Gold Mining

Wednesday 27th May
The main attraction around Kalgoorli (commonly refered to as Kal') is the huge open cut mine site called "The Superpit". It's the second largest open cut mine in the world and produces a moderate amont of gold.
We took a 2.5 hour bus tour through the operating mine site, but before entering we had to undergo a site induction just like the contractors on site. After we were issued with safety vests and hard hats, the tour operator (a former mine employee) took as though the whole gold mining and refining process.
It's a really really really big hole in the ground - 3.8km long and 1.6km wide. The big dump trucks look like toys while they are down the bottom of the pit, but up close they are the size of a two or three storey house, the 2500HP catapillar engine burns 400lt of Diesel per hour. The machine has 6 wheels each weighing 6t and the tyres costing some $32,000 - which apparently is considered very cheape.
But the dump trucks are small compared to the "face shovel", which weighs some 700t and when it's on the move (at 2km/hr using it tracks), it has to be stopped every 100mt and a water truck has to cool it down as the friction of 700t moving over the ground generates so much heat that the whole thing would catch fire if left uncooled.
Seriously big toys for big boys.

As you can imagine Kal' is all about mining and it comes as no surprise that the Miners Hall of Fame and associated musem is located here. There we went into an old underground mine going down in one of those elevator cages you always see in the movies. We also saw a gold pour where a 30oz bar of gold was poured into one of those attractive looking gold bars.
As we got talking to the bloke doing the gold pour we found out that he knows our ex neighbour back home having worked with him in the mines some years ago - its a small world.
Kal' is a very nice and clean town, wide streets and very well maintained historic buildings - a bit like Beechworth, just 50 times larger.
We could probably spend another day or two here without getting bored, but the wamer temperatures further north a luring us back onto the road, so tomorrow we will travel to Sandstone and then onto Geraldton the day after.