The Golden Mile
Welcome to the Wild West
Another good day brought me to the outskirts of Kalgoorlie. Instead of going into town I pulled up a few kilometers from the town limit and camped out. After the cool offshore breezes of the past few weeks I’m now back into hot 40+ heat everyday. Still it is nowhere near like it was in the Kimberley, the humidity is non-existant and I’m feeling good.
Next Morning I rolled into Kalgoorlie and after checking the prices of the camping grounds decided on a bed at a backpackers. Turned out to be a genius decision. I met a few guys there just moved up from Melbourne looking for work in the mines. They had some external harddisks and I managed to get some documentaries from them to watch, lots of science themed which is great.
Kalgoorlie in the guide books I’ve read is depicted as a knuckle dragging caveman town with a real ‘wild west’ feel. I didn’t find it anything like that, it seemed pretty civilised to me and there were not nearly as few females about as I’d been led to believe. I read somewhere that the ratio is 8 to 1. There are definitely more males alright but 8 to 1? Just walking around town it seemed like any other town anywhere else in Australia.
Sitting out in the courtyard my last evening there I got chatting to a guy who had some Irish roots. Conversation wandered into sports and in particular rugby. I was saying that Ireland are looking like they have a decent shot at winning the Six Nations, the grand slam even as well as a performance at the Rubgy World Cup this summer which they do. My new friend had purchased tickets for three games at the World Cup including the Ireland vs France game. But due to his new job he can’t take the time off to go to France. So being cheeky I asked for the tickets and he said yes! Score! I’m pretty excited by the prospect of going to a World Cup game but I’ll contain myself until I have the tickets in my hand. I’m pretty sure he was genuine about it all though. This trip is getting better all the time 