Kalgoorlie and the Golden Hole

The caravan park in Norseman is my favourite sort – large, a bit shabby, no jumping pillows for kids and no keyboards on the amenities.  It sort of melts into the woody landscape which is populated by little flocks of noisy green parrots. There’s a gate in the corner which leads in to what is a huge golf course, though not knowing anything about golf, it didn’t seem like that to me. No green lawns and humps – just twiggy woodland and the odd clearing with deeply rutted red soil.  Every so often there is, I think it is called a tee, sponsored by someone – the butcher for instance.  It’s a nice walk for me but there isn’t a soul here.  It’s difficult to imagine people chatting along with bags of clubs.

 The hop from Norseman to Kalgoorlie is quite quick.  On the way we see one of the FIFO accommodation places.  It’s a petrol station with cars parked higgledy piggledy in front of it and  the cabins behind.  It looks tough and not like a place one would want to stay in for any longer than ten days straight.

As we approach Kalgoorlie we become aware of the huge upheaval in the landscape brought about by the gold mining,  Slag heaps great and small and fenced off mine shafts. Tumbled earth with tussocks of grass trying to get a grip.  Rusty machinery and rigs not unlike small Eiffel towers

We get to Kalgoorlie in daylight and in time to do a tour of a historic brothel which I’ve written all about in another blog. .  

Kalgoorlie is a  fine town which bears witness with the wealth that has come from all the gold and apparently will continue to do so until 2021 when the mighty Superpit open cut mine will run out of puff. There are glorious sprawling pubs on the corners of the main streets,  elegant and ornate government buildings.  Lots of modern shops like Subway at road level but above them the old signs for Tailors, Drapers and so on.  It is a town that loves its past and in some way incorporates it without a whiff of phoniness into its present.  You often see men with huge beards and dessicated faces and bright little eyes just like cartoon miners.  But they are for real.  They are out there with their metal detectors and shovels.  A car passes with the disconcerting word “Explosives” written on the side. 

I am at first puzzled by the chalkboards outside the pubs that say “Tonight’s skimpy is Jess” or Susie or whatever.  I wonder if they are racing tips and when I ask the young girl in the caravan park what a skimpy is and she laughs. “The barmaids aren’t naked or anything. Just bra and pants or a bikini”  The pubs themselves are old and cheerful.  One has a mine shaft in the floor where miners used to toss nuggets for retrieval later rather than hand them over to their employers. It has a grubby glass panel over it now.  It’s a bit of a puzzle.  I mean, how did they know whose was whose later on?  When we went to the museum later I got a possible answer.  Nuggets are very individual, having been worn into strange shapes and the lumps of gold bearing minerals are different too.  Perhaps pinching someone else’s nugget was as difficult to get away with as kidnapping his baby.

There are actually two towns which have more or less become one.  Kalgoorlie came first and then Boulder was established to be nearer the diggings.  We were lucky to arrive on market day in Boulder when the big mining company runs a free bus tour up to the open cut mine.  I didn’t realize it was a mine tour or I might not have gone as I was by then a bit jaded with picks and shovels and gold pans etc.  But I am so glad I did because it was one of the most extraordinary sights I have ever seen.  I wish Shakespeare could have seen it in all its splendour and horror.  We wound our way up to it on the mud roads in a rather posh modern bus.   On either side were ghastly mountains of rock.  Our very good guide told us what was what, some of the rock was minimal gold bearing and some better.  There were also rather poignant piles of timber carefully separated out as they muck up the crushers and cause thousands of dollars worth of damage.  They are the result of the open cut mine gobbling up the tunnels and shafts that had been hand dug by the original prospectors.

Our guide has a Scottish accent and was once miner himself. He tells us lots of facts and figures about the mighty trucks to which no photograph does justice because they are simply so enormous.  Tossed about are old tyres cracked and crusted with mud.  Finally we get to the top of the pit itself.  Nothing has prepared me for its depth. It is the biggest hole I have ever seen. Way way down below us the big trucks look like woodlice and doggedly crawl along the terraces. We can hear nothing for the savage wind which is blowing as if it is angry with this place.  Right at the bottom of the pit gleams water, apparently several times the salinity of the sea . All of it seems the opposite of anything human. I cannot deny its glory, but it seems mad that all this is not for needful things like bread or water but for gold, two thirds of which is made into jewellery.   It makes no sense at all.  But then what does.