Esperance to Kalgoorlie to Norseman

Esperance to Kalgoorlie to Norseman

December 11 to December 17

Granite outcrops at Twilight Beach

Sunday in Esperance was hot, 36⁰C until about 3pm when a cool change came through. We stayed around the beach and in the shopping centre stocking up. The coastline from Cosy Corner right through to Esperance (some 500+kms) has interesting island formations just off the coast. They are mostly granite outcrops, most have little soil so no vegetation, and many are gently sloped allowing swell to often wash up and over them. Certainly not what you see on the east coast. The outcrops in the photo are off one of Esperance’s best known beaches, Twilight Beach, voted Australia’s best beach in 2006.

Australia's longest running brothel, Hay Street Kalgoorlie

The Christmas parade and celebrations in Esperance were pretty low key. We left before the parade as it was an evening program. We drove to Gibson, only 30km north of Esperance for the night. The local hotel, The Gibson Soak, allow self-contained RV’s to park for free overnight in their very extensive parking area.

Monday we drove to Norseman, 200km from Esperance and the starting point of the Nullarbor Drive, the Eyre Highway. We weren’t ready for the big drive east yet, we still wanted to visit Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie, another 200km north. The weather was awful. After Sunday’s maximum in Norseman of 40⁰C, Monday was 20⁰C, wind and 50mm of rain, nearly half their annual rainfall. We decided to stay there overnight and “hide” from the weather as it was due to pass overnight. We drove to the lookout, but the visibility was about 1km. Norseman is an RV friendly town and had a great open grassy (not boggy) area to park overnight.

Click on the picture to see the guy washing the truck
to get an idea of the size

Tuesday we headed to Boulder/Kalgoorlie. This is a twin town that developed in the late 1800’s with the gold rush. A fun fact, the population of Boulder/Kalgoorlie in 1901 was 30,000, the population today is about 30,000.

We were keen to visit the “Super Pit” open cut gold mine, the largest open cut pit in the Southern Hemisphere. We were fortunate that the rain stopped, as they had cancelled Monday’s tour (and the mine’s operation) due to the rain. We booked on the Wednesday tour and walked around Kalgoorlie, visiting numerous historic and interesting places including Australia’s longest running brothel (for research reasons only, for the blog).

The Super Pit, the massive trucks look pretty small at the bottom

We also visited Mount Charlotte, a lookout and water storage tank. I was unaware of the engineering history of the “Golden Pipeline”, the world’s longest fresh water pipeline, some 550km. Due to the desperately arid conditions, a dam near Perth was build and a pipeline and pumping system was laid and commissioned in 1903. It is one of the three historic engineering feats recognised, along with the Snowy River Scheme and Sydney Harbour Bridge. Kalgoorlie are also RV friendly, and offer free overnight parking at Centennial Park only a kilometre from the town centre.

Actual Toyota Hilux, run over to demonstrate
what a dump truck can do

Wednesday we did the super pit tour, a tour well worth doing. We were taken onto the mine site, into the super pit, down about 100 metres below ground level (the pit is some 600 metres deep all up), and around the massive equipment and gold processing plant. The tour guide has worked at the mine for many years so was very informative. Hopefully some of the photos give you a feeling for the size of this operation, 30 trucks at any one time carrying 250 tonnes of rock each, feeding a massive processing plant, to yield only about 60kg of pure gold per day.

Late in the afternoon we visited the Karlkurla Bushland Park, a self-guided 4km bushwalk explaining the flora of the Great Western Woodlands.

Narrow pub, but a long bar

Thursday morning we dropped in to the Kalgoorlie Hospital to have Leah’s wrist reassessed. Her hand has swollen since the cast was removed and has been sensitive. The doctor reassured Leah that the wrist appears to have healed well, but will take some time to “normalise” as it was immobilised for so long. Leah will take some anti-inflammatories and continue the rehab and push through the frustration of a slow recovery.

We visited the Kalgoorlie Museum, an extensive collection of gold mining history and displays. Part of the museum was restored buildings from the early settlement, including the British Arms Hotel, the narrowest pub in the world at 3.2 metres wide.

Late Thursday we drove to Coolgardie, the sister gold rush town just 40km up the road, where gold was discovered in the early 1890’s, before Boulder and Kalgoorlie. Although very much smaller, it has a long history. Also RV friendly, we stayed in town at their designated overnight parking area at the historic railway station.

Main Street, Coolgardie

Friday we walked the self-guided historic walk around Coolgardie. They have just released an App to use as you walk, I downloaded it and it crashed my phone!! Mitchell talked me through re-starting it, I let the Visitor Centre staff know that the App might need a bit of work yet.

Coolgardie Historic Railway Station and free camp

Coolgardie has some great architecture and (I think) the widest gazetted main street in Australia at 40 metres wide.

We drove back to Norseman on Friday. Saturday morning we restocked and left to drive another of Australia’s great road trips, the Eyre Highway across the Nullarbor Plains. It spans 1200 kilometres between the towns of Norseman in Western Australia and Ceduna in South Australia. We plan to take four or five days for the trip.