-- From Kalgoorlie to Kalgoorlie

On Monday December 28, I thus left on the traces of the gold prospectors by traversing the Golden Quest Discovery Trail knowing that here as in Europe the truce of sweetshops closed number of shops. I concentrated on the main sites. In addition the experiment of the visit in Kalgoorlie taught me that all monuments had been entirely renovated consequently it was difficult to represent the atmosphere at the time except to refer to photographs exhibited on the spot.
Tavern in Broad Arrow is located away from Hwy, of course closed, it is entirely out of corrugated irons undoubtedly not of time.

The town of Menzies had in 1890's a population of approximately 5000 inhabitants, 13 hotels, 6 banks etc. It remains the Town Hall, the Lady Shenton Hotel reconverted in Visitor Centre as well as some other buildings.

The bivouac had been fixed at the Niagara Dam which was built from 1897 to 1898 to supply with water the steam train which connected Kalgoorlie to Menzies. Alas in summer it is dry. Only the Pipeline from Perth to Kalgoorlie was able to provide for the needs of population since 1903.

On December 29, I headed to Laverton by a gravel road, Old Laverton's Track, journeyed by adventurers in the end of the 19th century. I tried to represent me these hordes to the search of gold on ground or in galleries of mines. Of course there were few elected. At the beginning of the 20th centuries some big companies hold up the ground with modern means. Today mines are in open air inside whose powerful tractors transport granite rocks containing gold and nickel.

My first stop was in Kookynie to admire what  booklets of Visitor Centres calls a real outback Aussie pub. The photograph of the booklets has few things to see with reality.

60 kilometres away, I stopped again to look at open-mouthed an Old Railway Bridge of which there remain only the pillars.

Well I arrived at Laverton where I visited the Great Beyond Explorers Hall of Famed. It was a treat, an enchantment after relics looked en route. After a 3D movie of a score of minutes I strolled in a labyrinth exhibiting some items of the time of the gold rush and especially presenting admirable videos. There was also a dialog between eight outstanding characters of Laverton. The visit of Laverton is highly recommendable.

Finally I was driving to install my bivouac at the edge of Malcom Dam built in 1902 to supply steam trains. By opening the cell there was +40°C inside and still 29°C at 5 am. Fortunately it was a dry heat 12% of humidity.

The day of December 29 showed a great disappointment. I wished to visit the historic site of Gwalia close to Leonora. While being able at the museum I saw that it was closed until January 10! Consequently I did not see the house of the one of the most famous directors of the mine, Herbert Hoover who became the 31st President of the United States of America.

Gwalia is a ghost town. The inhabitants were immigrants from Italy and Yugoslavia came in search of a better life. Houses were out of wood, corrugated sheets and hessian.

I decided to try my luck in Sandstone located at approximately 280 kilometres away. The distances are big in Australia to see some sights. I bivouacked at 30 kilometres away from the city at the Peter Denny Lookout.

The morning of the last day of the year 2009 was a rapture. I began it by strolling the Sandstone Heritage Trail, when it's cool, to have a low angle light. Two sites out of the four held my attention. London Bridge is an excavated part of a basalt formation of 800 meters long 350 million years old. In the 1900's it was a popular picnic spot. Since with bad weather it is getting thinner and thinner and it will eventually fall.

Contradiction Well was the first town water supply for prospectors, coaches and travellers traversing the area.

An archive picture of the main street shows a width characteristic of cities of Gold Rush to allow the passage of the road-trains drawn by camels.

The post office was built in 1908 when the city reached a population of 8000 inhabitants which fell to 200 in 1919 then at the last census to 119 inhabitants. The city has some other entirely renovated old buildings.

Having spent a pleasant night at the Peter Denny Lookout, temperature went down to 23°C at 5 am. I headed back there to spend the last night of the year 2009 by preparing the nearest publication of my website.
On the gravel road a lizard, varan?, took its lunch by catching insects. I got out of my truck and I approached it. It disfigured me lengthily while I photographed it then it continued its lunch indifferent.

The first day of the last year of the first decade of the 21st century occurred on the gravel road from Sandstone to Menzies. I only met some emus, Australian ostriches, which crossed in front of my truck to great strides.

I joined the Golden Quest Discovery Trail at Copperfield, mines in activity, except this day there.

 I climbed Snake Hill which overhangs the salt Lake Ballard where the renowned sculptor Antony Gormley installed 51 of his statues, “Inside Australia”. I bivouacked on the site in front of this white vastness with the blue of the lake in background.

The return towards Kalgoorlie by the Quest Golden did not reveal unforgettable sites. For example at Ularring Soak a panel explains a journey by Gilles and his friends who would have been attacked by an aboriginals' army. The story proved invented. On the site a water point of the aboriginals is visible. I establish at the end of the morning my bivouac at Rowles Lagoon which like Lake Ballard has little water.

On the gravel road back to Kalgoorlie I visited two more ghost towns which again did not bring anything to my knowledge. At the entry of Kalgoorlie I stopped in Mining Hall off Frame installed on a mine, which was in activity until 1953, with the vestiges of its old activity. The Hall of Famed show a very didactic exhibit of the evolution of mining research in Australia up to the constitution of two world groups, BHP Billiton, Australian, and Rio Tinto, Anglo-American.

Then I headed to Boulder, to look out the Super Pit, one of the largest open-cast mine of which the depth is higher than 350 meters with a traffic of 35 giant trucks.

Entering Kalgoorlie to return to Prospector Caravan Park I have the impression to be in a Disney Land's scenery so much the buildings appeared factitious by foil of sharp and recent colours.

Final report

In seven days I traversed a loop of almost 1500 kilometres in the Western Australia's Outback going to discover vestiges of towns created at the end of the 19th century at the time of the gold rush. No site really held my attention, ghost towns are, for the majority, of the hardly visible ruins. Some towns still have an activity either tourist or mining, they then have renovated public buildings. Except Kalgoorlie two monuments marked my memory, Great Beyond Explorers Hall of Famed in Laverton and London Bridge in Sandstone. But I conceive very well that for Australians to traverse the Golden Quest Discovery Trail is a pilgrimage in search of their roots. Moreover it is of good taste in living rooms to have a convict in his ancestors. Beyond the gold rush aridity and beauty of landscapes were an infinite pleasure.

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