Nomading - Esperance Norseman Kalgoorlie 8 - 20 October 2021

Moving on today driving from Ravensthorpe to Esperance it is only a 2 hour drive so we got up at our normal time 9.00am and then we were on our way before 10.00am. There wasn't a lot to see on this drive, more wildflowers as you would expect in this area but one thing we did come across when we weren't that long out of Ravensthorpe was a magnificent mural on the Nickel mine overpass over the South Coast Highway. You can see this mural from a few kilometres back but we had trouble trying to see what it was, there were roadworks in this stretch of the highway so travelling was slow which gave us plenty of time to get a good look. The whole structure is very impressive and apparently stretches for 10 kms to the mine, we had seen these conveyor belts in Port Hedland when we were there but you still can't help but be impressed. We weren't sure what they were mining here so we had to look it up when we set up today. Apparently this conveyor belt has added another 20 years to the mining industry in this area, I think this is one of the major employers so I would think a large number of people would be happy about that. It was quite an easy drive today and before we knew it we were pulling up at the caravan park, the gentleman in the office was very friendly and gave me a bit of information about Esperance and the best things to do, we found our site easily and because it doesn't take us long now we were set up and sat down for lunch in fairly good time. After lunch Robb had his buddy call that he has every Friday afternoon, with the time difference and daylight saving now in the Eastern States it is a bit inconvenient at 2.00pm but he really enjoys the connection. When his call was finished we drove into the town centre to have a quick look around and then onto the visitor centre to see if there was any extra information we needed. We had a further drive around town before returning to our park where we found it was too cold to sit outside, which we prefer to do, so moved inside. I will study the information we have picked up to plan our time here and I also want to try to get a hairdressing appointment if I can.

When we booked into our caravan park the gentleman on duty asked if we had information on Esperance, I said we did but would welcome his input. He suggested that we take the Great Ocean Drive because that is what most people come here for and it's not as if there is anything else around here to do, I just love how people in tourism promote their own towns. We took his advice so the next day with map in hand we drove to the starting point of this coastal drive and drove to the first point of interest. The last stop on this drive is 21kms and we stopped at every lookout, beach and observatory point on the way and we have to say it was worth every minute of our trip. Not that we haven't seen amazing views on our trip but I would have to say these equal the best we have seen anywhere else. I uploaded so many photos here but I could have posted three times this many of this beautiful coastline.

We started today with a visit to the Museum Village market. This market is held next to the Visitor Centre on a large grassed area that is surrounded by heritage buildings that have been moved here from different places in the surrounding districts. The buildings all have signs out the front to say where they are from and what they were in their previous life, now they are all artisan shops with a good variety of wares on offer. I wanted to take a look around the buildings and as the only day they are all open together is market day I thought this the ideal opportunity. The design of most of the building is quite similar but it was still interesting to wander in and out. The market is held on the grassed area and while it was not huge there was a good range of items, we always like to find the fresh produce stalls but there weren't any here today. Of course our first stop was the Museum Village cafe in search of a coffee and with that in hand we started walking around the stalls. One stall caught our eyes because it had signs up for Chili Relish, we bought a homemade relish at one of the markets we visited on our travels that wasn't very good so I am a bit cautious now about purchasing but luckily I could have a try first and it was really yum, we ended up with the mild relish because Robb is still getting used to the hotter ones and this seemed hot enough to me, the stall also had home made slices and biscuits so Robb purchased a melting moment which he enjoyed. We had a good look around the remainder of the stalls but even though there were some good items for sale there wasn't really anything we were looking for. From here we drove to the IGA to pick up a few items, I had decided to make potato and leek soup for dinner so I needed a leek and some crusty bread to go with it, I am thinking now a spoonful of the chili relish might spice up the soup nicely. We still had a bit of time up our sleeve so we decided to take a drive out to Pink Lake which is marked in the tourist information as 'Not Pink', we thought it worth a drive by anyway. There weren't many spots to call into to get a good look at the lake, it is quite a large body of water and definitely not pink but apparently at certain times of the year it does turn pink. We drove on from here to Lake Monjingup where we parked and walked around to the bird hide, Robb took his binoculars in case he could find anything interesting, we saw a couple of ducks diving in the water and apart from that we had a bird with a red neck (I have searched for a name but cannot find anything that fits) watching us from a branch outside the bird hide and then we realised he had a nest inside the hide and his partner was inside watching us too. While we heard lots of different birds and frogs singing to each other we didn't spot anything else. I did take a few photos around here though because the play of the reflections on the water was very interesting and there were also some beautiful wildflowers around this area. From here we drove back to the Esperance Distillery which is just around the corner from our caravan park, it wasn't very busy and we were the only people in there at the time. The gentleman on duty was very friendly and we had a good chat about Esperance and surrounding areas, we sampled four of their gins, one of which had won best in show at the Perth annual show this year. We both really liked the gins and came away with a bottle of pink gin which I particularly liked, the one Robb liked hadn't been released yet but it was a blue gin that turned pink when tonic water was added. There was a cute little pup there that belonged to the gentleman serving us that both Robb and I took a fancy too so we played with her for a while until she hooked her teeth into my jumper and I had to unhook it so I didn't pull her tooth out.

