Jan 16 - 18 (Day 331-333) - Esperance, Kalgoorlie

850km - 16th in blue, 17th in red, 18th in purple

Saturday 16 January - Esperance

Today the temperature feels slightly warm, still quite windy but feels a bit more pleasant compared to other days down this way. We spent the morning catching up on school and business work in the van. In the meantime I looked up this to do in and around Esperance. I found a few things that I thought would be interesting so after lunch we left the van squirrelled away in its little spot and headed down to what I thought was an old jetty. But we couldn't get very close as they were revamping it and it didn't look anything like what I thought it would. Never mind I had other ideas for after this.

We drove along the coast and then made our way out to Cape Le Grande National Park. It's about a 30km drive south west of Esperance but quite a pleasant drive. No dirt roads so that was good.

As we drove along I noticed this forest plantation that looked very strange. So many of the trees were all dead at the top yet lower down there seem to be other trees or part of the trees thriving. It looked like there had been a fire at some stage but it had actually killed the taller trees and the lower trees were the new growth. I'm not sure but it seemed to be that whole plantation on this side of the road which stretched out for some kilometres.

Once we'd made our way into the National Park we made our way onto Cape Le Grande beach which was just so beautiful! Such white sand and blue and teal sea which blended so beautifully. It was just so windy and cold though which was a really shame but we enjoyed a bit of a drive along the beach for a while and then turned around and made our way out to visit Lucky Bay.

Cape Le Grand

On our way towards Lucky Bay we past Frenchmans Peak which quite a few climbing enthusiasts I'm sure would love to visit but it wasn't on our list of things to do at this stage. It's a 3 hour climb at a grade of 5 which is difficult. I'm sure the view would be very impressive once you got up there though. 

Lucky Bay was just beautiful!! Just like Cape Le Grande but somehow a bit more beautiful for some reason. Maybe it was because it was more of a bay and I'm not sure but it certainly didn't disappoint with the view. It has this lovely wineglass shape to it, with water transitioning from deep blue to turquoise to light blue, and then such white sand! Unfortunately it was still too windy and cold for a swim but I wasn't altogether keen on the idea seeing as they had just sighted a shark the previous morning to us getting there.

As we reversed the car into our spot the tyres squealed. We then hopped out and realised it wasn't a fast pull up it was just that the sand was quite squeaky so as soon as you moved quickly through the sand with either you feet of even a finger it squeaked it was quite bizarre. If you've ever felt connetic sand it was sort of like that.

Lucky Bay

We spent a little while just enjoying the beach and playing around then we headed back to our camp spot. On the way we listened to some more Sherlock Holmes.

Sunday 17 January - Esperance to free camp on the way to Kalgoorlie

We left Esperance today to head towards Kalgoorlie. There were a few things we needed to do before leaving town. Fill up the tanks with water, empty the portaloo, get more fuel, get a few things at Bunnings and go to the chemist. 

On our way out we stopped briefly at a nearby amenities and the boys had a quick play on the playground.

On the drive from Esperance up towards Kalgoorlie we have come across so many areas on the map that looked like it was going to be water but when we got closer it was all dry and white with salt.

The same with a huge body of water which should have been Lake Cowan but that was also just a huge plain of white salt.

Today has been a day of travelling. So it's been pretty much sitting and listening to Sherlock Holmes, doing our readings and chatting.

We've stopped for the night right at the turn off to Kalgoorlie as it was getting pretty late to be on the roads and we'd had enough for one day.

Jude and Greg at work stripping off the old pool
noodle cushioning on the ladder for Bek's bed,
replacing it with some denser foam tube

The ladder Bek uses to get up to her bunk has fairly thin rectangular steel rungs, and back in Mt Gambier about 12 months ago we found we needed to something about it. We found a pool noodle on the road so chopped that up and cable tied it in place, but it was already weathered so over the months has just turn. At Bunnings we'd bought a length of cylindrical foam which is used to insulate air conditioning copper piping. Greg and Jude quickly got to work - Jude helped with the measuring and cutting and assembling and voila a brand new looking step ladder for Bek! Well done fellas good job.

The boys with the 'new' ladder!

Our campsite just at the Kalgoorlie turn-off
(on the road from Norseman to Coolgardie)

 

Monday 18 January - Kalgoorlie

We woke up to a much warmer day. It's at least 10 degrees warmer than what we have been having down south. The temperature in the car was showing 35 degrees as we drove towards Kalgoorlie. We were camped out 75 kms away from Kalgoorlie so we had time to do our morning readings. 

As we got closer to Kalgoorlie we saw this huge mound of dirt which we thought might have been the Kalgoorlie/Boulder Superpit but as we were about 10km away we weren't 100% sure. As we got closer and I checked the map we found that it was.

The 'Superpit' - gold mine in Kalgoorlie

We made our way into where the Superpit lookout was and boy is this open mine huge. It's so hard to get an idea of the size just from the photos but if you can see any of the Haul trucks they look pretty tiny but as you know they are actually huge. 

 

Us overlooking the 'SuperPit'

This is the full scale of the pit. Note the position of the landslide on the opposite bank

  

Same landslide. Now note the size of the vehicle down the bottom!

The Super pit is actually in the Boulder area and Kalgoorlie is a little further north by a few kilometres which is something I didn't realise until we visited here. I knew it was a town in the middle of Western Australia and that one of my Nanna's sisters lived here and that gold was mined here but that was about it.

We drove through Boulder and also Kalgoorlie and both had a feel a bit like Coober Pedy and also Tennant creek in sort of style and age of the town. Althought I think Kalgoorlie has much nicer older buildings which make it interesting. 

We popped into the local visitors centre to get an idea of what we could do in the few hours we wanted to spend here. The very friendly lady told us a few places and then highlighted a Museum and a Tourist Mine which is sort of a little like Sovereign Hill but much lower key. 

The kids out the front of the information Centre in Kalgoorlie

Main street of Kalgoorlie

An old building in Boulder

Another old building in Boulder

We thought the museum would be a good one to visit as the lady had said there was a room where some of the gold nuggest and bullets were stored and give us an idea of the history of Kalgoorlie when they first started mining Gold in the late 1800s.

The entrance to the museum sits under this old gold mining drill platform

We then drove to the Hannans North Tourist Mine (which is supposed to be similar to Sovereign Hill) but when we got there and had a bit of a look around we decided to give it a miss and save our money. 

We had a quick visit to the Mt Charlotte Reservoir and lookout just down the road from the Tourist Mine and then made our way back through the town and out towards Coolgardie.

Overlooking Kalgoorlie from Mt Charlotte Reservoir

 

 Now we are stopped for the night in the bush 75 kms west of Coolgardie in the Goldfields Woodlands National Park.

A lizard Greg spotted when we first got to the free camp.

When we arrived and were setting up Matt asked if he could have some driving time with Greg. It looked a pretty reasonable spot to do some driving so we unhitched and Jude and Matt both had a drive and explore of the area with Greg. It's something they all have enjoyed and benefited from on the trip but particularly Matt who seems to really enjoy getting out and having a good drive.

-- Mim