Kalgoorlie Mining

Kalgoorlie is absolutely a mining town. As you drive in from the south, you see old spoil heaps and exploratory drilling holes and as you approach the town, the Super Pit dominates the landscape. It's a big town, steeped in history since the late 1800s-early 1900s and there are a lot of historic buildings. There are two towns that merge into one – Boulder and Kalgoorlie – and both have historic main streets with lots of interesting buildings. You can do a self guided audio tour of both streets and learn all about the historic buildings but we didn't do that as it's not something we could easily do with the kids. Having said that, there is still lots to do.

Kalgoorlie Super Pit
The Super Pit is the result of a number of smaller mines being bought up and becoming one massive open cut mine. It is impossible to get your head around the sheer immenseness of the Pit, even when you are standing there. Even knowing how massive the trucks are that dig and haul the rock, and the fact that from the lookout at the top of the Pit they look like teeny, tiny toys, it is still impossible to really comprehend just how big the Pit is. We visited the lookout all 3 days were were at Kalgoorlie, as it is really worth just standing there and trying to absorb it all.

Some (most?) days they blast and that is pretty cool. You phone the information hotline around 9:30am and they have a recorded message saying what time blasting is going to happen, if at all. They did blasting on the Wednesday and Thursday we were there. Both times it was scheduled for 1pm, and both times they went early (5 mins and 10 mins) and so we just weren't quite ready with out camera to get a video, much to Greg's disappointment. There is no warning to let you know and on the Wednesday, the trucks were still working, rumbling up and down the massive roads while the blasting occurred. All you see at first is a bit of a lift/disturbance on a patch of ground, then a dust cloud begins billowing up and then you hear a bit of a boom. It is very cool to watch.

The dust is from the blast. I can't get the video to upload

Hannan North Tourist Mine
This is a great little tourist attraction set up to show off how mining used to occur “in the olden days”. There are lots of different buildings to explore, including miners huts, managers office, bank, stores and explosives storage. There is also a lot of different equipment used in mining, from simple ore carts, to different types of drills and different mine shaft headframes.

A rescue pod, that produces oxygen and scrubs CO2 for I think it was 36 hours. I guess they have them at strategic points in the underground mines in case of collapse

The most exciting part for Rory was a modern digger and a modern dumper. You could climb up into the cab of the dumper. The sheer size of these trucks is mind boggling! It was good to get up so close (and into) one of these to get an even better perspective of just how huge the Super Pit really is.

 

There is also a Chinese Rememberance Garden, complete with koi ponds which entertained the children. I don't think either of them have even seen koi before and they were amazed at the size and colours of them.

You could also pan for gold in a little stream. They must seed the water daily with gold, as we all found some little flakes. I can see how gold fever hit so many, as once you find one bit you just really want to keep trying to find more, not because you are greedy but because it is exciting to go through the process of digging the dirt, panning it and seeing that little flake of gold come out of all the mud and mess.

Strathalbyn Part 1 ("Strath" to the locals)

We set up camp at Strathalbyn for a week. Initially we made the decision to stay a couple of days but we realised it is actually quite a central location for exploring the surrounds and into Adelaide, so rather than pack up and move, we stayed a week. The caravan park is next to the football oval, which wasn't a problem at all except for football training being rather noisy and keeping Rory awake. Facilities are limited (amenities and a basic playground) but it is very close to town and is clean and quiet, which is good.

From Strathalbyn we visited Hahndorf (a German town, established in 1839), Victor Harbour and Adelaide. Strath itself is a pretty town, with a mix of old and new buildings. There is a Commercial Street that has shops like Woolworths and chemist etc and then there is High St, which is probably the original main street, as all of the buildings are old, and it is full of many interesting antique shops. If we weren't travelling, and didn't have a 2yo, we probably would have spent more time there browsing all of the unique and interesting items in the many shops but 2yo and antiques don't mix and we can't buy anything anyway! If you are interested in antiques and are in the area, I thoroughly recommend taking the time to explore this lovely town and the collection of antique shops.

