Kalgoorlie Gold Mines

Southern Cross 

We stayed overnight here on our way to Kalgoorlie.  It was a Gold Mining Township in the 1800’s with big wide roads, about 25 metres wide, so that the Camel Trains could turn around!! This was the way of transporting goods to the goldfields etc.

Kalgoorlie:

We have met up again with David & Brenda after travelling in different directions for two weeks, we are staying here in Kalgoorlie for the next 3 days. 

Today the men folk decided to visit the Mining Museum and Super Pit display, so instead  Brenda & I  decided to ‘Hit’ the shops for some retail therapy after 10 weeks on the ‘road’. We did manage to find a few shops and some bargains as well.

The Open Cut Gold Mine conducts tours and we have managed to get booked on one, there was only 4 seats left, so it was our lucky day.  The bus picked everyone up in town and took us out to the Super Pit which is an open cut gold mine.

Arial view of the Open Cut Mine at Kaloorlie

This was the biggest open cut mine in the world, until recently and has now been relegated to the third biggest mine.

View point from the Public Viewing Area

The first impression is awesome you really have to see it to believe it, it is 1.55 Klm. Wide and 3.7 Klm. Long. It runs 40 Dump Trucks that carry 240 Tonnes of ore each and worth 4.4 Million Dollars each.

Some facts and figures on this Huge Dump Truck

It takes 7 loads of ore to get about a golf ball size of Gold. It also takes about 240 tonnes of ore to get enough gold to make a wedding ring.

Just to give a comparison of how big these trucks are.

A Face Shovel with an 80 Tonne Bucket

We also had our photo’s taken standing next to some of the Big Machines. 

This is David standing under this Monster Truck.