THURSDAY 10TH JULY TO TUESDAY 15TH JULY 2008

We arrived at Coolgardie and decided to stay in the Caravan Park. We thought we would stay here last night and then check out Kalgoorlie Caravan Parks today. Well, we were both pleased that we had found the Coolgardie one first. They were fairly laid back and said we could take up two sites if we wanted, and could pick whichever sites suited us best. Coolgardie is named the “Mother of the Goldfields” but is it more of a ghost town these days. It has a fantastic museum with a bottle collection that would be worth a fortune.

We ventured up to Kalgoorlie (38km) the next day and all the caravan parks were jam packed as it was also school holidays. We had spoken to some people that came to Coolgardie after staying at Kalgoorlie and they had confirmed what we thought, people everywhere, nowhere to move and shift workers in and out. So we were happy to stay put for a while. We used these few days to re-arrange a few things, fix a few things and kick back a bit. After the trip across the Nullarbor it was good to just sit still for a while.

We went up to Kalgoorlie a few times. Had a good look around, went to the
“Super Pit” that Alan Bond started. It is 350metres deep and plans are to go 500 metres. 1.3km wide and 2.2km long. The big dump trucks look like matchbox toys when they are down the bottom.

Visited the local Mines Dept office to get all the info on what we had to do legally. Thank goodness we got a lady in there that was really helpful. Steve had researched a lot of it before we left home and we had both had a play on the W.A. tengraph system which shows all the leases, current, pending and historical. The lady in the office gave us all the missing links and made it make sense. So we basically know now where we can and can’t go. We have written to all the contacts of the Pastoral Leases to advise them that we will be prospecting on there properties as they only lease the top of the ground, not what is underneath. Steve had already got his Miners Right a month or two ago, so now it is just a matter of getting out there and having a go.