Today we are driving to Cape Le Grand National Park, I have to say the annual national parks pass we bought in Kununarra has worked out really well on our behalf, there are so many national parks in WA and some of the highlights can only be seen by entering the parks. On the way we stopped off at Esperance Stonehenge, I thought this was quite impressive, it is an exact replica of Stonehenge in the Uk as it would have been in 1950BC, the stones are mammoth and a beautiful colour and the structure is aligned with the summer solstice sunrise, I would love to be here for this event but it will probably just end up one more item on my bucket list. We drove from here to the Cape Le Grand National Park and our first stop was Lucky Bay. There is a time on the drive to Lucky Bay where you go around a bend and then the view over Lucky Bay is right in front of you and there aren't any other words for it but spectacular. The contrast between the white sand and turquoise and blue water is just a very special sight. We parked and walked down to the bay and found somewhere to sit and just appreciate the beauty of the area. From Lucky Bay we drove along the coast to Thistle Cove, we didn't actually access this cove but stood above where there is a great display of rocks and when we could walk down far enough on the rocks we could get a great view down to the beach. We drove from here to Hellfire Bay. Robb parked the car and I walked down to the beach area, it was really easy to access and once again visually it was quite spectacular. I wandered around taking photos before walking back to the car, there was on one more stop on our way which was Le Grand Beach, this beach is easy to access but it looks a bit rougher than the other beaches and maybe more suited to surfers. From here we drove back to the shops to pick up a few items before returning to the caravan park. It was quite a warm day today so we sat outside for most of the day before the wind started to pick up and then we went inside. The wind really picked up and tossed the van around and dropped lots of bits and pieces from the trees above, we were worried about the awning but it seemed to be holding up ok, I think we are facing the right way and not getting the worst of the wind.

I had booked a hairdressing appointment for myself for today, Robb had his cut while we were in Hopetoun so he was ok, I was lucky enough that the hairdresser squeezed me in. Robb stayed at home while I kept the appointment, he wanted to go to Bunnings but we decided to do that after lunch. The hairdresser's was quite frantic when I first went in but they managed to get through the people who were there until I was the only one left. I have stuck with my white hair but we added a bit of an ashy look to it and once again I had the back clipped up rather than cut. I was very happy with the end result and when I returned to the van Robb liked it too. Robb was on the phone to our son Daniel when I returned but as they had been talking for an hour he was happy to wind the call up so that we could go for lunch. We wanted to go to the brewery for but as luck would have it they weren't open today so our next choice was 33 Degrees a new restaurant in town. I don't know it's history but it looks like a new purpose built restaurant and bar on two levels, I think a sports bar underneath and the restaurant up top. There is a main restaurant and then an alfresco area, it was a very unpleasant day today so it was nice to the see the blinds down in the alfresco area which kept it quite comfortable to sit in, we chose to sit here overlooking the esplanade. Once again we had a shared meal this seems to be our preferred go to way of eating at lunch time, we consulted and chose three dishes we both liked the look of. It turns out the food, service and prices were all good and we had a good experience. From here we drove to Woolworths to pick up something quick and simple for dinner and then onto Bunnings but we couldn't find the item we were after so we drove back to camp from here. We will be moving onto Norseman tomorrow but we won't worry about packing anything away this afternoon as it doesn't take us long in the mornings. We thought for a while that we would have had to drive directly to Kalgoorlie from here because Norseman had a truck driver with Covid drive through a few weeks ago but we enquired at the Visitor Centre and they said it is all clear, we will probably only spend one night here and hopefully we can just stay hooked up.

