Log One Hundred – It’s a Big Hole

23 July 2024

It’s been 10 years since I started recording my travel ramblings. These stories have been inspired by locations all over Australia along with more exotic places like India, SE Asia, China, South America and Europe. Hopefully interesting destinations will continue to unfold on future travels.

We are now in Kalgoorlie in the West Australian gold fields. Everything here is big, from the size of the hole in the ground, more commonly referred to as the Super Pit, to the size of the trucks hauling the rock out of the hole, through to the amount of gold that is produced from the Super Pit. Even the distances you have to travel to get here are huge.

The huge dump trucks carry a load of about 240 tonnes. That’s the equivalent to 175 4WD utes or light trucks. They use 4500 litres of diesel each day and cost over $1.2 million. The training course to become a driver takes 6 months. The mine has 40 of these trucks in the Super Pit and has just ordered another 40 brand new trucks. It seems there is money to be made in gold.

What I find most intriguing or maybe it’s just an expression of humankind’s fascination with the yellow stuff is that a large percentage of the gold mined goes back underground, in vaults. That’s after all the effort find it, to dig it up, grind up the rock and to refine it into little blocks. These little bricks are then forever stored away. Gold has little use except for its perceived value or for jewellery. But it sure does keep a lot of people employed from those that build and maintain the trucks through to the geologists, engineers, truck drivers, explosives experts and the list goes on. That’s before we get to those that turn it into jewellery or store it away in banks. Amazing.

In days gone by the golden mile was mined by a myriad of small companies, via underground mines. This meant a huge population of miners living in Kalgoorlie resulting in a large number of hotels and a street dedicated to brothels. The Super Pit amalgamated all those mines into one massive and highly efficient enterprise. This has meant the end of the brothels and many of the hotels. Kalgoorlie is now a town of families and in contrast to the past, 50% of the mine workforce are women.