Week 22 – Kalgoorlie – Nullarbor Plain – Cactus – Streaky Bay

The trip up to Kalgoorlie saw us finally get out of the drizzly weather, though the wind was still fairly strong. Luckily it was behind us. The land between the coast and Kalgoorlie is farming land, alternating between wheat and canola fields. They have obviously got lots of rain here as the paddocks are full of crops. As we approached Kalgoorlie though the landscape changed again and became almost fringe desert. We passed lots of mines. We set up camp then went into town to the visitors centre to find out about Kalgoorlie.

The next day we visited the Super Pit. This mine is owned by KCGM (Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mine) and employs only residents of Kalgoorlie, no fly in fly out workers. KGCM was once a series of individual mines but they joined into one to create the super mine. The size of the mine is unbelievable. The main open cut pit is 4km long, 1km across and 600m deep. 

It makes the huge trucks which can carry 250 tonne look like toy trucks. The trucks are huge, a tyre alone stands higher than a bus. 

We were on a tour so we were allowed inside the mine. The mine has an open cut area and an underground area, extracting gold from the rock.

The gold-bearing rock is crushed until it is like sand before a chemical is introduced which separates the gold from the sludge. The best gold-bearing ore gives 4.5 grams of gold per tonne of rock, with the average only 2.5grams per tonne. Gold is obviously worth it as the mine proves.

They drill holes in the rock and once a day set off explosives to break the face of the pit. This was due to happen at 1.00pm so we went to a lookout to watch the blast. It was so far away at the bottom of the pit that the blast was quite tame.

We visited the mineral museum at the university where there were rock ad mineral samples from all over Australia, and some from overseas. They also had casts of the largest gold nuggets found in Australia.

Next was a visit to the Goldfield Museum where we went up a mine header. There was a vault with real gold samples on show as well as historical artefacts from Kalgoorlie’s history.

The next day we drove south before turning left at Norseman and heading towards the Nullarbor. The area between Norseman and Madura is a vast woodland of mallee scrub. We stayed in a bush camp that night after our longest stretch of driving so far – 559km. The road is quite straight and we soon arrived at Australia’s longest straight stretch of highway – over 146km.

The next day was also a long drive. We arrived at Madura lookout which looks out over the beginning of the Nullarbor Plain. This vast limestone plain covers a huge area.  

The recent rain has made the plain very green with wildflowers bordering the road, not exactly what we imagined.

Halfway across is the “town” of Eucla. Eucla was an important town in the past as the telegraph station was half way between Perth and the Eastern states. We drove down to the ruins of the telegraph station which is just behind the beach dunes.

We walked over the dunes to the beach. It felt awesome to walk along a beach where there hasn’t been anyone for ages, so wild and clean with the southern ocean pounding in throughout winter. Eucla also marks the beginning of the Nullarbor cliffs as the road climbs to follow the top of the cliffs.

There are numerous lookouts with fantastic views along the wild coast. The limestone cliffs are crumbling slowly into the ocean and can be pretty unsafe to walk on. There are some camps right on the edge of the cliffs but we camped in the bush a little further back as the camp we were heading to was incorrectly listed on Wikicamps.

The next day we headed for Penong but stopped in at the Head Of The Bight, the part which is furthest north in the Great Australian Bight. Here the southern right whales congregate every winter to give birth to their calves and get them ready before their trip to Antarctic waters in summer. They have built a boardwalk hanging over the cliffs and the whales were just basking in the water, some as close as 100m away. There were about 10 whales and their calves just swimming around in the aqua blue water. It was awesome to get so close.

We arrived at Penong then drove into Cactus beach to check the surf for tomorrow. There was swell so we went back and paid for another night so pa could get a surf the next day.

We drove out to Cactus the next day past the blue and pink salt lakes and Pa got his surf. The swell was good with light winds so he was very happy.

After his surf we drove around to Point Le Hunte. This used to be where they loaded ships with salt from the salt mines so there is a long jetty in protected water just around the point from Cactus. The jetty was a good walk with very clear water below.

We saw the windmill museum at Penong. Here they have Australia’s largest windmill.

Pa then played a hole of the Nullarbor golf course in his thongs.

We headed for Streaky Bay the next day and visited Ceduna and Smoky Bay on the way. Both towns had long jetties in protected bays which used to be for transporting produce and animals from the farms  around here by ship – before trucks came along. We walked along the jetties for exercise.

 At Ceduna we drove out to Pinky Point as there was a ship being loaded with salt.

We arrived at Streaky Bay to a brand new caravan park on the shore near Little island. We drove around the town then headed out to the beach over the headland. We will stay here for a few days as there is still some swell for Pa to get a surf tomorrow.