WA's Southern Outback

Stretching across to SA via the relentless Nullarbor Plain and up to the Northern Territory (NT), this is the outback Australia that many travellers come to see — a remote, dry land of dramatic landscapes and sprinkles of gold-rush history, with Kalgoorlie-Boulder as its centrepiece. While the red desert landscape might appear barren, the Aboriginal people have lived here for an age. The early colonists found this region hard going — until the prosperity of the gold rush made the harsh landscape no less forgiving, but more rewarding.

History

The government in long-suffering Perth was in raptures when gold was discovered at Southern Cross in 1887. In one of the world's last great gold rushes, the next few years drew prospectors from other states — and other nations. Some 50 towns immediately rose up in the Eastern Goldfields, but the area's population dwindled along with the gold itself, and these days Kalgoorlie-Boulder is the only real survivor. In diminished towns, prodigious structures from early last century still stand unwavering in the heat. The region is fascinating to explore.

It was a harsh life on the goldfields. Enthusiasm, or greed, sometimes outweighed commonsense. Diseases like typhoid ran through mining camps. Inadequate water, housing, food and medical supplies led to a dusty death for many.

The 1903 Golden Pipeline brought water to the goldfields, stretching 560km from the Perth foothills. It was a lifeline for the towns it passed through and filled Kalgoorlie with the sense of a future, with or without gold.

Kalgoorlie-Boulder

Kalgoorlie-Boulder ('Kal' to the locals), some 600km from Perth, is an outback success story. It's a prosperous, humming metropolis and the state's second-largest town, with wide streets and well-preserved historic buildings. The most enduring and productive of WA's gold towns, today it's the centre for mining in this part of WA.

Kal still feels like the wild west: a frontier town where workers come straight from the mines to spend their disposable income and sit at the bars in their overalls. The 'skimpie' staff serve beer in their underwear. There are tattoos and gambling and brothels. The electronic display high on the Palace Hotel constantly flicks shares and the price of gold and nickel in a red horizontal stream. But ultimately this is still a country town, with churches, schools and a community that these days relies as much on tourist gold as the mines'.

Due to eastern Australians migrating here for some warmth, Kal's peak season is actually in winter.

History

Long-time prospector Paddy Hannan set out from Coolgardie in search of another gold strike, and proved that sometimes beggars can be choosers. He stumbled across the surface gold that sparked the 1893 gold rush, and inadvertently chose the site of Kalgoorlie for a township.

When surface sparkles subsided, the miners dug deeper, extracting the precious metal from the rocks by costly and complex processes. Kalgoorlie quickly prospered, and the town's magnificent public buildings, constructed at the end of the 19th century, are evidence of its fabulous wealth.

Despite its slow decline after WWI, Kal is still the largest producer of gold in Australia, with giant mining conglomerates operating open-cut mines in the Golden Mile. Gone are the old headframes and corrugated-iron shacks — instead, enormous homes on the approach to Kalgoorlie attest to the ongoing profitability of modern mining.

Orientation

Although Kalgoorlie sprang up close to Paddy Hannan's original find, the mining emphasis soon shifted a few kilometres away to the Golden Mile, and the satellite town of Boulder developed to service this area. In August 1989 the two towns formally merged into the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder.

The town centre in Kalgoorlie is a grid of broad, tree-lined streets. Hannan St, the main street flanked by imposing public buildings, is wide enough to turn a camel train — a necessity in turn-of-the-century goldfield towns. You'll find most of the town's hotels, restaurants and offices on or close to Hannan St.

Information

DEC (9021 2677; Post Office Bldg, 204 Hannan St)

Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital (9080 5888; Piccadilly St)

Netzone (9022 8342; St Barbara's Sq) Fast internet access in a central location.

Post office (204 Hannan St)

Royal Automobile Club of Western Australia (RACWA; 131 703; cnr Hannan & Porter Sts)

Visitors centre (9021 1966; www.kalgoorlie.com; cnr Hannan & Wilson Sts; 8.30am-5pm, 9am-5pm Sat & Sun)

Kalgoorlie-Boulder — sights and activities

Mining Hall of Fame

A shortcut to understanding this town is the excellent Mining Hall of Fame (9026 2700; www.mininghall.com; Eastern Bypass Rd; adult/child $17/9, plus underground $24/14; 9am-4.30pm). Located on Hannan's North Heritage Mining Reserve, the site of Paddy Hannan's original lease and a working mine until 1952, it explores the mining industry from the underground up. You can go 36m below the surface in a mine shaft (and see why claustrophobics don't make good miners), pan for gold and be mesmerised by a gold pour. Kids of all ages will be kept well occupied in the interactive Exploration Zone. A Garden of Remembrance, dedicated to the immigrant Chinese who worked the goldfields, is due to open here.

