This is the Super Pit where the gold is no longer found in nuggets but needs to be extracted from the dust and rock. Each dump truck carries several hundred tonnes of rock but only around 1 gram of gold is extracted from each tonne.
This road up the side of the super pit is as wide as a 6 lane motorway. The dumper truck at the top of the picture is 166 tonnes and can take a payload of 225 tonnes. It dwarfs the regular lorry in the bottom of the picture.
This was once a very busy station.
Some old miners houses. I'll take my tent thanks.
Nice looking hotel. I would like to have stayed here but ended up free camping out of town in a picnic area. Parked my tent on an ants nest and spent the night squashing the suckers. Saw a great sunset and sunrise though!
Below is a 60's buffet car which was in regular use on the Perth - Kalgoorlie line.
In the late 19th Century Paddy Hannan and his friend Flannigan found gold here.As you would imagine this prompted a gold rush and Kalgoorlie was once one of the largest towns in Australia.
Today it is home to the "Super Pit" - many of the old shaft mines were bought up by one developer called Bond and he began a huge open cut mining operation.
They have been digging the same hole for over sixty years so as you can imagine it's not one you'd want to fall down. I'll let the pictures to the talking.
Apart from that there are a few interesting buildings, a brothel scene that is ignored by authorities as it is deemed a historic part of the town and an old steam railway. Unfortunately the steam engine was not running at the time of my arrival! I considered waiting but they said it will be at least 3 years before the engine and track have been restored.
Time to move on... to the Nullabor plain which will probably take me a few days so see you on the other side! It is around 2700kms from Perth to Adelaide. I am 550kms East of Perth. Its a long way so I've got some good tunes for the car.
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