KALGOORLIE

David and kids outside the Shaft Mine Head at the Kalgoorlie Museum

The kids investigating the "olden day computer" at the Kalgoorlie Museum

Learning about Vincent Lingiari and the Wave Hill Station walkout at the Kalgoorlie Museum

In an excavator bucket at the Super Pit, Kalgoorlie

The kids in front of a mine dump truck at the Mining Hall of Fame

Bridgie in a tyre at the Mining Hall of Fame

The Tedescos and the Hansens under the ground at the Mining Hall of Fame

Ben with an Air Leg Drill

Beth with $58,000 worth of gold at the gold pour at the Mining Hall of Fame

Our beautiful Tess in a dump truck tyre

Panning for gold - making their fortune!

DAY 88 – KALGOORLIE                               Wednesday, 28^th September

Well, unfortunately, try as we might, we failed to make our fortune in Kalgoorlie today so we are still headed home!!

With a few mundane things like washing completed, we headed off to explore Kalgoorlie.  It was a clear, if crisp, morning – beautiful clear, blue skies and sunshine.  We went first to the lookout at Mt. Charlotte where it was explained very clearly how the original eight steam pumping stations for the Mundaring Weir to Kalgoorlie Water Scheme were all closed by 1970 and replaced by automated electronic systems.  They are all operated now from Perth.  It was interesting to see the photos and hear the stories of those families who operated the steam pumping stations in the early part of last century.  They were amazingly resilient people who survived in very difficult, isolated places.

We organised a tour of the Mining Hall of Fame for early in the afternoon and then went to the Kalgoorlie Museum which has some permanent, and some temporary, exhibitions.  It was a fantastic display, all for just a gold coin donation!  We went down into the vault and saw the exhibition of different nuggets found in WA, then went up the “big mine thing that carries the workers in a cage down the mine” (sorry but after a couple of reds, I am unable to remember its name!) for a great view of Kalgoorlie. [NB. David says it is called a shaft mine head.]  Then we went outside where they had a number of historic buildings on show.  It was fantastic to see the kids run from one room to the other, excitedly explaining what they thought “the olden day computer” (typewriter) might be used for, or the “washing machine” (copper boiler).  It surprised me how well they thought things out and how much they had remembered from other places we had been.  Ahh!  Such clever children!!

From there we went to the Super Pit lookout for the 1pm mine blast, (which of course we did not see or hear!)  The Super Pit is amazing.  3.7km long, over a kilometre wide and 500 metres deep – it is expected to continue functioning until about 2021.  Decisions will then be made as to what they will do with the pit.  Of course, the other reason we may not have heard the blast, is because the children (having spied the Tedesco kids for the first time in 9 days were squealing so loudly it even drowned out the sound of a huge mine blast!!)

From there, we went to the Mining Hall of Fame for the tour of the underground mine and the gold pour.  The kids loved going down into the mine and then holding $58,000 worth of gold bullion was also rather nice!!  The size of the machinery there is absolutely amazing.  I won’t bore everyone again (same as Tom Price) but the statistics of the size and value of their loads is absolutely staggering.  Six dump trucks of gold ore will only yield a golf ball size of gold, worth about $10,000!!!

The kids (and David and Laurence) then spent the next hour panning for gold in the creek bed.  Unfortunately, no cigar!!  So we are still coming home.  But I can really understand how people get gold fever!  I could not drag them away!!  A lovely night chatting with the Tedescos over a glass of wine or three!!