Week Commencing 14.03.11

Week Commencing 14.03.11
Today I had a nice sleep in, John got up early to try his luck at squidding, unfortunately no luck. We decided to do the walk along the bay which took us up to the lookout and yes more rocks for us to climb, we were gone well over 2 hours , the weather was great. Later in the afternoon we drove down to Hellfire Beach to try our luck at fishing, no luck but it was still great fishing and reading a book on the beautiful white sandy beach.
Tuesday we woke to a miserable day, John had gone fishing back at Hellfire but returned empty, we are sure there are no fish in these waters. The day got a little better, so the four of us decided to pack up and leave camp Wednesday morning.
Wednesday was very wet, so we were pleased we packed everything away the night before. We hitched up and was on the road by 8.15am, best ever so far on this trip. We are heading for Kalgoorlie. Arrived in camp around 3.30 set up and I washed the van as it was covered in red dirt from the trip. We joined John & Judy for drinks. We did stop at Norseman and enjoyed lunch at the lookout, not much to see there.
Thursday up and did some washing and then John and I went to have a look around town. We went up to the SuperPit, what an amazing place, the trucks look like matchbox toys as they slowly move around the pit. More about that later as we are doing a tour on Sunday. We arranged a tour of the oldest Brothel in Kalgoorlie for 3pm today, Questa Casa . Off the six of us go, not sure what we were going to get. It turned out to be alot of fun, the Madam was the tour guide and she told us so incredible stories. Not a career I would like to do. The tour took over 2 hours and during that time we laughed alot and some things made you feel weird to say the least. Everyone said they had a great time. I hope the same for Friday as I have arranged for the six of us to do the Pitch Black Underground Adventure Tour.
Today is the big tour of the mine, we are told we will be 72mtrs underground, have to climb down seven narrow ladders and crawl on our knees for a small patch. After signing our lives away, we are then kitted up in bright orange overalls, big belts, gloves, helmet, torch and battery pack and of course the big gum boots. This gear is not only hot but very cumbersome. We are then given a 10min safety talk and off we go. We start by climbing down a spiral staircase, some 166 steps in all. It gets a little darker as we go. This is level One some 32mtrs below ground. He gives a little talk about the mining back in the 1800’s. From here we start to climb down the six ladders to the 72mtrs and level Two. I found the climbing ok but still was descending slowly, when you reach each level you call All Clear so the next person can come, only one person on ladder at a time. Once down we get to see some of the old equipment used and also some of the modern. He showed us some of the supports which were cut trees over 100 years old. It is quite damp down here and the floor is as it was when they closed the mine some thirty years ago. Another highlight was to climb a small ladder and then crawl into a tunnel, I waddle on my bum I was glad that I did as I wasn’t going to attempt it when we above ground. Yet another highlight was we had to secure ourselves to a chain and walk over a big hole which if you were to fall was some 400mts below , here we got to throw our rocks down the hole and wait for the splash, really good stuff. We returned to the surface in the cage. All in all everyone said they had a great experience. We were all glad to get back to the top and each of us commented that the earthquake they had here last year did cross our minds. If you come to Kalgoorlie, I would recommend you do this tour. John and I decided to go into the main street and have a good look around. I bought myself a little bit of Kalgoorlie, a gold nugget pendent, 4.3gms of gold. It is not from the Super Pit but from the local prospectors who sell to the gold shop where we purchased it. We finished the day with joining Bev & Bernie, John & Judy for dinner. A great day was had in the big Kal (as the locals call it).
Saturday, here we are again, the boys off to the races and they girls head off to town for lunch. Tonight we drove up to the Super Pit to see the operations at night. Some 31 trucks operation on a 24 hour non stop shift. We got chatting to some local kids who work for KGCM , it was great as they gave us lots of information. On the way back to camp we drove through the main street, the pubs were bussing. I then drove down Hay Street, past the brothels and the girls were sitting in the windows waiting for clients. This I found amazing, never seen this sort of thing before. Here I am 56 and still learning.