Goldfields

 01/02/2013
  What a dejected looking town Norseman is, run down and dying, with an equally dingy caravan park. Considering this is where the gold rush began there are no signs of previous wealth here. 200K’s to the north is Boulder and Kalgourlie, which is the centre of the goldfields and decidedly more prosperous than poor old Norseman.
 There is enough to see here in Kalgoorlie/Boulder so we will stay a couple of nights. We have already had a look at Boulder where there are some fine old buildings, then we moved on to Kalgoorlie where our first stop was to view the Super pit from the lookout platform. This is the biggest man made hole in the ground   and can be seen from outer space apparently. We watched  trucks moving hundreds of tons of rock, the trucks looking the size of a toy a child would play with but are actually as big as a house. It’s an incredible sight.
 In the town itself we realised that it is much bigger than we thought with most of the national chains of shops, but no Dan Murphy’s. The town does have a lot of pubs as you might expect as it is a mining town.
 We are free camping tonight just outside town, just us, the flies and some extraordinarily big ants. One has already bitten Jane , she said it hurt! Free camping means no phone and no internet which sometimes, (often) is a god send. There is much we will miss when we leave Australia but I T connection will not be one of them. The quickest connection we have had is 10 minutes the slowest an hour. There are times when it has been like being present at the birth of a stalactite.

 02/02/2013
  As we thought there is plenty to see in Kalgoorlie, for a couple of days. We spent half a day in the goldmine museum today, great value as it is free. We went up by lift to the top of a mine headframe from where we had the history and geography of Kalgoorlie told us by a very knowledgeable guide. We went underground to have a look at the gold display vaults where gold worth an estimated $40million  is kept. In the grounds of the museum are old buildings such as a typical miners cottage, a railway wagon that was used as a mobile Police Station and the front of a local pub, The British Arms, said to have had the narrowest bar. All this and I forgot to take the bloody camera.
 On the other side of town is Australia’s only (legal) Working brothel and for $18 (seniors rate) you got a conducted tour by Madam Carmel. The Questra Casa, as it is called, is a pretty pink establishment, never found the inside colour schemes as I was whisked away.
 We had a picnic lunch at Hammond Park where there are emus, peacocks and aviaries containing all sorts of parrots and lorrikeets and    a miniature Bavarian Castle, why, we have no idea. Another free camp  tonight with only half a plan so far for tomorrow.

 03/02/2013
 There was probably one more day to be had in Kalgoorlie but as we have free camped for two nights our auxiliary battery coughed and gave up this morning. Jane had just got into the shower when the battery declared “enough” leaving her no option but to resort to a “Pommie bath” The battery needed a long run or a plug in to recharge it. Both was an even better option. So, we have travelled just over 200K’s along the Perth/Kalgoorlie Highway to the fly capital of Western Australia, a town called Southern Cross, noted for nothing as far as we can see, except an abundance of flies.
 We had stopped on the way at the town of Coolgardie, which was a bit like Norseman in that it had once a prosperous gold and nickel mining town with some splendid buildings, but now resembles a ghost town, everyone having left to work in Kalgoorlie.
 We wonder what will happen to Kalgoorlie if ever the minerals run out. For instance there is no water around Kalgoorlie, all water is pumped from Mundaring Dam east of Perth, a distance of 700K’s, the pipeline running alongside the highway. We have one more Australian icon to visit before we hit Perth.