Touring The Goldfields

We are off for a couple of nights leaving our van in Kalgoorlie and planning on using the roof top “penthouse”. We are heading off to explore some backroads around the historic gold mining areas. Driving south first to Coolgardie then turning north up some gravel roads following the Golden Quest Trail which covers 965 kilometres around the goldfields. Along the route we discover old mine sites, mine towns that have died and fallen into disrepair or been moved to newer sites, old machinery and gravel roads that are wide and straight and traverse varied terrains from salt bush to mulga, dried lake beds to granite creek beds. Red soils to redder soil to lighter gravels. The men that discovered gold out here must have been hard, strong men with great vision and even greater determination to want to work and live in this desolate landscape. The women who followed them must have been out of their minds. For them it would have been an even harder lifestyle with few women about and great distances between mining townships.

We had a guide book with us which gave us some history of each of the highlighted sites along the route with stories of men who worked the mines, rescues that took place and events that occurred in the towns. This made the trip much more interesting.

(P) Added to the above we also drove some Station Access roads, the area is dry and feed is scarce. Alongside major water bores there is evidence of the cattle being fed hay. What was once sheep country is now predominantly cattle country and as a general observation the cattle were cross breeds of poor quality. Whilst the caravan is full off-road it still limits where we can travel ( off the beaten track).

We are looking forward to using our custom built “Rooftop Penthouse”. I designed this so we could still have most of the comforts of the Caravan but explore narrower rougher more remote tracks. Complete with Solar panels, Lithium Batteries, Fridge and Freezer, water Tank, 12v heating ( if it’s cold) 240v electric cooking (via an inverter), a dressing area on the tailgate ( so Judith doesn’t get red sand between her toes) and a “throne” for when the old age bladders need to be relieved through the night. The 12v heated shower is outdoors and under the Milky Way as usually there are no other campers within a “Bulls Roar”. In fact once we got off the main road and headed bush we saw no other vehicles for 2 days apart from 2 mine vehicles and a Station Bore runner ( who checks the livestock water on the stations).

We spent two wonderful nights sitting out enjoying the amazing night sky, beautiful sunsets, the milky way so clear we could watch passing satellites, the International Spaces Station pass over, shooting stars and the most awesome sunrises from our “Rooftop Penthouse”. The first night we didn’t have a fire as we were in a National Park but by night two Philip couldn’t help himself. (P) I must have had a “Brain Fart” to forget my fire pot! At one stop at a disused mine, while exploring, he found an old empty gas bottle that had been shot at, so he picked it up and put into the back of the truck. I wondered what he was going to do with it!!! but when we stopped for the night out comes the gas bottle, cutting discs and grinder and he sets to work cutting the gas bottle off just below half way and cuts some slots in the base of it. Then we are off looking for some wood. Tonight we are going to enjoy a fire in the “new upcycled” fire pot. The lamb chops were delicious cooked over the hard dessert Mulga wood. I must say it was very nice sitting by the fire as night settled around us.

(P) We arrived back to Kalgoorlie and went for a wander around the streets of Kalgoorlie and it’s adjoining town Bolder, beautiful late 1800s architecture abounds. The place is full of old pubs and other decorative facades. From there it was another visit to the viewing area of the “Super Pit” the huge open cut gold mine right on the edge of town. The area was originally mined underground and then converted to “open cut mining”. With a good set of binoculars I was mesmerised by the huge machinery, trucks, the size of the terraced mine and the exposed tunnels from the old underground mines from previous times. Some underground mining still takes place with the ventilation shaft and entrance located on one of the mine terraces. From there it was back to the “Exchange” Pub for a great meal.