30th Oct 2013
Kalgoorlie-Boulder:
Kalgoorlie is the centre of WA’s goldmining
industry. It was once called ‘Hannan’s Find’ named after the first prospector
Paddy Hannan to discover gold there in 1893. Hannan basically stumbled on what
turned out to be the richest goldfield the world had known.
In its peak by 1903 between Kalgoorlie and
nearby Boulder the area supported a population of about 30,000. In recent years
with the resurgence in mining the population has grown again, in fact according
to the 2011 census the population had reached 31,107. Water shortage was a real
issue in the early days and in 1903 a pipeline was opened pumping water 560 kls
from Perth. This water supply is still maintained today as you drive from Perth
to Kalgoorlie you can see the pipe running parallel with the road almost all of
the way.
In its day the two towns boasted 8
breweries and 93 hotels among other things.
The two towns amalgamated in1989 to
Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
The Super Pit
Although the region supports
numerous active mines the most prevalent and spectacular one is the Super Pit.
This is an open-cut gold
mine approximately 3.6 kilometers long, 1.6 kilometers wide and 512 meters
deep. It was created by Alan Bond, who
bought up a number of old mine leases in order to get the land area needed for
the Super Pit. Every now and again the digging reveals an old shaft containing
abandoned equipment and vehicles from the earlier mines.
The mine operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and produces
850,000 onces of gold per annum. A visitor centre overlooks the operation. The
mine blasts at 1:00 pm every day, unless winds would carry dust over the
town. Each of the massive trucks carries 225 tonnes of rock and the round trip
takes about 35 minutes, most of that time being the slow uphill haul. Employees
must live in Kalgoorlie; it is not a fly-in fly-out
operation. The mine is expected to be productive until about 2017. At that
point, it is planned to abandon it and allow the groundwater to
seep in and fill it. It is estimated it will take about 50 years to fill
completely.
We counted an endless procession of 20 haul trucks
working while watching from the lookout.
10th October
It took us three days to cross the Nullabor to Cedunar
in South Australia. Fairly straightforward driving a lot of it is through
undulating country with a variety of scenery trees and vegetation, if you stop
thinking about the distance you have to travel the run isn’t so bad. Our first
night stop was several hundred kilometers from Kalgoorlie at a free camp spot
called Baxters Rest Area. The following day included one section of road
between Balladonia and Caiguna that is 90mile dead straight (that’s miles not kilometers),
the longest section of straight road in Australia. Although it is straight it
is also undulating so reaching the crest of one hill you can see the road crest
of subsequent hills disappearing into the distance, you need to stay positive
or it would get you down and as our friends have said, ‘it never seems to end’.
Like others we stopped for a break at the top of the Madura Pass to take in the
expanse and solitude of the Nullabor and visualize the area once covered by
sea. From there you drop down onto what was once the seabed and run for quite
sometime adjacent to the original shoreline cliffs, it’s all quite fascinating.
To be on the safe side we topped up with fuel a couple
of times on the trip across not knowing the frequency of roadhouses or the
price and paying $1.97 and $2.00 per litre. As a friend once said there is
nowhere else to go.
Talking off crossing the Nullabor,
everybody stated how the wind always blows west to east so we would have a tail
wind coming home. We of course had one day tail wind, one day side wind and one
day head wind. Head wind is expensive and side wind is hard work.
When we eventually hit the coastline we
were amazed at how calm and blue the sea was knowing how violent it can be down
there.
We diverted off the highway and visited the
‘Head of the Bight’, this is a viewing platform that has been set up for
travellers to observe the migrating whales in season or just to see the
scenery. This is Aboriginal Lands but operated by white people (how else can
you put it), there is a fee for accessing the place $9.00 each with seniors
concession. Yes we qualified.
12th Oct 2013
Ceduna was cold, wet and blowing a gale, we
stayed one night and moved on in the morning by-passing Streaky and Smoky Bays
with the weather being so foul. Driving almost 500kls from Ceduna to Port
Augusta at the head of the Spencer Gulf, the road takes you in a big drooping
arc across the Ayre Peninsula through undulating grain growing country. At this
time of the year farmers are harvesting as can be witnessed by the number of
large grain carrying trucks that thunder back and forth between storage silos.
Most of the centres you pass through are whistle-stops usually a rail head, a
series of huge grain silos the obligatory pub perhaps a garage and maybe a
small store. We stopped for a late lunch break at Kimba, a more substantial
town of about 650 population. The rest area is in town where the road changes
direction and crosses the rail line, Nancy suggested we stay the night I think
she had enough of sitting for hours in a vehicle. I could imagine freight
trucks slowing down for the corner and then accelerating on one side of us and
the train on the other and wondered what sort of night we would have so I kept
going for another 140 kls or so finally pulling up 25kls short of Port Augusta
and although we were just off the highway we slept like logs.
