The Great Story Tellers

Not long ago, bedtime for Nathan and Gracie was always marked by story time. Each night, they would carefully choose a story book and we would read it aloud to them (Read here). We were the storytellers and they were the eager listeners.

But on our recent trip in April, something remarkable had shifted. Nathan and Gracie had moved from being the listeners to becoming the storytellers.

Almost every night before bed, we had to pick up "tickets" to secure seats for their storytelling sessions. Each session began with the storyteller offering two titles for the audience to choose from - an early sign of their growing flair for performance.

The storytelling itself was entirely spontaneous, with an almost seamless flow and only the occasional pause to gather thoughts or to shape the next part of the plot. Sometimes there would be a brief "After that......" before story picked up again, but their quick thinking and imagination were truly delightful to witness.

For the audience, staying alert was a must. The stories moved quickly, and the storytellers were in constant motion - standing, crawling on the floor or snuggling under the blankets. It was all part of the magic.

Nathan became known for recurring tale, "Pu Pu Paupiqua" while his sister Gracie dazzled us with her inventive story "Rolling Doughnut". Both were equally creative, and their performances made each bedtime unforgettable!

Ticking Off a Bucket List - Super Pit

My interest to visit the Super Pit in Kalgoorlie, WA traced back to 2011 when I was involved in a study of Mamut Copper Mine in Ranau, Sabah to address some of the problems arising from the closure of the mining operation in 1999.

Mamut Mine Pit which is almost circular in plan view was 1.0 Km wide by 500 m deep at its peak operation. In comparison, Kalgoorlie Super Pit, is oblong in plan view is 3.8 Km long and 1.5 Km wide. Its depth is approx. 600 m.

Ever since Paddy Hannan, Dan Shea and Tom Flanagan found gold nuggets in Kalgoorlie region in 1893, thousands and thousands of man-hours have been spent digging for gold. Now, after 125 years, there is still no sign of stopping of the digging. With mega and powerful tools and machines to aid the digging, transporting and crashing, the pit is only expected to become bigger and deeper.

The tour guide did tell all visitors that there will come a time when mining will have to stop when it is assessed to be uneconomical to mine the gold field either because of diminishing deposits or too excessive depth. Ideas have also floated as to what to do with this huge hole. One idea is to construct a Formula car racing course inside the pit. Sound crazy but possible!

Mamut Copper Mine Pit.

Superpit abstracted from Google Map.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mine Super Pit.

I have been fascinated by the mega machines used for the extraction and transportation of the ore and rock waste. In this guided tour, we were driven to see some of the idle face shovels. At the pit edge, we also saw a few operating dump trucks. 

The face shovel each weighs 710 tonnes, 4020hp, 13,500
litres fuel tank and 68.5 tonnes capacity per each full bucket.

Dump truck each weighs 166 tonnes empty, 2300hp,
 3,790 litres capacity fuel tank and a payload of 240 tonnes.
Each tyre weighs 5 tonnes.

The economic viability of harnessing every bits and pieces of gold from the rock fragments is dependent on extraction technique and technology. At this point of time, the mine operator has yet to find an economic method to extract gold from a particular shale-liked rock. These rock fragments are currently piled and stored pending a viable technique of extraction yet to be found.

At the end of the tour, visitors were warned against picking and pocketing any rock fragment found within the mine compound. My guess is that they believe the rocks which are scattered around the site may still contain very minute traces of gold of which the extraction technique has yet to be found!

Kalgoorlie, WA

I would probably have not considered visiting Kalgoorlie if it's not because of the Super Pit. This is a long road trip going eastward along the Great Eastern Highway covering a distance of close to 620 Km. It's miles and miles of land with meagre vegetation and occasionally punctuated by pockets of small towns and settlements.

For this road trip, we were mere passengers and did not provide any advance planning input. And so, we did not know where to stop and what to see along the way. Nevertheless, this uncertainty provided another kind of surprises.

Along the way, the exposed Golden Water Pipeline which runs parallel to the Highway did whip up a bit of my imagination about the teams of engineers and workmen who ventured out to this "no man land" to lay this life giving water conveyance system. It is said that there are a few pumping stations along the route which were built more than 100 years ago.

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Our first stop was at a town called Cunderdin, an old town which was established in 1903. A key and distinctive landmark that greeted us was the Ettamogah Pub, a building inspired by Ken Maynard's comic.

An inscription of "1909" on one of the buildings confirms the age of this town

Download of Ken Maynard's photo with courtesy from website of cunderdin.wa.gov.au.

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We stopped for lunch at a restaurant in Merredin, a town 103 Km further eastward from Cunderdin along the Great Eastern Highway. During lunch, my grandkids walked calmly over to a group of police officers and asked for a group photo. The police officers readily obliged and posed for these super friendly kids!

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Posed in front of the Museum of
the Goldfields.

Kalgoorlie viewed from the top of tower at the Museum of the Goldfields

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The Paddy Hannan Statute was erected to honour Paddy, an Irish prospector who was the first person to discover gold in Kalgoorlie in 1893. The original memorial fountain was unveiled by Governor Sir William Campion in 5 September 1929, 90 years ago. It was told that immediately after the unveiling and the Governor was about to take a sip from the fountain pipe, a little boy stamped his foot on the pedal sending a gush of water right into his face. Sir Campion was magnanimous and managed a chuckle even being drenched. 

What we see now is a bronze replica of the original statute. The original has been shifted to the Australian Prospectors and Miners Hall of Fame.

Paddy Hannan Statute and Memorial Fountain.

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The Golden Water Pipeline which commences from the Mundaring Weir in Perth traverses eastwards for close to 580 Km before finally ending at this small hill called the Mount Charlotte Reservoir & Lookout in Kalgoorlie. I had visited the Mundaring weir quite a long time ago which boasts of an acclaimed pizza there (Read here).

Another key landmark, the York Hotel built in 1900-1901.