Day 14

Friday 20th March, 31 degrees

Kalgoorlie Boulder

The mine tour that we chose to do means that we will have to stay in town another day but it is nice to slow down. The Ollies leave this morning for Esperance.

Our heads are still spinning with all the saucy stories from Madam Carmel yesterday. What with clients dying (stiffs) and over worked staff members it was somewhat mind boggling. Today we are confronted with mining and geological statistics.

We learn that even though the Super Pit open cut gold mine is over 3.7kms long, 1.5kms wide and 700 metres deep there are many underground mines still operating as well. One of which runs from within the super pit to somewhere under Hannan Street! This truly is a town of streets paved with gold. We see ore trucks up close, go down into the pit and see the ore being crushed up above. Everywhere around us the ground sparkles with Fool’s Gold and that is a good thing as the Fool’s Gold actually contains the real gold which is extracted by crushing and chemical processing. Small openings in the pit wall are actually old hand dug shafts. In fact these old mines go deeper than the Super Pit, those guys must have been tough. The big surprise is that the idea of creating Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines super pit was the brainchild of Alan Bond back in 1989.

Accom $35.10

Travelling Kms: 0