Go See Kal
It took gold to draw (European) people into the outback where Kalgoorlie is located. Otherwise, no one would dare live here but the remarkable Aborigines.
It was actually in nearby Coolgardie that gold was first discovered in these parts. In 1892, two characters named Arthur Bayley and William Ford deposited with the mining warden 554 ounces of gold they had found there. That triggered the rush to find more, the greatest movement of people in Aussie history. Within 10 years, Coolgardie became the third largest town in West Australia (behind Perth and Fremantle), with a population of 16,000. Coolgardie now has only 1,260 people but bills itself “Mother of the Goldfields.”
In 1893, three Irishmen–Paddy Hannan, Tom Flanagan and Daniel Shea–discovered gold near what is now Kalgoorlie (derived from an Aboriginal word meaning “silky pear,” an indigenous shrub). The rush was then on to get to Kalgoorlie, and by the early 1900s, the population grew to 30,000. A neighboring town, Boulder, sprung into existence, and the two towns officially merged into Kalgoorlie-Boulder in 1989. There are still about 30,000 people living in the hybrid town, making it the biggest outback town in Australia. Kal is still the largest producer of gold in Australia.
Not too far from Kal is a town called Gwalia, notable in that the gold mine that had been there was managed by future American president Herbert Hoover. His fully restored house is on display there (although I didn’t visit it).
I did see the Golden Mile Superpit, a colossal, manmade hole sitting on what has been the richest square mile of gold-bearing ore ever discovered in the history of the world. Originally, dozens of independent underground mines were dug in the area, then one visionary bought up the land and began excavating between the mines in order to merge them into one huge hole. Now, the Superpit is one of the biggest open cut mines in the world and the biggest in Oz (3.2 km long, 1.3 km wide, 330 m deep). Blasting in the Superpit only takes place about three or four times a week, but during the brief 10 minutes I stood on the look-out platform, a blast occurred! I felt the ground quake, heard an avalanche of rock tumble downwards and saw a great plume of dust. And I had been frustrated about not getting to the Superpit earlier in my stay in Kal!
The main street in Kal, Hannah Street, looks like something from the wild west. It’s lined with buildings constructed in the late 19th century, regarded as the best examples of original heritage goldfields architecture in the world. Government buildings and saloons and brothels were constructed then and are still around–and fully operational–today. Since 1903, a waterline–the Golden Pipeline–has stretched all the way from the foothills of Perth to Kal, some 560 kilometers. It’s aptly named because water had been in such short supply it became more precious and more expensive than even gold.
I arrived in Kal on Monday, December 10, by way of the Prospector train, which rides the tracks of the mighty transcontinental Indian-Pacific Railroad. The next day, when I attempted to purchase a train ticket out of Kalgoorlie-Boulder on Wednesday, I was told the seats were full and that a seat wouldn’t be available until December 27. This was bad news. As interesting as Kal is, I didn’t want to be stranded there more than two nights, let alone two weeks…including Christmas! But life is full of curveballs. I prayed for another option, though. The visitor’s center folks suggested I look into flights at the Flightcentre agency down the street. Sure enough, the agent found one for not too much more than the train fare and to a more distant destination. Instead of departing for Adelaide, the train terminus, I would be flying to Melbourne. That suited me fine; I wanted to visit Melbourne at some point anyway.
While in Kal, I stayed at a place called the Golddust Backpackers Resort. The hostel (“resort” is a stretch) is on the same street as, and about a gold nugget’s throw away from, the three still-operating brothels. As I walked past them, especially after facing the prospect of being stranded in Kal, I thought about how lonely life must have been for the original settlers. The ratio of men to women was 5:1. For the exhausted and isolated miners, the brothels must have posed a terrific temptation. It made me recall something I’d read in Proverbs when I was younger. Solomon wrote: “My son, observe the commandment of your father, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother…. For the commandment is a lamp, and the teaching is light; and reproofs for discipline are the way of life, to keep you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. Do not desire her beauty in your heart, nor let her catch you with her eyelids. For on account of a harlot one is reduced to a loaf of bread, and an adulteress hunts for the precious life. Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” Many were burnt. Many became loaves of bread.
One segment of Kal’s population that still seems to be struggling is the Aborigines. At least the vagrant group I encountered seemed so. The others I spotted around town appeared conspicuously different from the majority of townspeople–disheveled, sometimes barefoot. At the Superpit look-out, a signboard indicated some mining proceeds are directed to programs designed to benefit the Aborigines. Outside the little airport, I noticed a government sign acknowledging that the Aborigines are the original occupants of the Kalgoorlie-Boulder territory. I didn’t notice any Aborigines-related signage outside the brothels, but I’d hazard a guess that some of the “bread” made in them is Aboriginal.
Tags: Australia, Boulder, Travel, West Australia
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