If
you consider continuing your trip towards the Goldfields, you have the
choice to
take
the longer sealed road via Narembeen and Merredin. There is also an unsealed
road,
rather
sandy on several parts, which is much shorter and you will join the
Great
Eastern Highway shortly after Southern Cross.
Just
before reaching Coolgardie, you might visit a Camel Farm and the use
of
camels in Australia is explained in a museum. Another farm you may
visit
in the region is Kurrawang Emu Farm.
Coolgardie
is Western Australia's most famous gold town. In 1892 the rush started
and
within a couple of months, thousands of people were living in the goldfields.
Nowadays,
you can only imagine what this town represented during a certain
period
when seeing the old buildings. The Coolgardie Cemetery, where the grave
of
Ernest
Giles, a former explorer, can be seen, is worth a visit.
About
a year later than in Coolgardie, Gold was discovered in Kalgoorlie by
Paddy
Hannan and two other Irishmen. Within a couple of years, the town's
population
grew to 30.000. Places of interest include the Museum of the Goldfields,
North
Hannans Tourist Mine or buildings like Kalgoorlie and Boulder Town Halls,
some
Hotels and Kalgoorlie Post Office.
You
may as well consider a game at the Bush Two-Up School, just about five
Kms
north
of Kalgoorlie. Continuing your way to either direction will bring you to
many
ghosttowns
and some interesting grave sites.
Balagundi,
Kanowna or Kununalling may be visited, but little remains of what
these
towns used to be. Consider as well a visit to Ora Banda Historic Inn,
a
hotel which has been restored to its original 1911 look.
Another
spot not to miss while in the region is the Golden Mile Super Pit,
an
open cut mine being part of the original Gold Mile, the richest square
mile
of
gold bearing earth ever discovered. The result of the Super Pit is estimated
to be
a
hole with a length of 5 Kms, 2 Kms wide and some 500 meters deep when fully
excavated.
© 2001 hdenis.com