Jupiter Creek Gold Diggings
We  visited the Jupiter Creek Gold Diggings with our good friends Michael, Melissa, Willow and Sakari. Any day spent with these guys is good, but this had the added benefit of a unique and new experience. Jupiter Creek is an historic gold mining area, complete with tunnels, shafts (some of which are fenced off) and the many varied mounds from alluvial gold mining. One of the more interesting finds of the day was the Phoenix Adit. As we discovered, when hiking around the trails, this tunnel actually travels 80m underground (horizontal, not depth) and you can climb out the other end. There was no information about this that we found so it was purely by chance that we discovered it. We weren't prepared so we didn't go through the whole tunnel. The 4 kids and I just went in a little way, maybe 4m.

I definitely recommend a hard hat (don't ask how I know....)

And even more exciting..... we found quartz crystals all over the ground in one area! We probably wouldn't have discovered it except a small boy from another family showed us the crystal he had and his dad told us where they found it. The kids had a great time fossicking the site and seeing what could be discovered and it was really simple; you just walked around watching the sun glinting off the crystals and followed the shine to pick it up. Loads of fun for everyone, and Rory was just happy picking up (and throwing) rocks. We're not going to get rich from quartz crystals, and most of them were broken, which we assume is because this is just mine workings that were brought to the surface and dumped as part of the historic gold mining operation, but hey, it was fun and the kids had a blast!

My finds (top 2)

Tilda's finds

Victor Harbour
We drove to Victor Harbour for the day as well. We also really liked this town. There are some old buildings here, which are always pretty and which I find very appealing. I think the kids are finally getting used to me pointing out all of the old buildings and houses, although I'm not sure Rory understands as he will often point to a house of any age and type and say "I want that one".

Granite Island is a nice walk. The smooth granite rocks lining the island are so different from the rugged limestone coast of Robe. Tilda got a bit of a geology lesson from her (only slightly more knowledgeable) mum. It is such a change from the limestone coast and also very different from the coastline where we come from. You can see penguins, seals, dolphins and whales from the Island, although we saw none of these (being there in the middle of the day doesn't really lend itself to finding these animals).

Of course, the kids did get to play at (yet!!!!) another playground. This one had a real train! It is a fair compromise because they don't necessarily enjoy the travels and scenery that we do.. and I often use that time to give a friend a call for a catch up while supervising, so it all kid of works out. Although I am kind of very sick of playgrounds at the moment :)

Mt Barker is also not far away, which is great as Michael and Melissa were staying there so we could catch up with them (yay for "new friends"). The time is coming soon when we will part ways and I think everyone will be pretty sad at that. It truly has been wonderful to have a lovely family to hag out with on this journey and to share the fun and not so fun, the good and the frustrating. Mt Barker also has important things like Aldi and K-Mart for much needed supplies.

Adelaide
We also did a day trip to Adelaide. We had a 2 hour park and that is all the time we spent there, not because Adelaide is bad but because Rory's behaviour was horrible. He cried, whinged and tantrumed for the whole time we were there. I was worried he would wake up sick the next day as his behaviour was so far out of the ordinary but we think he was just overtired and overstimulated from the fun day at Jupiter's Creek. So we saw Rundle St Mall and that was about it. We did do a drive through north Adelaide, as we were told we should, and it is a very pretty place full of old, very large houses that were nice to see. I think it would be good to have more time to explore Adelaide but it just wasn't part of our plan/schedule and certainly not with the kids. On the plus side, we did find The Map Shop which made Greg happy as it stocks these books that are the "bible" for people who tour England on canal boats (his next adventure apparently - just gotta figure out how to finance it).

Ballarat

After 3 overcast and drizzly days we moved in to Ballarat as there was no sun to use our solar panels for charging the batteries. There was still more we wanted to do at Ballarat so we decided to hang around for a while.

We chose our caravan park based on reviews on WikiCamps... and while it was a nice caravan park it was just across the road from the train line, which no one mentioned in their reviews! (seriously, who doesn't comment on the noisy trains while giving reviews!) The caravan park had great facilities for kids, which kept ours entertained given that it was pretty miserable with lots of rain and wind while we were there. They had 2 X-box 360 Kinects that you could play for free and we all had such a good time with them that we may have to get one when we get home!

