If towns have personalities, then Kalgoorlie is bonkers.

Another town established purely for mining. The main street is lined with majestic public buildings built during its heyday. Today although a lively town we also noted a few abandoned, empty and boarded up shops.

Once we’d set camp we headed on into town. We headed straight for the booking centre for the tour of the super pit mine. Unfortunately there was only one seat left on the bus for Saturday and they weren’t running on Sunday. D’oh! Disappointed that we’d missed out we checked out some of the other attractions.

We had also just missed the blast time for the day but decided to head over to the super pit lookout anyway.

Super Pit

 

The scale of this just cannot be explained in photo and is something that has to be seen. Feeling a little soul-sad at the destruction of the earth we moved on.

Mount Charlotte

Mount Charlotte is the highest point giving an overview of the town. There is also some information charts about how the water pipeline from Perth was initially established.

 

Burt Street

Burt Street in Boulder was destroyed by an earthquake in 2010.  Based on some historical photos they are restoring the facades of the buildings along the street in replication of what they were like before they were destroyed. It is now very picturesque.

 

Pub Crawl

Being a Friday night and hearing that there used to be 76 hotels operating in Kalgoorlie we decided that a pub crawl was in order.

 

We started at the Metropole in Boulder which has a glass panel in the floor over an old mineshaft. There had recently been a bit of a cave in, but were still able to see a long way down. The pub itself was a brilliant old fashioned pub with loads of quirky signs around the place. It was definitely a locals bar and we enjoyed a quick drink before heading back to camp to get washed and changed.

Walking back into town the first pub we came to was the Kalgoorlie Hotel.  Inside was very stylish modern décor. We grabbed our drinks and headed out the back to the beer garden which was large and also very well done. We noticed that it was past knock off time as there seemed to be more and more people pooling into town.

 

Next stop was the Palace Hotel. There was security at the door already although the place was virtually empty. Then we walked into the second bar and understood why. This was a skimpies bar. The bar maids were wearing underwear. We got our drinks and found a table away from the crowds at the bar. Before finishing our drinks the barmaids had lost their tops. We quickly finished up and left

 

We headed across the road to Paddy’s for a meal. The place was packed and we snagged the last table at the back of the room. The noise echoed off the polished timber floors and hard ceiling, but the service was fast and the food was good. We didn’t hang around as it was a bit too noisy.

 

The pub next door to Paddy’s is the Exchange Hotel.  This is a landmark building in Kalgoorlie.  The Saloon bar also has ‘skimpies’ but at least they kept their corsets on. The bar was buzzing with high-vis wearing blokes Friday night vibe.

We considered moving next to next pub but a quick walk past the front we decided the mood was much better where we were. We headed back to the Exchange and stayed the rest of the night.