If you're into mining history, allow yourself a half-day here. There are underground tours at 10am, 12.15pm and 2.45pm daily (where you need to wear fully enclosed shoes).

Western Australian Museum Kalgoorlie-Boulder

The impressive Ivanhoe mine headframe at the northern end of Hannan St marks the entrance to this excellent museum (9021 8533; www.museum.wa.gov.au; 17 Hannan St; admission by donation; 10am-4.30pm). Check out the wide range of exhibits, including an underground gold vault and historic photographs, or join the twice-daily tours at 11am and 2pm. A lift takes you to a viewing point on the headframe, where you can look out over the city and mines, and down into delightfully untidy backyards.

Loopline Railway museum

The Loopline railway was once the most important urban transport for Kalgoorlie and Boulder, with Boulder's Golden Mile station (1897) once the busiest in WA. While the railway closed — hopefully only temporarily — in 2004, its story is told in the railway museum (9093 3055; www.loopline.com.au; cnr Burt & Hamilton Sts; adult/child $2/1; 9am-1pm), operating out of the old train station.

Other attractions

Along Hannan St, you'll find the imposing town hall and the equally impressive post office. There's an art gallery upstairs in the decorative town hall, while outside is a drinking fountain in the form of a statue of Paddy Hannan holding a water bag.

Northwest of Hannan St in Hay St is one of Kalgoorlie-Boulder's most notorious and popular attractions, the Hay St brothels, now quietly acknowledged in tourist brochures. Brothel tours have become de rigueur for many visitors to Kal, at Langtrees 181 (9026 2181; www.langtrees.com; 181 Hay St; admission $25; 1pm, 3pm & 6pm) and at Australia's oldest operating brothel Questa Casa (9021 4897; 133 Hay St; admission $18; 2pm).

See how the flying doctors look after the outback with the hourly tours at the Royal Flying Doctor Service Visitor Centre (9093 7595; Kalgoorlie-Boulder Airport; admission by donation; 10am-3pm Mon-Fri). Be generous with your donation if you can, as they do a fabulous job.

The School of Mines Mineral Museum (9088 6001; cnr Egan & Cassidy Sts; 8.30am-noon Mon-Fri, closed school holidays) has a geology display including replicas of big nuggets discovered in the area.

The Goldfields War Museum (9093 1083; 106 Burt St; 10am-4pm Mon-Fri, 9am-1pm Sat & Sun) has a collection of local war memorabilia and military vehicles.

At the Gallery at the Goldfields Arts Centre (9088 6905; Cheetham St; 10am-3pm Mon-Fri, noon-3pm Sun) you'll find monthly exhibitions by local, state and national artists.

The view from the Super Pit Lookout (www.superpit.com.au; Outram St; 6am-7pm), just off the Goldfields Hwy in Boulder, is awesome, with the big trucks at the bottom of the huge hole looking like kids' toys. Good info is given in the on-site signs, and the Super Pit Shop (9093 3488; 2 Burt St; 9am-5pm Mon-Fri) sells souvenirs and offers more detailed information.

The Goatcher Theatre Curtain in the 1907 Boulder Town Hall (9021 9600; cnr Burt & Lane Sts, Boulder) has recently been restored. Englishman Philip W. Goatcher, one of the great theatrical scene artists of the Victorian era, painted the Neapolitan scene in 1908. The trompe l'oeil curtain creates an extraordinary illusion of 3-D space, and is dropped from 10am to 3pm Wednesday, and on the third Sunday of each month (Boulder's market day) from 9.30am to 12.30pm.

Hammond Park (h9021 1209; Lyall St; 9am-5pm), in the west of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, is a small fauna reserve with a miniature Bavarian castle, a 1903 rotunda and open-air movie screenings during summer.

If you've had enough of holes in the ground, you can do your bit towards revegetating the bush in Karlkurla Park, northwest of town, by scattering a packet of native Silky Pear seeds (available at the visitors centre) while you enjoy the 4km of walking tracks.

Kalgoorlie-Boulder — tours

Goldrush Tours (9021 2954; www.goldrushtours.com.au; cnr Lane & Hay Sts) runs all sorts of tours, including half-day jaunts around Kalgoorlie-Boulder (adult/child $25/5), and longer outback explorations.

You can see Kalgoorlie-Boulder and the Golden Mile mining operations from the air with Goldfields Air Services (9093 2116; www.goldfieldsairservices.com). Prices start from $50 per person, with a minimum of two people.

Festivals and events

The highlight of the social calendar is the annual Kalgoorlie-Boulder Racing Round in early September, where locals and a huge influx of visitors dress up to the nines to watch horses race on the red dirt. On the third Sunday of the month, Boulder's Burt St is busy with the pleasantly low-key and community-centred Boulder Market Day, where morning tea with homemade scones, jam and cream in the town hall is a must.

