Well, not such a final place for me, but the goldfields town of Kalgoorlie is the end of the ‘golden pipeline’ that brought water 560 kms from the coast to this dry dusty interior

and allowed this city to develop when gold was discovered in the late 1800’s.

Despite O’Connor, the engineer of the scheme being ridiculed, literally to death, it is now an accepted fact that without this pipeline and the life giving water it delivers, Kalgoorlie as we know it would not exist today.

The Museum of the Goldfields is a must visit if only to see the $4 million worth of gold in the vault in the basement.

The lift that takes you down also carries you to the top of the derrick that towers over the museum and gives a great view over the city and super pit.

On the ground floor there are examples of old cottages, a history of gold discovery and much to Dave’s delight an English pub! He was most disappointed it was no longer operational 😢

The British Arms is reputed to be the narrowest hotel in Australia at just over 5 metres wide. It is one of the 93 hotels that once graced this area.

Kalgoorlie was once a town of several small underground mines. They were amalgamated, originally by entrepreneur Alan Bond, to become the huge super pit of today, managed by KCGM, Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines.

This pit is 690 metres deep and is dug by excavators worth $18 million each, serviced by dump trucks worth $5 million each. The trucks refuel twice a day at a cost of $2,800 per fill. Each tyre is worth $40,000. It’s hard to get your head around the sheer size of everything here! Everything is super-sized!

We visited the super pit on our 2 hour tourist tram ride around the city of Kalgoorlie Boulder.

This was well worth doing and our driver/guide Greg was a wealth of information about the area.

We finished our day enjoying a beer on the balcony at the York Hotel one of the many beautiful old buildings that grace the streets of Kalgoorlie.

Cheers! 🍻

PS. Many thanks to Dave for the captioned photos. (Don’t you just hate it when your phone battery dies on a tourist trip! )😱