Our day trip to Karalee Dam

Well another week down in Kalgoorlie – great weather again all week, some cooler days which got to about 25 degrees with a few chilly mornings (had to don a cardigan on the walk to work) and some warmer days like today that hit the 37 mark.

Mal had a job interview and has been busy sending off applications for all sorts – fingers crossed we hear some good news this week!

We decided to get off our butts today and head off for some sightseeing – as usual for the outback nothing is very close so we drove nearly 130km and back today to check out Karalee Dam.  On the way we headed through Coolgardie which is only about 30 minutes from Kalgoorlie.  Its a little mining town with massively wide streets and some really lovely old buildings.  We had a look through the open air museum which had all sorts of machinery – here are some piccies, including Mal sparring with good ole Ned Kelly!

 

On the way out of Coolgardie was this scrunched up car on the side of the road – that’s what happens when you mess with an Isuzu!!

It was a pretty boring drive – the scenery doesn’t change much in this part of Oz….long straight roads – no wonder the truck we were behind for a while was fishtailing all over the road – easy to start nodding off when its all same same….

We could see the water pipeline most of our journey – this comes from Perth and right up to Kalgoorlie – an amazing bit of work when you think about it.  An Irish engineer called O'Connor is responsible for this – it was known as the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme.  He introduced a bill to the WA Parliament in 1896 to authorise raising a loan of 2.5 million pounds to build the pipeline due to the population explosion in the goldfields area with the gold rushes.  The pipeline pumps 5 million gallons (23,000 m3) of water per day to the Goldfields from a dam on the Helena River near Mundaring Weir in Perth.  It goes through 3 stages and finally reaches the Mount Charlotte Reservoir in Kalgoorlie.

When we arrived at Karalee Dam it was 37 degrees!  The flies were out in force – Mal and I have now perfected our Australian wave!!!

Karalee Dam is another interesting feat of engineering – I photographed the plaques which tell you the story so have a read below

So basically, the granite rocks have been surrounded by a brick fence and channel which gathers the rain water in to an aquaduct system which then runs in to the dam….of course it was all dry as a bone while we were there. 

First order of the day however was for Mal and Chip to have a swim in the dam – Chip loved it, the first swim he has had since the beach at Esperance.

here are some photos of the aquaduct system and the granite rocks

The area has a great camping spot and there were four caravans parked up there – we had been considering hooking the van up and taking it down for a night or two but given all the flies I am glad we didn’t! 

Kalgoorlie one week on

Well the week flew by - work has been great, everyone is so friendly and helpful and the various doctors I have met so far have been great too.  I have had one birth (ironically a Maori NZ couple) and met quite a few other kiwis (both patients and staff) already.  We had a mad busy day on Friday, but that's maternity in a nut shell, usually feast or famine!  

Working with aboriginal woman has been very interesting, I am quickly learning the various things you have to take in to consideration which have never dawned on me before.  I am sure this experience will set me up nicely for any further work in WA or the Northern Territory.  

We are still getting used to the time difference here, though having set up our satellite dish for TV reception as there is no aerial on the flat, and having that still set to Eastern Australian time (2 hours behind) doesn't help.  We find ourselves watching the 6pm news at 4pm, so by 8pm we are already heading to bed!!  Hopefully I can get our access changed to Western Australian viewing.  

Mal has been very busy pounding the pavement looking for work.  It seems the fantasy about jobs being easy to get here isn't reality, even for a qualified sparky.  Various mines around the place have actually been laying off truck drivers, though others are busy hiring, so that might even itself out.  Even so just about every job advertised in the mines, wants mining experience!  He has registered with many employment agencies and we are busy sending off job applications online as they come up - surely something must be just around the corner.  Meantime he has been kept busy settling us in to the flat, doing the regular run back to the caravan to get something else that we need, helping Chip settle in, and generally being the 'flat bitch' - I am going to miss that when he finds full time employment!  

We went out for dinner on Friday night expecting to see a wild and busy night life scene in Kalgoorlie – well we were bitterly disappointed.  Okay we did head out before midnight so that was probably the first thing we did wrong, but it hardly lived up to our expectations after watching Kalgoorlie Cops!  We even drove around for a while trying to find some excitement – not even one cop in sight.   We headed to the Boulder fair on Sunday which was pretty busy but more set up for kids entertainment, though we were treated to an 'eye full' of mature aged (and very cuddly) belly dancers....today we headed to the Kalgoorlie Museum which was very interesting - here are some photos - click on them to read the writing






I tried very hard to get it off the wall for you Rod!







the ole dental set up hasn't really changed much has it...even smelt bad



I reckon the flies here in WA love kiwis



Mal reliving his miner days...