Everybody who has been following our travels for a while will know that I have a particular love for the Australian Outback, so while we have been amazed at the spectacular coastal views we have seen along our trip and the beautiful beaches we have been lucky enough to walk on my heart just leapt when we drove closer to Norseman and the Nullabor and I saw the first signs of the sparsely vegetated desert landscape. We are not heading over the Nullabor just yet though we are taking another diversion up to Kalgoorlie. I have a bit of a story about Kalgoorlie. About 15 years ago we took a series of train rides from Melbourne to Adelaide on the Overlander and then to Perth on the Indian Pacific, from there we flew to Uluru and then bussed it to Alice Springs before catching the Ghan (which only went as far as Alice Springs then) back to Adelaide. Traveling over the Nullabor on the Indian Pacific we stopped off at Kalgoorlie and we had booked a trip from the train to the super pit, it was my birthday and I was pretty excited about the tour. We were last on the bus and we found that either someone had sneaked on or there had been an error in the bookings for the tour so because we were last on board we graciously offered to miss out and we returned to the bar in the train. The company shouted us a bottle of wine to celebrate my birthday, I cannot remember now if we ever received a refund and we spent the night socialising with the staff left on board. I have always been disappointed that we missed out and to be honest if that had of happened today I would have insisted they organised a taxi for us to do the tour but age does make you a bit more assertive than we were in earlier days. As part of our trip to Kalgoorlie this time we both really want to do this tour so we are hoping nothing stops us this time. We are only spending one night in Norseman and then moving on tomorrow and we were lucky enough to get a drive through site where we can stay hitched up. We will need to return to Norseman from Kalgoorlie so we may spend two nights on our return so that we can have a bit of a look around.

We arrived in Kalgoorlie/Boulder in good time and pulled into the nearest caravan park on the highway. They had a sign out the front to say they didn’t have any vacancies but I thought I would try anyway. They were full and said there was another park around the corner who they contacted, they are both Discovery Parks that we are members of and the girl at the other end said to just give us an ensuite site they had vacant and they did, woohoo how lucky are we especially when we are paying only for the powered site. We have booked in for four nights but because they can’t access their office because of floor repairs we said we would return tomorrow to finalise the details. We set up and it was still fairly early so we drove to a local supermarket to pick up a few items before driving to the Kalgoorlie/Boulder Visitor centre to pick up local information. We found the staff here very helpful and we booked two tours here with them before we left. We wanted to do a tour of the Super Pit but it was booked out until Tuesday and we were due to leave on Monday morning. I really wanted to do this tour so we thought we would try to extend our stay for another two nights. We were able to extend so I called the tour company and booked us in for the Tuesday tour. There are tough clothing restrictions on this tour and we have to be basically covered all over, the only body parts that can be showing are hands and face. With all our bookings in place I opened my computer to edit my photos and disaster hit. I could not open my computer and when I finally managed to the set up was all weird and it was so slow working. I closed it down and we thought we would see if we could have it repaired at a computer place in town tomorrow. I had saved today’s photos which was something but I will just need to store the next few days photos until the computer is fixed. We had noticed while we were in the Visitor Centre that there was blast on at the Superpit at 5.30pm and I thought this was something I would really like to see, the Superpit is just down the road from us so we left here at 5.00pm to give us plenty of time to be there when it happened. While we were standing waiting for the blast we all predicted where it was going to happen, mainly going off the information on the website, and as it happened none of us were right and the blast came from a spot underneath a ledge in the approximate area we thought it would be. We couldn't see the blast but we could certainly hear it and then we could see where the smoke and dust from the blast was blowing up, maybe a bit of an anti-climax but I am happy to say I saw a blast at the Superpit.

