Day 66 – Boondi Rock to 17 km outside of Norseman

16 August 2019

After an extremely chilly night, we packed up and headed to Kalgoorlie. I was so surprised to find a really quite pretty, busy town. Due to the gold rush in the 1800’s, there are a lot of beautiful buildings, particularly corner pubs, that have been restored. First stop was the museum which was quite excellent, then shopping and lunch.

Kalgoorlie has the first (or last depending on which direction you’re travelling in) two holes that comprise the 18 hole Nullabor Links golf course. It is the longest golf course in the world at 1,365 km. Bill has brought 2 clubs with him, a 4 iron and a 7 iron and so decided to play the course. The Kalgoorlie golf course was really beautiful. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and no wind. A lovely golf day. 2 holes down, and we popped back in to town to the visitors centre to pay the course fee, and to get Bill a Nullabor Links collared shirt.

Next stop was the super pit. The gold mine is located right on the edge of town and it really is a super big pit. We read that from 7 dump trucks of ore, they extract a golf ball sized amount of gold. Mining is of course just the first step. They still have to extract the gold from the ore which takes an enormous amount of resources and chemicals and produces really nasty cyanide waste products.

Next stop was the Kambalda golf course where Bill played the third links hole. Our lofty expectations from playing the first two at Kalgoorlie came crashing down when we saw Kambalda. Not a blade of grass anywhere!

Another two holes of golf at Norseman, then we dropped by the visitors centre there to have showers and drove out of town to camp in the bush for the night. Luckily, it was no where near as cold as the previous night.