days 11 & 12 Kalgoorlie
In 2007, I travelled to the west and visited the Maritime Museum in Fremantle. I saw an incredible exhibition by a Canadian photographer whose name I don’t remember (maybe Edward Burtysky?). They photographed the landscapes of mines in WA regions, including the PIlbara and Kalgoorlie’s Super Pit. The images were huge, prints the size of walls, the colours of the western landscapes we have been travelling through: copper, vermilion, golden wheat and sage. Since then I have been fascinated with these landscapes, interested in visiting the Super Pit to see the spectacle for myself.
Fast forward to now and our trip has presented the opportunity to visit the Super Pit, even though about 400 km out of the way, we booked a Super Pit tour with Kalgoorlie Tours and Charters. Our tour guide, Allen, spent 18 years driving the road trains of cyanide to the gold mine for use in the refinement process. It separates the gold from the rock and earth. He gave us so much info about the operation. It was impressive - both Allen’s knowledge and the pit itself.
The workers here at the Super Pit are not FIFO but are required to live in Kalgoorlie. They work hard and are paid well, and the mine is an example of human efficiency, productivity and human domination of landscape. It is enormous, with a round trip taking the trucks 90 minutes to complete from top to bottom and back. The tunnels underground, including under the town itself, are enough to take you all the way back to Sydney, around 3500 kilometres worth of tunnels.
The process of locating gold is completed remotely. There are around 1200 employees most of whom are in admin. Staff can ‘see’ whether there is gold in a truckload from the control room, with one out of 10 loads having gold; the other nine dump the rubbish, the stone and dirt. Also of interest, there are no nuggets here, only flakes or flecks of gold in the dirt. What an incredible extraction process.
Other facts from the tour:
40% of the truck drivers here are women
the starting salary for truck driving is $95k on a six month roster, leaving the workers free for the other six months of the year
Northern Star Resources Ltd bought the site in 2019, the CEO being a local Kalgoorlie bloke (apparently)
the mine will be extended in the next year, with operations continuing on for several more generations (Allen speculated that it will operating for the next hundred years at least)
there are cameras and sensors everywhere around the mine watching for any anomalous activity and movement, including rocks falling down the walls or rocks put into pockets. Safety (and profits) first!
Jeremy asked if the mine would ever ‘go green’ in its operations… what a question!
With 25 pit mines around Kalgoorlie, accommodation in town is always in demand. We stayed at the local discovery park and they told us they turn down five inquiries for semi-permanent accommodation daily.
Having spent a good 10 days on the road now, Kalgoorlie gave us time for a bit of a reset: car and trailer wash, maintenance on the rig and set up, laundry at the Discovery Caravan park, and chicken schnitty and beer at the Exchange.
Jeremy walked into the pub first and did a double take. Behind the bar were two young women in g-strings and very skimpy bikini tops. It’s an every-night thing here at the Exchange. I was stunned: it’s like a car crash. It's hard to pull your eyes away.
While I think a woman should choose any profession she wants, I wonder where is the equivalent for men? Why does our society promote the female body like this? Why not the male body? ‘It’s a mining town, Janeane,’ Jeremy reminded me.
While this is true, I looked up Skimpy online and it is a big industry, with at least two other pubs in Kalgoorlie with ‘skimpies’, as they are known. And many many more across WA.
Who knew? Not us.
Most importantly, though, we refilled the gas bottle. Finally, in Kalgoorlie with a population of over 30,000, our first stop was BCF. Lesson learnt: we’ll be getting a back-up swap-and-go soon.