Friday morning we have a tour booked at 10.00am on the loopline tram tours. We had to meet beside the Visitor Centre at 9.45am and by the time we arrived most of the other people were already there on the tram. We took our seats and waited for the driver, a few more people turned up while we were waiting and then the driver arrived. we were all checked off and then we were on our way. While we were driving around town the driver gave us a bit of background on some of the buildings and our first stop was the School of Mines Museum where they have so many rock examples, who would have thought there are so many different rocks in the world. We also visited the Superpit lookout, Stumpy’s woodworking outlet and the Boulder Town Hall. The tour was two hours long and very enjoyable. When we returned to the Visitor Centre we hopped in the car to drive to find a computer repairs shop. There was one over the road from the Visitor Centre and we ended up leaving my computer here to have the hard drive replaced. We drove from here to Bunnings in search of a fold up ladder we didn’t find and back at the caravan park we stopped off at the office to fix up our payment for our stay.

We woke Saturday morning to beautiful sunshine, we didn’t really have any plans for the morning but we did have a booking for the brothel tour in the afternoon. we had our coffee at home and then drove to the gold mining museum which had been recommended to us. WA has some excellent museums and this is another one, we looked around all the displays including the ‘Spy’ display and the mining information, we walked through ‘The Vault’ that currently holds $4M worth of gold and the world’s narrowest pub, the highlight for both of us was walking out on the platform of the huge headframe that is at the entry to the museum, the platform is just over half the way up and the views over Kalgoorlie Boulder were fantastic. I had phoned the company fixing my computer and they said it should be ready about 1.30pm because that was only one hour away and we thought it was a waste driving home and coming back so we thought we would visit one of the pubs for a beer, I had really wanted to go to the York Hotel because they have an upstairs outside balcony which I fancied sitting on under the umbrellas and it was just down the road from the repairers which made it convenient. We wiled away our time here, it was a beautiful day and perfect for sitting outside. The York Hotel, like many of the Kalgoorlie hotels, is very ornate with lots of arches, stamped ceilings, elegant stairs and furnished to the style of the day. We returned to the repairers and sat and went through the repairs that had been carried out and I checked to see that every thing I needed was still available and when we were satisfied we paid and returned home. I prepared lunch as soon as we returned because we had a tour booked at the only remaining brothel in Kalgoorlie at 3.00pm and it was getting later now, we had been warned at the Visitor Centre not to be late because the Madame has been known to lock people out. We arrived in plenty of time and sat out the front until the doors were opened and we followed the other people on the tour inside. The Madame was at the desk, I would like to say she was friendly and greeted us at the counter but all we got was her hand held out for our tickets and she marked us off and told us where to go, which was a room just behind her, and we were told to find a seat and sit down. The tour consisted of a talk by the Madame of the history of brothels in Kalgoorlie, and how she came to own a brothel, she told some very funny stories from the past and we visited two of the rooms, one being the dominatrix's room and one of the normal rooms. The tour was hilarious, some of the hilarity was at the stories we were told but most of it came from the fact that Madame was a very tough taskmaster, we gathered she would have had to be because it sounded like she ran a very strict ship, but we all got the giggles from the way she bossed us around. At one time we returned to our chairs and there was one vacant one between two couples and then another one further around we all had to stand up and move so that the two vacant chairs were together, I know that makes sense but we are adults and I am sure if a couple came in we would have moved around so they could sit together but it was more the way she told us like we were kindergarten children. When we walked into the rooms the couples were all standing side by side and she wasn't happy until all the men were standing behind the women and you had to be exactly lined up behind your partner. I started giggling with one of the girls sitting next to us and we laughed nearly all the way through. The two girls sitting next to us were a couple and when we came to the first bedroom they had trouble explaining they were together and who had to stand behind. Anyway we both came away from the brothel with a happy ending, even when we were all told to stand and get out.

