Bart Bear's Blog

This is the biggest hole in the ground that I have ever seen. In fact it is the biggest open cut gold mine in Australia. It is at Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and we went to see it while our train was being topped up with water and fuel. This is one huge hole, over 3.5 km long and 1.5 km wide and 350 m deep. There used to be lots of small underground gold mines here but they were having trouble finding enough gold to pay for the tunnelling they had to do. A company owned by Alan Bond (the guy who won the America's Cup back in 1983, Yay!!!!) started to buy up all these small mines but Bondy hit troubles and went to gaol. In 1989 Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines started digging the hole and today it produces over 28 tonnes of gold every year. They have to move many tonnes of rock and crush it to get every few ounces of gold and this rock is carried to the crusher in gianormous trucks. The wheels of the trucks are higher than Dad can stretch up to. You can see the lights of some of the trucks down the pit. They are so far away that the trucks look like Matchbox toys. We got to the pit just on dusk so the photos are a bit dark, but that just means that we will have to go back in daylight sometime. We will, because Mum likes these historical Aussie towns and she has a strong attraction to gold.

Labels: train, Western Australia