The traditional name for Kalgoorlie is “ Kulgooluh” meaning place of silky pears in the language of the Wankatja peoples.

Arriving here from the north you could never mistake this place for anything other than a mining town – gold was discovered here in the late 1800s and and in 1893 the town was established, becoming the largest settlement on the Western Australian Eastern goldfields at that time. Originally a series of many underground gold leases Alan Bond (of Americas Cup fame) formed a company in the 1980s to buy up and consolidate these leases with a view to making one giant open-cut super pit. He was unsuccessful due to the insolvency and a consortium of businessmen bought him out and in 1989 and established the Super Pit we see today. The super pit still produces marketable quantities of gold and is not due for closure until 2035! It currently measures 3.6 km long x 1.6 kilometres wide and over 600 metres deep and can be seen by the public from a viewing platform overlooking the pit.

We walked the heritage trail here which takes you up and back down the main street (wide enough to turn a team of oxen) and describes some of the well preserved buildings from the 19th and 20th centuries. The mining and gold museum is very interesting and has a replica of the huge gold nugget which started the gold rush.

We drove west from here heading towards Perth and were surprised to see a huge above ground pipeline running alongside the road. This is the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme – a 760 mm steel pipe bringing water from the Mundaring Dam near Perth 530km east to the populations of Kalgoorlie and surrounding towns. This enormous project was was completed in 1903 and at the time was the longest fresh water pipeline in the world.

We drove west from here across the ‘Wheat Belt’ and 1000’s of hectares of wheat, canola and barley ripening and almost ready for harvest. About a month ago at Barn Hill Station we met Wendy and John Metcalf from Dowerin WA. They kindly invited us to call in to their farm on our way from Kalgoorlie to Perth.