Kalgoorlie

We had 3 days at Kalgoorlie, which was enough for us. There is quite a lot we could have done, but it wouldn't have been interesting for the kids and sometimes it's just easier to go with what works with them. I often think about how much different this trip would be if we were doing it without kids.. we certainly wouldn't have done the playground and Maccas tour of Australia and may have been able to absorb more history and eat out at yummy places.

Hammonds Park
We visited Hammonds Park, which is a great public park and playground. It has beautiful green lawns to run, play and picnic on and a range of other fun activities for kids. There are some cages with different birds in and a flock of emus that wander across the back of the park behind a fence. The emus have quite a large space to roam and every so often you would see a group of them roam across the back of the park. There are 2 fenced in playgrounds, which are suitable for kids of all ages and peace of mind for parents. There is also a pond with ducks swimming in it – one had ducklings following along behind her when we were there – and a bridge over it. And for some reason that I never found out, a Bavarian castle and surrounding town built using all sorts of local stones and gems. There is also a cafe there that serves coffee, which I was told was very good, and food options. It was a great place to spend a couple of hours.

The Bavarian Castle

The little kids playground

Kalgoorlie Museum
The Museum is by donation (suggested $5 per family, which is pretty good value). We went in time to do the free guided tour, as we have been on some very good and very interesting tours that made our experience so much more worthwhile, unfortunately this one wasn't one of them. The tour guide was worried the kids wouldn't handle it....given how incredibly dull she made it, she's lucky any of us handled it. I know that sounds horrible but she made something potentially very interesting into something very tedious. The museum had some early settler buildings, which I enjoyed because I love that style of building, displays about the local environment, finding gold, the local Indigenous community and the development of the town. It had some historic vehicles, which are always interesting to look at as well. There were a bits that were the most interesting.

Rory checking out a dingo

Miners hut

Police station (was on rail cart to be mobile)

Of the things we found most interesting, the first was the headframe. You could catch a lift up to a viewing platform on the headframe and get a really good view of the town and surrounds. The kids enjoyed it so much that we went up and down it 3 different times.

The Museum entrance (the viewing platform is the yellow bit)

Greg, Tilda and Rory in the lift

The gold vault has lots of different items made from gold, including necklaces, broaches, pins and a pocket watch, as well as some examples of different types of nuggets and a 400 ounce gold bar worth around $680.000. This bullion is the first one ever poured in Kalgoorlie from the Super Pit. All of this is housed in a vault that was especially built to store and display it.

The British Arms pub makes up part of the display. It is the narrowest pub in Australia, standing at 5.6m wide. There was a small bar area downstairs and 2 rooms upstairs for the owners to live in. The pub ceased operating following a scandal involving a gold theft and a dentist took over lease in one of the rooms, so in the upstairs they now display the dentist's room and the sitting room from the Pub when people lived upstairs. There are rumours of foul play in the death of the publican's wife and of the pub being haunted but the information given by the tour guide was so patchy and all over the place, so we don't really know what it was all about. But it had an intriguing clock, with the face on the outside of the building and the workings on display on the inside, and staff at the museum have to wind it every day to keep it running.

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.

Geraldton Part 1: The Pink Lake, Playgrounds and the Museum

On the way from Kalbarri to Geraldton we detoured via Port Gregory (for obvious reasons). One of the interesting things along the way is the Pink Lake. The pink colour is the result of algae and the lake looks amazing, especially through polarised sunglasses. Port Gregory is a very small but very pretty town.

We were very relieved to see Geraldton, because it felt like returning to civilisation. It is really the first "real civilisation" since Darwin, except for Broome. And while I have absolutely enjoyed a lot of the top of WA, I have discovered I also like my comforts and a much more reasonable price for groceries. I would say, on average, our grocery bill has been $20-50 more per week shopping at the more remote towns and I truly feel sorry for people who have no choice. Their grocery bills must be horrendous. There is quite a lot to do in Geraldton, from the pretty great foreshore, which has a long pathway along the waterfront and multiple playgrounds and a water park, to the (donation requested) museum, the HMAS Sydney II Memorial and the lobster tour at Geraldton Fishermans Co-op. There are also beautiful blue beaches complete with very white sand. It was too cold and windy for us to enjoy the beaches but I could imagine living there.

The Foreshore has a long path along the waterfront. I'm not sure how long ago it was completed but it is a fantastic outdoor space. It goes from a walkway/esplanade which takes you to a lookout over the harbour, where you can see the working port and sea lions lazing on the rocks, all the way to the marina and residential areas a couple of kms away. As you walk you pass a couple of different playgrounds designed for kids of all ages and a water park. The big slide on the big kids playground is so much fun!!! It goes pretty fast and is pretty awesome. I loved it. I am such a child still.

This is the awesome slide

Rory climbed the rope ladder up into this to get to the slide. He has no fear

The Museum entry is by donation. It showcases the area's natural and cultural heritage. The kids were fascinated by the shell collection and pearls from the Abrolhos Islands.

It also houses a room dedicated to the shipwrecks of the Batavia, Zuytdorp and Gilt Dragon. The way the information is presented, and the way the stories are told, makes it so incredibly interesting and I could have spent quite a long time in there. The Batavia was carrying massive sandstone blocks in its ballast. These were going to be built into a grand portico for a castle at Batavia once they reached the shores. These rocks were rescued from the bottom of the sea and the arch has been created as the massive centrepiece of this room. It is an awe inspiring sight.

The stone archway is stunning. This photo doesn't show just how amazing it is and I can't believe they were shipping it. 

A cannon from the Batavia

Some beautiful metal detail on the Batavia canon

The suspected layout of the inside of the Batavia

They had a temporary display called Rough Medicine. It is all about medicine on the ships voyages from the 1800s through to recent history. There was a wonderful collection of items, from doctors tools to a book donated to a young boy for his good behaviour on a long sea journey, and all sorts of things in between. One of the facts I read that stayed with me was that many babies died between the ages of 6 and 36 months, which is when babies do most of their teething. There was a belief that the teeth coming through somehow caused many of these deaths and so it became practice to lance the gum above the teeth to enable them to come through. In the age when medical equipment was not sterile, I'm sure that practice caused even more deaths. I am so glad I live in an age where we know so much more. And I can't help but wonder what people 100 or 200 years in the future will think about our current medical knowledge? Will they think we are ignorant and stupid?