Well, we have broken our record! 134km in one day from Norseman to Kambalda, 6o km south of Kalgoorlie. We stayed one day in Norseman to recover from the dreadful heat of the previous day, let the storm pass and replenish ourselves with food and water. It seems that food and water is all we can talk about! a bit like school children who go on an outing and talk about their lunch... but it is a big issue for us here and we always seem to be ravenous. Anyway, left Norseman at the crack of dawn and whizzed along the relatively quiet road (the road trains were still zooming up and down) helped with our second tail wind out of the whole journey. What a difference! Effortlessly pedalling, we admired the beautiful road side "botanical garden": beautiful eucalypts with salmon or shiny olive bark and silvery salt bushes contrasting with the red earth. After 90km we reached the small town, well, the petrol station, of Widgiemooltha for lunch time, ate some soup before deciding to move on later in the afternoon. By that time, numerous speeding white trucks with orange lights had joined the road trains on the road and we were wondering if there was a fire somewhere ?? The scenery was deteriorating, with broken glass bottles strewn all over the road side and we eventually arrived in Kambalda, where a new mine has transformed the town into a dormitory for miners. It had the dubious distinction of providing us with our worst meal and worst campsite in Australia! John's description of the toilets is not repeatable and he killed a scorpion in the shower! The sign for the "Ladies" had been crossed out and replaced with "Hoes". It took me a while to realise what it meant!
Left early the following morning, eager to arrive in Kalgoorlie. Arrived there by mid-morning, assisted by yet another tailwind, making our grand total 1864 km.
Kalgoorlie is an interesting town but not our type. Established in 1893 after Paddy Hannan found gold, the railway arrived in 1906 and the town peaked then with 93 hotels, 8 breweries and a population of 30 000 people. Now, although there are fewer hotels, it still centres around gold and around 232,000 tonnes of ore are removed from the Golden mine Superpit each day. We went to see this pit at dusk, an impressive (but depressing) sight with a scar 1km across and half a km deep. Mining is carried out every day, 24 hours a day and it takes seven 220 tonne truckloads of rock to produce a tiny 2 ounce nugget! No wonder we were overrun by road trains!
Left early the following morning, eager to arrive in Kalgoorlie. Arrived there by mid-morning, assisted by yet another tailwind, making our grand total 1864 km.
Kalgoorlie is an interesting town but not our type. Established in 1893 after Paddy Hannan found gold, the railway arrived in 1906 and the town peaked then with 93 hotels, 8 breweries and a population of 30 000 people. Now, although there are fewer hotels, it still centres around gold and around 232,000 tonnes of ore are removed from the Golden mine Superpit each day. We went to see this pit at dusk, an impressive (but depressing) sight with a scar 1km across and half a km deep. Mining is carried out every day, 24 hours a day and it takes seven 220 tonne truckloads of rock to produce a tiny 2 ounce nugget! No wonder we were overrun by road trains!
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