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Kalgoorlie to Perth - Rough and Tough
It is a long way from Esperance to Kalgoorlie – and an even longer road from Kalgoorlie to Perth (7 hours with one brief stop). It certainly was a rough and tough life in these parts years ago. With hindsight, we should have spent 2 days in Kalgoorlie which would have given us a chance to visit the Super Pit and also the Flying Doctor Service which is based here, which would have been really fascinating.
It would have given us more of a chance to recover between drives too. Not sure where we would have found dinner, but maybe Kalgoorlie livens up a bit on Mondays – now, I will never know. There is a some lovely architecture in this town too, which may have been worth more of an explore – so maybe I was a bit harsh on Kalgoorlie yesterday?
Although it definitely isn’t your bucket list sort of tourist destination, I think if we hadn’t made the trip to Kalgoorlie, we would have missed out on a lot of the history of this area and understood it much less well than we do now.
The Super Pit Lookout
The Super Pit Lookout was open at 7am this morning though, so we stopped by to gaze in awe at the humungous hole in the ground and the sheer scale of the operations here. Interpretive panels give a good feel for the history and current day operations of the goldmine. Not as good as touring the Pit, but a good substitute if you are short of time.
The formidable water pipeline followed the road all the way down the long road to Perth giving a really good understanding of just how ambitious this engineering project was. We were tired just driving this distance never mind moving the red earth in the heat with the flies and building a massive pipeline over it! There were signs on the pipeline asking you to “Please help save our precious water – report leaks”. I was very careful how much water I used to wash and brush my teeth this evening.
Perth
On arrival in Perth, we hopped on a free bus right outside our hotel (it runs every 10 minutes) and got off at King’s Park Botanic Gardens. It took about 20 minutes and we arrived in good time to see the sunset.
Fraser’s restaurant in King’s Park was a great choice for dinner – lovely views over Swan river back to Perth and a varied menu with good specials of local scallops (Rottnest Island) and fish.
We walked down Fraser Avenue because it’s towering lemon scented gum trees are meant to be dramatically lit at night – but someone had forgotten to turn the lights on?!
After a quick photo of the Perth night-time skyline, we caught the bus back to the hotel to prepare for the next day.
Lowlights
The Hyatt Regency Perth had us booked in for October last year in error, which caused a bit of a fuss – but they managed to fit us in. No worries.
Glad I Packed
Eagle Creek Pack-It Cubes.
It isn’t easy living out of a suitcase for a month, but at least it you’ve got your undies in one place, your socks in another etc., it makes it much easier. These handy bags come in different colours so you can find things more easily and compress everything down so you can squash more in. There are lots of makes, but our fit our suitcases – perfect.
Otiflex ear plugs.
These are the most comfortable I’ve ever tried – and I really needed them last night (say no more!).
Tip for Future Travellers
If you can, allow a couple of days in Kalgoorlie – there is plenty to do here. Just don’t make one of them a Sunday though!
We had to swap the hire car for a larger model. The tyres were at the end of their tread. Pretty dangerous if we hadn’t been able to swap them given the driving distances here. Full brownie points to Tim for noticing this – and for remembering (at the last minute) to take our National Parks Pass off the dash! Be sure to check your tyre treads before you pick up hire car!
The bonus was that we were low on fuel and the car was swapped for a new one with a full tank – No worries mate!