 


even though this is entirely made of wood you could apparently ride it



the front of the museum - almost as good as the eiffel tower!





Mal in the miners cottage ablution

some demographics for you

We arrive in Kalgoorlie-Boulder

We drove through to Kalgoorlie on Friday from Esperance - a pretty boring trip apart from being amazed at the number of mine sites signposted off the main highway.

I called in to the hospital to pick up my paperwork and the flat information and ended up being thrown a whole lot of papers to sign to qualify for different bits of extra money - if you want to earn good money nurses and midwives rural WA is the place to come!

The hospital seems to pretty much run on 'ring in' staff - I think the majority of midwives on maternity are temporary staff so I should have no problems fitting in!  The hospital layout is a bit weird - they have open corridors running round the middle of the hospital and the wards run off these - so to take a woman from birth suite to theatre for example, she gets pushed out the back of delivery suite in to the open corridor (has a roof but sides open to the elements) and through another door in to theatre!  They are doing up parts of the hospital at the moment, a new emergency department and palliative care ward is nearly ready to be opened and looks very modern.

We were pleasantly surprised with the flat - we are in a block of 8 one bedroom units but we have the one on the end so Chip has a nice area to run around in - thats when we get the weeds mowed and get rid of the 'biddy bids' which are plentiful.  Its only round the corner from work so I will easily be able to walk that in 10 minutes, and just a couple of minutes in the other direction is a dog park for Chip!  We have already met a few locals with their dogs who were very friendly and Mal already has a couple of contacts for work.

The caravan is parked up in a storage facility and it was a bit sad to leave her there - it really does feel like our home.  We have had to go back each day and get extra stuff that we need - its so much easier to just be in the van with everything on hand!  At least we can easily swing by and hook her up and head off for a short trip in between work which is something we couldn't do easily when we have been all set up in a campground.

Kalgoorlie itself is a lovely town - very affluent (I read in the local info given to me by the hospital that average age is 30, lots more men than women, average household income over $1700 per week),  very white and very pretty so not at all like the impression you get off the TV program Kalgoorlie Cops!  Everyone seems so friendly and willing to give you info on jobs etc - I guess most have been in the same boat themselves at one time.  There are loads of shops but as we found out today, most of them are closed on a Sunday - very surprising!!!  The weather is just glorious and its so nice to be in tshirts and shorts again - being a dry heat is great too.

Here are some photos of around Kalgoorlie, the super pit mine, and our flat

around Main Street area

the pub made famous in 'Kalgoorlie Cops'

the huge machinery down the bottom look like match box size

the Hospital

our flat

I start work tomorrow morning and Mal has a list of things to do ..... one of which is to find himself a job!

Stonehenge in Esperance

We set out late this morning – seems we are finally getting used to WA time and had a decent sleep in.

We took Chip down the beach for a good run round first with his balls and got him exhausted and filthy in the process, then set out for Esperance's own version of Stonehenge. 

While there we found out from talking to the owner that there are a number of  replica ‘henges’ around the world…here are a few:

This one is ‘Stonehenge Aotearoa’ found in the Wairarapa in New Zealand (and we didn’t even know!)

This one appears in a farmers field opposite the real Stonehenge each summer – aptly named ‘Hayhenge’

and this one is ‘Carhenge’ found in Nebraska USA!!!

Now the story behind Esperance Stonehenge is that it was quarried from granite found in Esperance and was commissioned originally to go to the Margaret River area in WA, however the guy that commissioned it went broke – so the quarry was left with a bunch of huge stones!  The couple that live across the road from the quarry were aware of this and decided to take the stones on themself and after looking around where to put them decided to put them in their own paddock on their farm.

The granite stones are a complete replica to scale of the original “Stonehenge” in the UK.  The 10 Trilithon stones in a horseshoe pattern weigh between 38 -55 tonnes each.  Standing with the 18 tonne lintel to a height of 7.7 metres.  Inside the Trilithon horseshoe stands another horseshoe of 19 blue stones.  The Trilithon stones are surrounded by a circle of 30 Sarsen Stones weighing 28 tonnes each and standing almost 5 metres high including the 7 tonne lintels on top.  Standing between the Sarsen and the Trilithon stones is a full circle of 40 smaller stones.  The altar stone lies in front of the tallest Trilithon stones.  The structure is aligned with the summer solstice-sunrise in the southern hemisphere- Esperance WA. 
The station stones are positioned on this line to allow the suns rays to pass through to the altar.

Although we went to Stonehenge in the UK earlier this year we found this experience to be much more enjoyable as you could actually walk out, around, touch the stones etc – and we had them all to ourselves while we were there! 

Here are my photos – I took heaps and couldn’t decide which ones to put on here, so have put them all on as an online album! Click on the link 'view full album' to see all the photos!

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