Kalgoorlie-Boulder

Kalgoorlie Township

 Travelled from Esperence along the Esperence/Coolgardie Highway through Norseman to Kalgoorlie where we stayed for a fewe days. We were unaware that Kalgoorlie and Boulder joined as a city a few years ago and now have a common name. There are about 25 hotels in the city but the number was many times more during the goldrush days. Also a number fo impressive buildings including the Post Office on Hannan St.



 

Kalgoorlie Post Office

The Kalgoorlie Post Office was completed in 1899, in response to the rapid development of the goldfields. 

This impressive heritage building is constructed of soft pink stone and is a prominent feature in the centre of town.

 The main enterprise is the huge gold mine called the Super Pit. This is an open cut gold mine about 3.6 kilometres  long, 1.6 kilometres wide and 512 metres deep. It was created by Alan Bond, who bought up a number of old mine leases in order to get the land area needed for the Super Pit. Every now and again the digging reveals an old shaft containing abandoned equipment and vehicles from the earlier mines. By far tis is the biggest employer in the area.

Mt Charlotte has a great view of the City. This is Kalgoorlie-Boulder's reservoir for water that is piped from Mundaring Wier in Perth to the the Goldfields. The pipeline has been operating since 1903 and is tribute to the engineer C Y O'Connor. 

View from Mt Charlotte at Sunset

Travelled to Norseman, a trip of about 3 hours and spent a little time looking around. It has a smallish population supported mainly by tourism and some mining operations.

Main St in Norseman

Camel Statues Norseman

Norseman is the last town of any size when travelling on the Eyre Highway east to the Nullabor Plain. A trip that we had been looking forward to, even though there is not much to see. We had made this trip before (in December 1972 with Jack and Moya Hawkesby, 5 people in the old Fairmont - good fun!

 The Nullaboor