Sunday 28 October 2012

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!

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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!!

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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….

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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.

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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

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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.

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

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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! 

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