We read in the Perth Mint that there is payable gold in the roadbase in Kalgoorlie. After having driven in this area, past perhaps 30 or 40 mines, they are finding plenty of other places to get it without digging up the main street.
Without anything to have for breakfast really, we argued over the remainder of the milk before getting into town in Esperance for a bit of a look around and to get some basic supplies. 
There is a hill just south of the main street with a fine view over the harbour, the town, coast and the Recherche Archipelago. A retired tourist gave us the lowdown on the shipping movements – we suspect he was an ex-harbourmaster or similar, because he could not only tell us what was due in, but also where they would be now and whether they were running late.
Back in town, the major attraction was the jetty. Most of these coastal WA towns seem to be very proud of their historic jetties. This one has been shortened somewhat because a section near the head collapsed before the locals realised just what it was they were losing. Our walk along its 650m of remaining length turned up a sealion waiting for handouts from one of the locals cleaning squid. 
Sammy is apparently a second-edition local after the original became preserved only as a bronze statue. Fishermen were also catching herring and garfish, but as usual “you should have been here yesterday”. 
Since we weren’t fishing, we were happy to be able to see the bottom through the crystal clear water. A passing jellyfish was also a little unexpected with its striking markings.
The domestics dealt with, it was on the road north. First stop was an arboretum just north of town. It was founded by a botanist in the 20s experimenting with plantation pine. His lack of success led him to investigate fertilisers which resulted in the widespread cropping in the south of the state. Later on, in the 70s, something like 4000ha was planted in 120 plots of trees to investigate the viability of each of the species for plantation use. 35 years later and there are some impressive stands, and some failures, so I suspect they have their answer. One of the trees planted was Yate, which I had never heard of before this trip, but we have bought some yate honey, and now we know what the tree is like.
We lunched in a place called Salmon Gums. I found this while investigating this trip. It really has little to recommend a stop to most people, but salmon gum is the timber in our burl coffee table top and so I wanted to see where it came from. Any of the salmon gums I have seen have been tiny, much too small to have a burl of any size, so I don’t know that I have yet seen the type of tree it came from.
We skipped through Norseman, expecting now that we will be back that way soon, and so it was off to Coolgardie. Like many other places the country was not really what I expected, not that I would have known. I kind of expected the goldfields to be basically in a spinifex-style desert. After most of the state was like this, except for the forested south, it was quite a surprise for me when most of the journey today north of the cropping country is actually covered in spreading eucalypts, sometimes with a wattle understorey. We also passed the occasional dry lake bed, some of which are quite huge.
We expected to spend the night in Coolgardie. However, it has been a real boom and bust town, and while the current population of 1200 is somewhat larger than its low of 200, there was little to keep us there after closing time of the museums. Coolgardie started the gold rush in WA, when a couple of brothers chipped 16kg of gold from the ground with a tomahawk in an afternoon, before riding 100 miles to register their claim. Soon men were walking the 600km from Perth pushing a barrow through the bush to seek their fortune. What they found was a place where gold was hard to find, but water was even harder. Numerous schemes were employed by enterprising entrepreneurs to turn what little water was to be found into something that could be drunk. It was then sold to the miners but for a high price.
The goldfields were fuelling the economic growth in the fledgling Swan River colony, soon to become Western Australia with federation. There was confidence in the west of an enduring settlement and the buildings took on an air of permanency following the initial hessian humpies prone to fire in the dry climate. One of the first major engineering projects was the water pipeline from Perth. Its arrival in Coolgardie in 1903 was a godsend, but when it was soon extended to Kalgoorlie 40km further, the easier gold to be found there soon spelled the demise of Coolgardie.
Not everyone made their fortune. The head photo was the camp of a prospector who lived there for more than 30 years. He spent his days chasing for gold right until the end when he died in 1971, aged in his 80s. He broke his hip in an accident riding his bicycle into town. On discharge from hospital he suicided the same day, no doubt feeling unable to provide for himself and working his claim, and not wishing to be a burden. His camp has been preserved as a memorial and overlooks a busy mine, so there was no doubt gold in the area.
We came on to Kalgoorlie, but with washing to do, we didn’t spend any time investigating. That will wait for tomorrow. The camp kitchen however has turned up more interesting people. Check out http://pedallingaustralia.blogspot.com/
p.s. See you soon 1S!
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