14th July 2011 Kalgoorlie – Bastille Day

Viva la Revolution my comrades.

Today was a let’s have a quiet one, sort of day.

We headed off for the final 2 holes of the Nullarbor Links at about 9:30 and arrived at the very recently renovated Kalgoorlie Golf Course at 9:50.

The course is magnificent, a championship style course out in the outback, and by the look of it, a very challenging layout done by Graham Marsh. Another year to let the grass establish itself and it will be very much worth a trip to play (if you’re in the area).

I got a couple of double bogeys to finish my 18 holes ( Par 4 1^st a 6 and Par 5 2^nd a 7) for an 18 hole score of 107. When I signed up in Ceduna 6 days ago, I was told that about a 120 was an average score, so I am pretty happy with my round. And I now have a completed and stamped card and personalised printed certificate to commemorate the round on the worlds longest golf course.

After the golf we headed off up to Mount Charlotte Lookout. The place where the original water pipeline from Perth finished in 1903. This pipeline enabled the gold fields to be fully developed and so was the lifeblood of Kalgoorlie as much as the gold is. The views were panoramic over both the gold fields, some mines, processing plants and the city.

We then had a walk down the old historic precinct of Burt St in Boulder. All of the old buildings seem to have been built in about an 11 year period from about 1895 to 1905. In this part of Burt St, all the old buildings have their original occupiers noted on signs above the present businesses. All pretty interesting.

There seems to be a lot of aboriginals around town, but none appear to work in the shops or other city businesses and many seem to just wander around town, or sit in big groups in parks (unfortunately many seem to spend all day drinking)

After a walk around there we headed off to have a look at the Super Pit. The pit is 3.7km long x 1.55km wide and 460m deep, with plans to go to 600m deep. They say the pit will operate until 2018 and the last gold extracted from the ore in 2021. It is HUGE. The very big pieces of machinery that operate in it are dwarfed by the sheer size of the Pit. 225 tonne payload trucks look like matchbox toys as they make their way up and down the pit wall roads.

From the Super Pit we went to have a walk down Hannan St, the main street and historical centre of Kalgoorlie. They have down such a great job of preserving the history of this town, in both its buildings and the mining technology. There are so many beautiful old buildings, especially pubs, that have been kept in, or restored to, their grand best. The streets are really wide here, it is easy to imagine horse and cart on the streets.

I guess any visit to Kalgoorlie has to include a visit to the infamous Hay St Bordello precinct. To be honest, we drove by and it was all pretty ho-hum from the outside. While on the subject, it seems that all the pubs have “Skimpies” most nights, I am sure to the delight of the mining fraternity.

Late in the afternoon we did a bit of housekeeping ready to head off early tomorrow for Esperance and Le Grand National Park. Fill the car and a visit to the local “Dump Point”. (One of the joys of self contained caravans.)

It’s good to see a few comments on our posts, even the older ones Dante. I will try to put a few pics of our Pilgrimage so far, up on the web somewhere. This site is having problems with pics.

Glad to hear Brian has been given the OK to start running again after his knee reconstruction, and he can start planning for next years SANFL season.

Our phots are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/cultural_pilgrims/