14th Oct
We tossed up whether to head for Adelaide
as we were looking forward to catching up with some friends there, the weather
was still nasty and I had my tail up for
getting the caravan back for repairs, so we decided to cut across country while
we were having a good run with the crook wheel and picked up a good tail wind –
sure makes a difference. That night we pulled up at Renmark another big day but
pleasing progress. Renmark was in the middle of a rose festival the town looked
absolutely beautiful with its wide streets and median strips ablaze with
beautiful roses. I held up traffic by slowly driving around round a-bouts so
SWHO could take photos – wouldn’t get out of the car to do it. Of course hardly
any turned out and it was my entire fault for going too fast!!!
15th Oct
While Nancy shopped at Renmark I managed to
find a place that would fill our gas bottle. These days most places only offer
the swap and go service, it’s getting harder to find places that actually fill
bottles. No doubt we will eventually be forced into this process but I will hang
onto our caravan bottles as long as possible as they are Australian made ones
for caravans and are stronger than the others. With getting away late we made
it a short day pulling up at a nice lakeside free camp rest area half way
between Mildura and Balranald on the Sturt Highway about 240kls all up and
plenty for a change.
In all of our travels over the west with
numerous trucks and the big road-trains of enormous length I never heard one of
them complaining about other road users. In fact when a truck caught up with me
I would call on the radio and establish a passing procedure, most of them would
wish you well or even query as to where you were from. On the road in the
Renmark, Mildura region I have never heard so many whinging truck drivers in
all my life. All of them complaining about those effing caravans holding them
up, no attempt to communicate when almost every caravanner has a VHF radio. You
feel like reminding them that they hold up traffic on hills when they are
heavily loaded, but what’s the point you would then have to listen to their
verbal diarrhea or turn the radio off.
16th Oct
We stopped at the Narrandera show grounds
the next night $10 for an un-powered site. On the way we called in to Hay and
visited a sheep shearing demonstration and museum, had lunch there and bought a
couple of home-made Anzac biscuits for afternoon tea, they were the size of
saucers and almost a meal on their own.
17th Oct
The next day we turned off the Sturt
Highway and headed for Junee, Nancy’s old butcher (as in 80+ something) in
Brisbane buys Junee lamb and it is delicious so a call into the Junee abattoir
for a carton of Junee lamb shanks was the order of the day and a visit to the
famous Junee chocolate factory where they make delicious liquorice and Nancy
purchased a large carton of the stuff.
Our direction of travel was to be through
Goulburn to Sydney where we would catch up with our earlier travelling
companions and then on up the Pacific Hwy home but by this time the devastating
NSW bushfires were at their peak with areas of the Pacific Hwy south of Sydney closed
smoke was thick everywhere so we found it necessary to change our plans and
started heading in a north westerly direction that took us an extra two days
through Bathurst and Orange and eventually a great loop back out onto the
Pacific Hwy north of Newcastle where we had a good run all the way up to
Grafton almost 600 kls for the day and far too much.
What a beautiful sight Grafton is this time
of the year all the streets lined with flowering Jacarandas absolutely
stunning.
Sunday 20th Oct
We plugged Tyalgum into the GPS, that’s in
the upper reaches of the Tweed River below Mt. Warning where friends live. Our
GPS decided to take us on all of the back roads and we even had to make a ferry
crossing at one point, can’t see how it was supposed to be the quickest route
but it was certainly scenic. Mid afternoon we left Tyalgum for our last leg
home arriving just on dinner time. Both the house and gardens looked
immaculate, Lisa had been very busy and it was nice to be home.
It took most of the following week to
gradually remove everything from the van and find homes for it all without
cluttering the house; a lot of the gear is stowed under our neighbour’s house. Then
I scrubbed the van inside and out to get rid of the red dirt so it all looks nice
and new again.
Nancy has complained for a week and a half
that she is still sore and stiff from sitting in the car for such long periods
on our drive home. (she’s just getting old and cranky).
Following a visit to the caravan builder he
is going to up-grade all the running gear and guarantees we won’t have any more
problems with it, van goes into the workshop on the 19th Nov. In the
meantime I am systematically attending to a substantial ‘to do’ list and then
there are Dr’s, dentists, opticians and Nancy needs to have cataracts removed.
And that my friends is about up-todate
see photos below