I loved the historic buildings and houses throughout Ballarat. It felt like everywhere we drove I was commenting “ooh, look at that one” or “I love that one” and similar. I've come to the conclusion that modern house construction is boring and bland and we have taken function over form way too far. Why can't our houses still be beautiful and pretty and appealing and attractive, yet be functional and cost effective? But perhaps I am the only one who feels that way.

Years ago, when I was pregnant with Tilda, I joined an online group of mums all expecting bubs in that October. 9 years later many of us are still in touch and while I had plans of meeting many of the Melbourne mummies while there, we just didn't stay in Melbourne long enough to allow it. So I was very excited to meet one of the lovely mummies, Kristy and her 4 kids, while we stayed at Ballarat. After being online friends for so long it was so nice to finally meet one of these mummies and even better to know she is every bit as lovely in person as she is online, and her kids are gorgeous too. Tilda took over an hour of playing at the Maccas playground to warm up and stop being shy and had a fantastic half hour or so with the kids. She had such a great time she was sad when we all had to leave and wanted to meet them again the next day.

Sovereign Hill

The best part of Ballarat, according to Tilda at least, but I think I also agree – Sovereign Hill. It is quite pricey but it is a not for profit organisation and they have certainly done and amazing job there. You can go two days for the price of one, which we did as we didn't get to see everything the first day.

We got to see a 100 ounce gold ingot being poured (worth around $160,000). It was interesting to see the process of the gold being heated then poured into a mould. It was then plunged into a bath of cold water and most of the heat dissipated so rapidly that they lady doing the demonstration was able to pick it up in her hand almost straight away. I thought the heat would have lingered. Even more interesting than watching the gold being poured was listening to the lady doing the demonstration talk about the mining history of the area. It seems rather ironic that gold was first found in Ballarat at Poverty Point. The history of the area, the gold findings, the different mining types etc was very interesting.

We watched hard boiled musk drops being made. This is a very physical process, which I didn't realise. The mixture (sugar, sucrose, something else that I forget, and a musk essence) is heated until a syrup is formed. The mixture is then poured onto a table with a metal surface that has hot and cold water pipes running under it to keep the table at the right temperature for the candy to set into a toffee-like consistency. The “toffee” is folded and turned until the right consistency is reached throughout the mix. This is then hung on a hook on the wall and stretched, folded, stretched and repeated until it is at the right stage. It is then cut into square blocks which are run through a cutting and shaping machine (kind of like a Cuttlebug or BigShot for my crafty friends). It is amazing they are still using the machine today from the 1800's when it was first started by the Brown Family.

We did 2 mine tours. One was the Red Hill Mine tour, which is part of the admission price. This is a self guided underground tour where you follow the story of a young apprentice beginning his mining. It was interesting to do. We also did the Labyrinth tour. You have to pay for this on top of admission but I think it was definitely worth it. We caught a train 25m underground. As you go down it is completely inky black, so dark you can't see your hand in front of your face at all. I don't think we often get to experience this level of total absence of light. The tour of the mine workings (yes, it is a tour of a mine that was worked in the past) is very interesting, with lots to learn and examples of the gold found in Ballarat.

I also thoroughly enjoyed The Criterion, which was a store selling clothes, china, lace, tea towels, books and other similar items. It was just a very pretty shop to visit. The other thing I really enjoyed was watching the wheelwright make a wooden wheel for the carts they use onsite. It is a process that takes 5 years for each wheel as they have to cure the centre bits (that's my technical term for it as I cant remember the name of it) for 5 years and the spokes for 2. The wheelwright walked us through all the steps and it was truly very interesting.

