can even do a tour of the brothels.
We got some
petrol and headed off to find the ghost town that Brian had told us about.
Silly us didn’t pay enough attention and headed off in the wrong direction.
After a while of not finding any of the pointers that he’d mentioned we turned
around and headed back to town. Once we did find the right road it all fell
into place, the conveyor belt going over the road, the railway crossing.
There’s not much
left of bulong 1898 to 1913, the cemetery is the most prominent reminder that a
town once existed there. We had a bit of a look around; I was keeping my eyes
open for any lumps of quartz that may have gold in it, no such luck.
Back in town we
cleaned the bike for the toy run tomorrow and then went to get some groceries,
the supermarkets were closing, they close here at 6pm. Oh well, we’ll have
continental noodles for tea.
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Saturday 3 December 2005
Day 226
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The Kalgoorlie
Ulysses/Salvation Army Toy run was on today. We needed to clean the bike again
because there was a big thunder and wind storm last night. Tony gave it a bit
of a clean with Mr Sheen.
We went to Loopline Park
in Boulder, the
assembly point for the Toy Run. The Kalgoorlie Ulysses members were serving up
bacon, eggs and sausages for breakfast. We introduced ourselves to Wiggo who is
the contact person on the Kalgoorlie
website and I had sent an email to him on Thursday letting him know we were in
town and would like to join the Toy Run. We chatted with a few people prior to
the Toy Run which left at 11.00am.
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There were over
100 bikes on the Toy Run with a group of posties on their postie bikes leading
the way. We rode through the main street of Boulder
then on to Kalgoorlie where we went down Hannon Street and
eventually back to Loopline
Park. There were people
out on the street waving as the bikes went by. The police stopped the traffic
at busy intersections so we could continue riding. Santa was in a sidecar. The
end of the procession was a Honda Civic that looked like it was on stilts.
At the park
there was a band playing, prizes being raffled to raise money for the Salvos,
and a bbq lunch. A trailer full of toys was the result of the morning.
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We didn’t stay
for the lunch; we needed to get groceries before the shops shut on us again.
Back at the tent
we put away the groceries and had some lunch before heading off to the Mining
Hall of Fame.
Brian had left
the tickets for us as he’d promised. We arrived just in time to see the Gold
Pouring demonstration. An excellent and informative demonstration delivered
with a great deal of humour by a real character, Neil.
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After we’d left
the gold pouring demonstration we came across Neil outside and talked with him
for ages.
We looked around
at the old buildings and machinery from the mining industry in days gone by.
People lived in very rough accommodation on the goldfields; one house had
hessian walls with newspaper lining.
The underground
mine tour was also led by Neil. The group went down the shaft 4 at a time in a
very cramped lift. Neil spoke of the harsh conditions that miners had to endure
when this mine was first worked. They were sent down the mine with 5 candles,
bread, jam and a bottle of water and worked all day in near darkness often knee
deep in water.
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We’d just about
finished looking around the museum when we met up with Brian who was there to
organise things for a function. He gave us a few tips for crossing the
Nullarbor and wished us a safe journey.
Kalgoorlie Accommodation Village, where we’re staying, put on a Christmas Party for residents and
guests tonight, which was very nice of them. I expected a sausage in bread and
bring your own drinks, but they served sausages, steak, salads, desserts and
drinks. We talked with Pam and Bob, from Perth.
Bob has just retired after 35 years in the same job.
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 We’ve arrived in
Kalgoorlie at a
good time for visitors; it’s the Festival of St Barbara. St Barbara is the
saint of miners and Kalgoorlie
is a mining town. The theme for the parade this year is BIG, which isn’t hard
as all the vehicles used in the mines are enormous. There have been several
events for the festival but today is the grand parade.
We went to the
main street earlier than the time scheduled for the parade and had a bit of a
wander. The SES were doing demonstrations, their members and even Santa were
travelling across a wire strung high above the street between 2 buildings on
opposite sides of the road.
All the vehicles
for the parade were assembling at the top end of the street and we were able to
take a few photos there. Bottled water was provided free of charge for the
public which was very nice.
 Close to 12pm we
positioned ourselves in a good spot to watch the parade go by. There were all
the usual parade participants, brass band, pipe band, a clown on a funny bike,
people on horseback, fire trucks and fancy cars. Bringing up the rear of the
parade was the huge mining equipment, a tractor towing some mining gear and the
biggest truck I’ve ever seen, it just fit in the two lanes of the road, they
had to make sure it didn’t knock the traffic lights as it went by.
 On our way home
from the parade we thought we’d stop off at Super Pit to see if there was to be
a blast today. As it turned out the blast was scheduled for 1pm and it was
12.45 when we arrived. We decided to hang around and watch the blast.
At 12.56pm we
felt the earth shake; the blast was 4 minutes early deep in the base of the
mine, which made it hard to see. What we did see was the puff of smoke and dust
that came up from the blast area. A bit disappointing really, it’s not every
day that you get to see someone blow stuff up!
After lunch we
went for a ride to Coolgardie, which is 39km from Kalgoorlie. There’s not much in the town, it
used to be quite a large place, there are a few lovely old buildings remaining.
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