Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Day 70...Kalgoorlie

We went to a market at the racecourse this morning. Didn't buy anything, but it's interesting to watch the people. Country races are a bit different from the big smoke...very much a family day.
 After we'd had a look around, we went off to the museum. As we were leaving there, we heard the races ahd been called off because the track was too wet and dangerous...
someone said the sprinklers had been left on overnight??
Being a gold mining town, the main focus at the museum was the history of gold mining in Kalgoorlie. These chunks of gold were on display in the vault downstairs.
These cute little baskets were made by aborigines in the missions. It's a prayer/promise basket. Each little scroll of paper has a bible verse on it...you pick one out with a small piece of sandalwood.
People in the early days of gold mining were pretty ingenious...they made some pretty quirky furniture and bits and pieces of necessary items...this one was rather unique! It's bits of timber, branches, bits of tin and wire, put together to make a bike!
This is a very small part of the Super Pit. It was late in the afternoon when we went for a look. The road you can see had about four trucks going up full, and another four going down empty for a load. They look so small in the distance, but they're huge. There was an info area, so I photographed one of the trucks with its statistics. That's only one of about a dozen different, huge, very expensive vehicles used for mining. This huge pit was originally a whole lot of small mine leases bought up by the big boys...started by Alan Bond. It seems amazing, that to begin with, there were blokes digging out their gold in their own little mines with buckets and shovels.

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