Tilda was VERY eager to go to school there. They have daily school demonstrations and she happily went off to school on the Sunday. The teacher was dressed in time appropriate costume, made the girls form one line and the boys another and led them into school with girls sitting at the front and boys behind (this included separating out the parents). The children were told all about school in the late 1800's and were then given the opportunity to write with pen and ink. Tilda enjoyed it but found pen and ink a bit too much to manage. The teacher gave Rory chalk and slate, recognising that a pen and ink probably wasn't the best idea for him. Sure enough, when my attention was elsewhere for a second or two he stuck his finger in the ink well and ended up with a blue stained finger up to the first joint, much to the amusement of some of the dads.

 Waiting for school

 Pen and ink is pretty tricky

Rory was given a sand tray to "practice writing" in

Tilda panned for gold and found gold so she was a very happy munchkin!

Despite spending 7 days in the Ballarat region, it still wasn't enough to see and do all we would have liked to, but time is moving and so we decided to move on.

Omeo - Swifts Creek

The drive to Swifts Creek and Omeo is STUNNING!!!! It truly deserves the capitals. You drive along the curve of the Tambo River for much of the way and it is beautiful. The Tambo River isn't very deep, or isn't where we drove, but it is so picturesque. I would have loved to stop and take photos but there just weren't any safe places to stop and get the car and van off the road. Around every bend I was saying “ooh, look at that” and “oh isn't that beautiful!”

Omeo is a beautiful little town! It truly is lovely. We only stayed 2 days as the price at the caravan park was ridiculous (we payed less than half price at Swifts Creek which is half an hour down the road!). We thoroughly enjoyed the town as all of the trees were beginning to change colour and it is just a small, quaint little town that was nice to spend time in. We found a very cool cuckoo clock shop – completely unexpected – but definitely worth a visit. The lady who ran it was in her 80's. She used to also run the information centre so she was a wealth of knowledge of the area too.

The Omeo Caravan Park is truly beautiful (but way over priced)

We drove up to Mt Hotham, touring Dinner Plain (yes, it really is a place) on the way. I really liked the first 5 or so minutes at Dinner Plain as all of the houses are very different and unique to the typical Australian house, but after a little drive they all had a certain sameness to them. Very little was open seeing it is off season but I am glad we had a look (and I got some ideas of how I'd like my house to look if we ever built again). It was good to see Mt Hotham and to imagine it covered in snow in winter but to be honest, I enjoyed my walks at Charlotte Pass a lot more as I love the more alpine trees and snow grass environment. Mt Hotham was much more rugged and less vegetated.

The houses of Dinner Plain 

 View from Mt Hotham

Hiking along Razorneck Ridge

After 2 days at Omeo we drove back to Swifts Creek. This has a great little camp ground just across the Tambo River from the town and one of the nicest bakeries I have come across. The bakery was interesting as they didn't have lots of food options but the bread was delicious and they had a constantly changing array of tasty treats. My guess is they baked a batch of a couple of different treats – like cherry ripe slice, donuts, vanilla slice etc – then the next day they would bake some different goodies – like cupcakes, wagon wheels and other yummy things. So you never knew what goody you would find when you went to buy "just a loaf of bread". We spent quite a bit of money at the bakery but hey, it's good to support the local towns, especially when the camping and the bakery prices were so reasonable :)

We spent the week at Swifts Creek where Michael, Melissa, Willow and Sakari joined us. We all had a great time together. The kids spent hours each day playing in the creek and making up all sorts of games.

One of the best parts of our stay here was Greg went gold panning one day.... and found gold.... and the gold bug was caught.!!! So the next day we all headed out to explore and gold pan Swifts Creek. More gold was found. Hours were spent playing, I mean panning, in the dirt for gold..... fun for all of the kids (big and little alike), although the little one's lost interest much quicker than Greg did :) We certainly wouldn't make our fortune... more like 50 cents maybe.... but still, we found gold!

We also managed to fit us all in our caravan for a roast lamb dinner one night.... we were very impressed to get 8 people in round the table of such a small space, although as caravans go ours isn't small. And we had a very yummy roast lamb dinner.

The other good part of Swifts Creek.......Any guesses? Hot showers with great water pressure! My “must haves” in life have been reduced to being warm (after freezing at Jindabyne) and a hot shower with good water pressure.