No, I’m not talking about the car. After spending a good deal of the morning cleaning it up I can safely say it’s terminally filthy. More on the mint later.
After keeping on their case I had a call from Melville’s in Perth indicating I’d get a call in the next half hour. Well, it was nearer 90 minutes than 30, but the result was close on the one that I had wanted. Mitsubishi, now in better command of the facts of the case, has considered that it needs to take ownership of the problem. Even better, given the fault is not deemed structural, we are safe to continue, so it can be dealt with at home. They will forward details to their Eastern States counterparts so hopefully all will go smoothly when we get home.
The remainder of the morning was passed reassembling the rear of the car, tidying things up and generally getting ready for the home stretch. Then it was early lunch and off to the maritime museum.
The maritime Museum comes at a couple of sites. We avoided the one dealing with wrecks, not due to lack of interest, but more to lack of time. We made our way to the mainstream one. The main interest for me was the presence of Australia II, Australia’s only successful America’s Cup yacht. The story of the campaign and the primitive now, but state-of-the art then technology was fascinating. We really only had a little over half an hour to go through, so the coverage was scant at best. The picture above is of a yacht used to create circumnavigation records, completing three laps solo in over two years.
We were in such a hurry because we were booked on to a submarine tour. The museum is the lucky recipient of an ex-navy submarine, the HMAS Ovens. As our guide said, it is a perfect museum piece because the navy used it until the last day, then just walked off, leaving everything in place. Our guide was an ex-submariner so waxed lyrical about the finer points of submarine life. Certainly tight, our tour group of about 10 was comfortable, but you wouldn’t want to be much taller than me. The prospect of 70 onboard, and the ability to carry an extra 20 on a mission at the expense of the torpedo payload, would have been for the claustrophobia immune only.
The tour went in the front access hatch into the torpedo bay, and went through each section seeing the living areas, galley, control, engineering, weapons, engines and storage, leaving via the rear access hatch. Notable was the exposed wiring and plumbing in all areas. Any failure in any systems, or the pressure hull, would be instantly accessible and obvious, because no dress panels are employed.
Given the choice of completing the main museum or going to the Perth Mint, we chose the drive across town to witness a gold pour at the mint. The Perth Mint has been involved in producing coins and medallions for over a century. Today the coins are limited to special issues and large denominations, with the largest coin in general production containing 1kg of gold. Coins for circulation are now all produced in Canberra.
The display includes a mockup of a Kalgoorlie prospector’s camp, a viewing area into the minting area, a display of nuggets, a display of bullion from around the world, and of course the 400oz ingot which you can attempt to lift. At around 12kg and a half the size of a house brick, it is a good demonstration of the density of gold. No photos inside though. We had to satisfy ourselves with Elliot lifting this 70kg nugget outside.
The big-ticket demonstration is the molten gold pour. 200 ounces is melted in a crucible inside a furnace. The demonstration turns this into a bar in front of the gawking crowd. This same bar goes back into the crucible for the next hour. This process goes off about 40 times a week. To make sure there is no “leakage”, the resulting ingot is weighed every day and stored in the vault. At around $250000 in the palm of your hand, it is worth keeping track of it.
The furnace room now only has the one demonstration furnace. When circulation coin production ceased 15 furnaces were removed. As part of the cleanup process, a scrub of the ceiling produced $40000 worth of gold. The bricks lining the furnace flue would be a rich source, perhaps giving up many times that amount, but the heritage listing of the building should have precluded that from ever happening.
Finally a fine day in Perth. It is cooling down though, but it is looking good for heading out tomorrow.
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