Kalgoorlie/Boulder and the final turn to the east

We've nearly closed in on the final turn east. About 2 hours south of Kalgoorlie will be Norseman the mining town where we turned south and headed to Esperance not so very long ago... From that point on we will be duplicating our view and returning to the Nullarbor. I do wonder, this 5 weeks apart if the landscape will have noticeably changed. Perhaps in colour, perhaps in animal life, perhaps not at all. We will find out in a few days when we pack the tent up for the final (planned) time of this journey and head back home.

Now about Kalgoorlie itself. This town established around the turn of the century... not the last one but the one before that ~1900, is known for its very rich gold deposit known as the 'Golden Mile.' The hard part? Getting enough water to not only quench the thirst of the hard-working miners, but to use in extracting the gold from the surrounding ore. Along the highway is Mount Charlotte, one of the oldest underground mines left in the area and directly opposite the town water supply holding tank. The water that fills this tank is transported through a pipeline from the foothills surrounding Perth. This same pipe has been expanded several times and also accommodates irrigation the of thousands and thousands of hectares of wheat farms between Kalgoorlie and Perth.

A few photos of the historic buildings still around today.


York Hotel - Kalgoorlie, W.A.



Exchange Hotel - Kalgoorlie, W.A.



Palace Hotel - Kalgoorlie, W.A.



Clock Tower - Kalgoorlie, W.A.

In the distance surrounding the eastern edge of town, for as far as you can see, there are piles and piles of waste rock, extracted mostly from the Super Pit. 

Super Pit Stockpiles, Kalgoorlie, W.A.

Now the eye opener of visiting the Tom Price mine just earlier this week did little to prepare me for the massive scar created by the joining of several smaller pits, along with the openings of older underground mines that used to grid the area. This really is huge. Seen from space (easily, I might add) this pit is still several years from being finished. The mine plan is for the pit to be about 500 meters deep at the end of it's tenure.



A full truck headed down into the pit, Super-Pit, Kalgoorlie, W.A.

 We watched a massive dump-truck (only slightly smaller than the Rio Tinto truck shown previously) wind its way down the mine carrying a load of road-base to the bottom where several charged explosives were set to go off later in the afternoon. Across the way and about half the depth of the pit, we could see where last August a major slip/slide had occurred blocking a main road in and out of the pit. 

Slip/slide from August 2011. Excavator working on removing rubble - Super Pit, Kalgoorlie, W.A.

The slide itself continued on past the road and made its way all the way to the bottom of the pit.They were casually (as they had been for months I am sure) working on removing the rubble with an excavator precariously propped on the top of the pile. Some of the boulders that were in the slip pile were several times larger than that of the dump-trucks we have noted as being tremendously sized.