Trippin' round Oz: Kalgoorlie

We had two night in Kalgoorlie and that gave us plenty of time to visit the area and see all that we wanted to look at. We called in to Norseman for lunch which was a little worrying. The locals are a rough bunch and they certainly did care about their language around kids. Not a place I intend to stop at again and particularly never one to stay at.

When we arrived in Kalgoorlie we found that the St Barbara(Patron saint of mining) Day Festival was about to start. We high tailed it into the main street and found a good spot to stand and watched the parade pass us by. We were their to see the big mining equipment which end the parade and we were not disappointed. They were really huge and a little scary as they were and arms length from our toes. It was really good to see them up close. It makes you realise how little we are compared to them.

After the parade we headed for the Super Pit hoping to be in time for the blast that was happened in the early evening. Unfortunately we missed it but in the end it was still a good time to go as we got to see the fleet of big dump trucks begin their trek back into the pit to start work again. The large face loaders fired up and loaded each truck with three scoops. We were all a little mesmerised by it all.

Waiting to start after blast.

Heading to work in the pit.

Busy little dump trucks!

Face shovel

In silhouette

The next day we headed back to the pit to look at the workings of the mine in full sunlight. The previous night had been the busy night and the pit was a little quiet. Still awesome though.

After visiting the pit we headed to the lookout at Mt Charlotte. The water storage site that feeds Kalgoorlie. The pipeline purpose built from Perth to Kalgoorlie is distributed from this area. We then visited to the WA Museum and enjoyed our walk around the displays looking at all the fabulous history of the area.