Days 12,13 & 14 Friday Saturday & Sunday 31 July 01 August & 2 August 2026

First of all, apologies for missing a few days here and there but I am operating under technical difficulties that would send a lesser man over the edge.  The Hyden Hotel where I am staying has virtually no wifi in the rooms and not much more in the bar.  My laptop won't pick up a signal in the bar at all and the battery has forgotten how to hold a charge.

Anyway at great personal sacrifice this episode of the blog is coming to you from the public bar of the hotel and is being prepared using my tablet.  This system does not give me access to any pics, so no photos today. (There is not enough grunt in the wifi to let me load pics to the cloud).

Last Friday was a bit of a touristy day all carried out under clear blue skies and a temperature of about 22c, great weather for doing stuff.  If you like big machines and big boy toys Kalgoorlie is the place to visit.  The Hannan North Tourist Mine, although a bit kitschy, was well worth a visit.  One is able to climb & clamber over big mine machines such as tippers & diggers plus visit various historical buildings and machinery that has been relocated there.  The kiddies are also able to pan for gold, I got thrown out of the gold panning area cause I splashed a six year old for trying to jump my claim.

The other highlight of the day was a visit to the Boulder war museum and town hall.  An interesting museum and I met the curator and was able to give him some tips on how he could improve his museum, seond place I have been thrown out of today.

Next week is the annual Diggers & Dealers conference, about 2,500 senior mine executives, dealers and industry suppliers attend the town for a 3 day conference and the place is booked out from year to year.  One of the barmaids (with clothes on) was telling me it is a mad week and frantically busy.  The receptionist at my hotel said they were booked out for the full week and all the accommodation prices have gone up.

Saturday started with a visit to the KCGM Super Pit mine site look out.  It isnt called a super pit by accident, supposedly the largest open pit mine in Australia.  Trying to describe it is a bit like trying to describe the grand canyon and the photos (when posted) wont do it justice.  It was almost hypnotic watching the empty trucks go down into the pit, get loaded by the giant diggers and then grind their way back up out of the mine loaded with tons and tons of mined material.

The rest of the day was taken up with the drive from Kalgoorlie to Ryden, my GPS suggested two routes, one of 365km and the other 461km both taking approx 4.5 hours.  That is odd I thought, 100km difference in distance but both to take about the same time to travel.  The answer became obvious when the GPS tried to take me down Emu Fence Road which had a big sign at the start telling me this road was for four wheel drive vehicles only.  This how ill-informed and under prepared tourists get stuck, lost and perish in the bush.

 Sunday has been a bit of a rest and admin day.  After a bit of a sleep in I went to Wave Rock.  This is the reason for my trip to this part of WA.  Wave rock is an unusual rock formation in the shape of a wave and is about 60 metres high & 110 metres long, quite spectacular.  In the same area is another rock formation called the Hippos Yawn.  The reason  for this name will be obvious from the photos when I get to post them.

A little further out there are some other rock formations and some caves.  Now, this is really the middle of nowhere and whilst I was there a tourist bus turns up with 20 or so Japanese tourists.  As they walked past me I warned them to watch out for the drop bears and hoop snakes.  Not sure if they understood me but if amused me and that is the main thing.

I am driving to Perth tomorrow and staying in a proper hotel with proper wifi, if that is case I will post some photos to accompany today's blog.