Kalgoorlie: Day Three & All's Well

Another beautiful day in Kalgoorlie! Getting up at 5am for a run is so much easier when it’s sunny. After slicing it up on the beach volleyball court last night my health kick continues.

It’s Carers Week all over the country this week and to find out more about what great stuff carers in Kalgoorlie and surrounding areas are doing, I went along to a morning tea organised by the Goldfields Individual and Family Association to meet some local carers.

Iris, Nicky and Deanne

First of all, I just want to say how selfless and lovely these people are. They are mostly unpaid and a large proportion of them care for family members and it’s a 24/7 job.

I interviewed Anthony Thomas, the Director of GIFSA and chatted to a number of carers who were all very modest and stories about the work they do day-to-day had to be dragged from most of them.

Brian & Maureen with their daughter Jenny

The morning tea was held at Hammond Park, a fauna reserve in Kal. The park is lovely and green and a lovely breeze was filtering through the gum trees and I kept getting distracted from my interviewing by three emus that were eyeing me up.

Most of the day after the tea was taken up with me struggling on Netia (the ABC’s editing and playout system) to finish the earthquake package. I managed but it took three times as long as if I had used Protools and I don’t think it sounded quite as slick as it could’ve.


Later in the day I was escorted to the Superpit! I can’t help but say it in an Arnie accent, I have no idea why...

And all I can say is that it is phenomenal. HUGE. The pictures do not even come close to the scale of this thing. The trucks going down the road into the pit look like ants and tunnels in the side of the walls look like needle pricks when in fact they are over 2 metres in diameter.

Phwoar! There was so much dust around that I ended up completely parched, what else can one do but head to the Exchange Hotel for a beer and Parma Tuesdays, half price chicken schnitzel!

The girls kept takingme for laps around the front bar, the “Wild West Saloon” where they have the infamous Skimpies (topless barmaids if you missed my first Kal blog) but alas all I saw were a pair of butt cheeks. As a female when you walk through the bar it’s as though the men have NEVER seen a female before. They put their beers down (a feat in itself) stand up and turn around. Not just their heads but their entire bodies, for appreciative stares.

The chicken parmagiana at the Exchange was seriously the size of my head and, never being one to back down in the face of a challenge, I ate the entire thing. I impressed the locals that’s for sure.

I’m still on East time so I went home full of chook and was asleep by just after 8pm! Nanna Lollback.