Kalgoorlie

Another long drive, to Kalgoorlie a distance of around 480 K's. Thankfully it is Saturday and the road is not busy, we drove through Norseman and dropped into the visitors centre, we will be returning here after our visit to Kalgoorlie, because it is the starting point of the Nullabour Track. After picking up some maps we beetled off to Coolgardie, this place has not developed as much as its counterpart but I was told that a new mine in that area is producing big quantities of gold and there might be a resurgence in Coolgardie.

Into Kalgoorlie and our G.P.S decided to take us 6.5 hours west, so after a little map reading we managed to find our hosts for the next few days Jarrod and Tess. We are going to mind J and T's house and dog while they have a break in Bali with our friends Jude and Col. After a bit of a challenge setting up the van in the front yard we spent time getting to know Emilia the beautiful daughter, who at 8 months old is an absolute charmer.

Later we went into Boulder to the Shamrock Hotel where we met up with new friends Pat and Pete and old friends Jim and Magg's. We all enjoyed catching up and meeting each other.

We spent the next day with our hosts and enjoying a break from touring.

Next morning our hosts left early to travel to Perth, we went the The Mining Hall of Fame, where we went on a tour of the first level of the mine. Judy suffers from claustrophobia and had a bit of a wobbly on the way down but once there settled down and completed the tour. The tour was very good, we had a lady who provided an information packed talk on the mine and added some humor and insights on modern mining.

I would like to say something good about the rest of the place but there was nothing. Just about everything else that we went to see was broken or not working, Theatre not working, Hannan display broken, gold pouring could not melt the gold and to top it all off the Cafe staff stuffed up our lunch order. This place needs a manager that gets things happening.

Our next stop was the Superpit, we arrived just after a blast and witnessed the pit full of smoke and fumes, we are here for a few more days so we hope to return and see some action. We followed this up with a visit to the Superpit Shop where we watched a Video which had us in stitches, it was a very funny doco about a pommie joining a mining crew to learn how to be a gold miner, the Aussie drivers had a lot of fun with the Pom, its a must see. The pit itself is gigantic, one of the most impressive sights I have ever seen. Our friend Pete had told us about finding rocks with gold on them in the car park at the superpit and on our second visit the next day we managed to find some, the sun reflects off the gold on the rocks which makes them a little easier to find. I can understand how gold fever gets to people because looking becomes addictive. We also saw the pit in full operation with giant tip trucks being loaded by giant shovels (like massive front end loaders), 225 tonnes per load and an endless chain of trucks going up the sides of the pit and down again. This is a very impressive sight and obviously a very profitable operation, with the current value of gold at a record high it would be a good operation to have shares in.

On the Sunday after our arrival we spent the day getting re-acquainted with Jarrod and Tess and getting to know Emilia who as I said is a contented little baby, we even had the pleasure of baby sitting her for a while on Sunday afternoon. We also got to know Zoe the dog who is one of the best dog's I have come across for a while, a Border Collie, Zoe loves chasing balls and watching T.V. Her antics while watching T.V are hilarious and had us in stitches laughing at her.

We were sorry we had to leave before Jarrod and Tess return, but on Friday morning we had to leave to tackle the long drive towards home. And so sadly had to leave Zoe in the care of a neighbour. Our agenda going forward is to accelerate our travel a little to enable us to be in Brisbane in time for Christmas.