Days 10 & 11 Wednesday & Thursday 29 & 30 July 2027

Wednesday was a short drive, by local standards, from Norseman to Kalgoorlie via Coolgardie.  Coolgardie is a small mining town that used to be a big mining town, it still has the big wide streets that would enable you to drop a u turn with your bullock team if you so wished.

Coolgardie's main claim to fame is that it is here that the "Coolgardie Safe" was invented.  Even at this distance I can hear people saying "go on Graeme tell us about the Coolgardie Safe, it sounds very interesting".  Well, in the days before electricity and refrigeration the Coolgardie safe was used to keep perishable foodstuffs cool, but probably not cold.  The safe comprised of a wooden or metal frame, the size of a large box which was covered in fly wire.  There was a door at the front and shelves inside.  The whole thing was covered in hessian sacking and kept damp.  The safe was hung in the shade and somewhere where there was hopefully a bit of a breeze and evaporation did the rest.  As the safe was usually home made and from stuff lying around there would not have been a standard design or style.

I was very disappointed that there wasn't a big Coolgardie Safe (a la the big merino, big banana etc) at the entrance to the town.

The canvas water bag that you used to see on the front bumper of cars worked on the same basis.

Once I arrived in Kalgoorlie I had a bit of a walk around, booked a tour to the big pit for Thursday.  It was all very thirsty work so I popped into a nearby bar and lo and behold I had accidently walked into a "skimpy bar".  The name speaks for itself but for those of you a bit slower than the rest, in a skimpy bar the female staff wear very little clothing.  Anyway she poured a good beer and had a delightful.......personality so all was well.

Last night I went to a local pub for dinner and lo and behold it was trivia night.  I was invited to join an odds & sods table but unfortunately we were not very successful, I don't think that the rest of my team were taking it serious enough.

Today, Thursday, I did the tour to the Big Pit gold mine and it is certainly impressive.  The bus driver/guide/amateur comedian was very good but with some terrible jokes, of which I have recorded for later use.  The magnitude of the operation is amazing, and the size of the pit is hard to describe given there is nothing around it to give it scale.  Tomorrow I will go to a different observation point which might give a better perspective.

Part of the mine is worked underground from the base of the pit.  These two trucks are designed to work underground.

Pit head at the entrance to the museum (this picture has a mind of its own and wont let me move it to its proper place in the sequence of things).

Kalgoorlie from the top of the museum pit head

My Hotel

The amazing thing about this photo is that there are trucks and machinery working on the furthest face of the mine and they are hardly visible to the naked eye.

This afternoon I visited a local museum with a lot of information about early settlement in the area and of course the development and importance of mining to the region.  The museum is located at an old underground gold mine site and the mine's vault now stores a large collection of gold in all configurations, nuggets, gold ingots, jewellery, trinkets, gold bearing rock and so on apparently millions of dollars worth.

The pit head is still there and the top accessible by a lift, thank goodness.  Fantastic views of the town and surrounds from the top.  See out of order pictures.

(Apologies for the pics being out of order but everytime I move one they all rearrange themselves, but you get the idea anyway).