World Australia Western Australia Kalgoorlie

The travelling O'Connors

Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie Jul 6, 2009

Today we travelled just over 400kms up through Norseman, than via Coolgardie, before getting to Kalgoorlie.

We wanted to have a look at Coolgardie, as it was part of the gold rush history too. The buildings in the main street of Coolgardie are magnificent, and have almost been completely restored. We got some good photos.

Once we got to Kalgoorlie, we booked into our cabin and then tried to book a 'Finders Keepers Super Pit tour' but they are fully booked out till thursday, due to the school holidays. As we are only staying till Wed morning, and we have already had one tour of an open cut mine, we will have to do with just looking from the outside - which is what we did this afternoon. They have a SUPER PIT lookout, and the views were great! It's like watching busy ants, except that the trucks are so very BIG when you see them up close.

We have had a little bit of rain this afternoon, otherwise the weather has been overcast and not too bad for winter.

A bit about the city itself .... Kalgoorlie is a large city of 30,000 people and it gets it's water from Perth, which it has done for a very long time by a pipeline created by C.Y. O'Connor (remember from Freemantle).

The city has many touristy things to do including a Prospectors and Miners Hall of Fame - which we will go to tomorrow. Kalgoorlie is now known as Kalgoorlie-Boulder and is the largest in-land city of WA, and it is also known for it's rich history of gold prospecting. The Super Pit is one of the largest open-cut mines in the world and forms part of the Golden Mile, which is said to be the richest square mile of gold bearing earth in the world. It isn't very far from the centre of town either, which is amazing!

Enjoy the photos.