Our time in Kalgoorlie has been very busy because there is so much to do here, we thought we would have an easy day today. We started with a visit to the Boulder City Station which is no longer operating, the Loopline Tram we took for a tour on Friday took over from this train service. The station itself wasn't open but we had a bit of a look around and there is a children's playground on the grass area in front of the station. We then took a quick drive down the main street of Boulder where you can find many original buildings, some of them quite spectacular. It was Boulder Fest day today which from what we can gather meant there was a giant pub crawl on and there were a lot of people walking around in costumes, we didn't get to learn the significance of the celebration but I think it may get quite boisterous before the day ended. We drove from here into Kalgoorlie to have a look at the Kalgoorlie Railway Station, we had called in here on our trip on the Indian Pacific 15 years ago and we had walked into town from the station to visit a couple of the pubs and I was interested to see the station in daylight. Robb wanted to visit a Skimpies pub so we drove back into town to the Exchange Hotel where they had three skimpies on duty that day, they weren't quite the same as last time we visited when they floated around in bikini bottoms and nothing else, now they had skimpy bathers on while serving behind the bar. We had a beer here before returning home.

Every time we think we have seen all there is to see in Kalgoorlie we find something else, we will definitely have to return here one day as it has been one of our favourite stops. It was supposed to be quite warm today so we decided to go to Hannan North Tourist Mine in the morning. We entered through the gift shop and paid our entry fee and once again the rates were excellent particularly for the quality of the display, we were handed a map that looked very easy to follow as the exhibits were in a loop starting and finishing at the gift shop. Directly outside the shop there were two pieces of equipment that are in use today so that you can see the enormity of these trucks, we could also climb up on them as you will see in the photos. Once again this is an excellent museum of all things to do with mining back in the day. As the name would suggest it focused on Paddy Hannan who has a street named after him in Kalgoorlie and initially Kalgoorlie was called Hannan's Find. There was also a small but lovely Chinese Garden to wander around as part of the park. We spent longer than we initially intended to at the park because it was really quite interesting, we visited all the exhibits but one in particular 'The Mines Experience' was showing a video of the workings of the mines today and the roles of various people in the company, it was cool in the mine and the video was very informative so we sat there for the duration of the video. We ended up spending a couple of hours there walking around and by this time it was getting very hot, we had forgotten to grab water to take with us so when we returned to the gift shop we were very happy to see a water fountain out the front. we returned to the van for lunch and after lunch we sat outside under the awning where it was very pleasant.

Today is the day I finally get to see the Super Pit, last time we were here I missed out so I am very happy to have this opportunity. We were to meet at the tour company at 8.45am for a 9.00am start, we had to wear decent filled in shoes, socks and long pants, we also had to wear a shirt or something that came down to our wrists, the only skin to be showing was the face and hands and then on top of this we were given a hi-vis vest, safety glasses and a hard hat to wear, all safety requirements and we were all happy to oblige. Our guide owns the tour company and has been taking these tours for a long time so was most informative. We drove all around the pit where we viewed all the massive equipment they use including the trucks. There is such a variety of equipment here and everything has a purpose, we learnt how and why the equipment was made and how much it cost. We also viewed the processing area from where they crush the rocks and then where and how they extract the gold from the rocks. What I was most intrigued with was the logistics of the whole enterprise, there are so many different sections to the process but somehow they all seem to work together. As you can tell from the restrictions on us to be able to take the tour, health and safety seems to be the top priority and there are so many rules just for moving around the pit I am not sure how they remember them all. The largest of the trucks were mammoth and it was interesting to learn that drivers had to have been driving here for 15 years before they graduated to them and they had to have driven every type of vehicle on the site. When we came last week we stopped at the main tourist viewing platform but today we stopped at a different viewing platform and had a completely different view of the pit. We both loved this tour, it would have been better if we could have taken home a couple of samples but it is illegal to remove anything from the pit. Unfortunately the photos don't allow you to visualise the true size of all these trucks and machinery but at one time we parked beside the new tyres and they were nearly as high as the bus, I suppose you would want to get something for your money at $40,000 per tyre. When we returned to the tour office we had to return our vests and glasses so while we were there I asked one of the girls for recommendations for lunch in town and she suggested Paddy's Eat and Drink which is just behind the Exchange Hotel. We took her recommendation and it turned out it was a good one, after lunch we returned to the van to pack up the awning because our tour guide had told us we would be having bad weather in the afternoon, we were moving on the next day so we thought it would save us time in the morning. As it turned out we had very strong winds so we were glad we took his advice.