Getting there and away

Air

Skywest (1300 660 088; www.skywest.com.au) and Qantas (13 13 13; www.qantas.com.au) fly between Kalgoorlie-Boulder and Perth at least twice daily.

Bus

Perth-Goldfields Express (1800 620 440; www.goldrushtours.com.au) does the Perth—Kalgoorlie—Perth trip (adult/child $70/43 one way) every day except Saturday. On Thursday and Sunday it goes on to Leonora and Laverton, returning Friday and Monday. The same company offers the Goldrush Tours Golden Triangle Tour ($475), a hop-on hop-off bus pass between Perth, Margaret River and the southwest coast and forests, Albany and Esperance on the south coast, and up to Kalgoorlie.

Train

Transwa (1300 662 205; www.transwa.wa.gov.au) runs the Prospector from Perth to Kalgoorlie-Boulder daily (adult/child $72/35, seven hours). It's wise to book, as this service is popular.

The Indian Pacific (13 21 47; www.trainways.com.au) train also goes through Kalgoorlie-Boulder four times a week, twice to Perth and twice from Perth.

Getting around

Between Kalgoorlie and Boulder there's a regular bus service from 7am to 6pm Monday to Friday and Saturday morning with TransGoldfields (9021 2655; adult/child $2/1).

North of Kalgoorlie-Boulder

The road north is surfaced from Kalgoorlie-Boulder to the three 'Ls' — the mining towns of Laverton (367km northeast), Leinster (372km north) and Leonora (237km north). Off the main road, however, traffic is virtually nonexistent and rain can quickly close unsealed roads.

Head 18km east along an unsealed road to the cemetery and the processing plant at Kanowna. One hundred years ago it swarmed with miners, and had 16 hotels and an hourly train service to Kal.

Broad Arrow was featured in The Nickel Queen, the first full-length feature film made in WA. It is a shadow of its former self — at the beginning of the 20th century it had a population of 2400; now there's just one pub and a couple of derelict-looking houses.

The largest service centre for mining exploration and the pastoral industry in the area is Leonora (population 1500). Climb Tank (Smoodgers) Hill for a good view of the town, and check out the old public buildings on the main street near the visitors centre (08-9037 6044; www.leonora.wa.gov.au; Tower St; 9am-5pm). Hit the telecentre next door for email. Perth-Goldfields Express (1800 620 440) does a Perth—Kalgoorlie—Leonora run on Thursday and Sunday, returning Friday and Monday.

Just 4km southwest of town, Gwalia Historic Site was occupied in 1896 and deserted pretty much overnight in 1963, after the pit closed. With houses and household goods intact, it's a strange, eerie, fascinating ghost town. The museum (08-9037 7122; adult/child $5/2) has more weird and wonderful stuff in it than we've ever seen, and Hoover House — the beautifully restored 1898 mine managers' house, named for Herbert Hoover, the first Gwalia mine manager, who later became 31st President of the United States — is stunning.

Great Central Road (Outback Way)

For those interested in a genuine outback experience, the unsealed Great Central Rd (officially renamed, in 2005, 'Outback Way' but as yet rarely known as such) provides rich scenery of red sand, spinifex, mulga and desert oaks. From Laverton it is a mere 1132km to Yulara and 1710km to Alice Springs.

The road, while sandy and corrugated in places, is suitable for all vehicles, though it can be closed for several days after rain. Diesel is available at roughly 300km intervals on the WA side, as is Opal fuel, which, at the Warburton and Warakurna roadhouses, can be used instead of unleaded petrol. (Opal is unsniffable, and its provision is one of the measures in place to counteract petrol-sniffing problems in local communities.)

Coming from Laverton, the three WA roadhouses — all of which provide food, fuel and limited mechanical services — are Tjukayirla (08-9037 1108; tjukayirla@bigpond.com) at 315km, Warburton (08-8956 7656) at 567km and Warakurna (08-8956 7344) at 798km. All have a range of accommodation, from camping (around $10 per person) to budget rooms (around $40) and self-contained units (around $100); you should book ahead, as rooms are limited.

At Warburton take time to visit the Tjulyuru Cultural & Civic Centre (08-8956 7966; www.tjulyuru.com; 8am-5pm Mon-Fri), near the roadhouse; the art gallery contains an extensive collection of Warburton Aboriginal paintings. At Giles, 231km northeast of Warburton and 105km west of the NT border, there is a meteorological station which runs an 8am tour daily.

Note that Warakurna, Warburton and Giles run on NT time, 1½ hours ahead of WA time.

Norseman

From Norseman you can head south to Esperance or north to Kalgoorlie, or begin the intrepid trek across the Eyre Hwy (Nullarbor). Don't be surprised if you see taxis with bull bars and families of emus crossing the road.

The visitors centre (9039 1071; www.norseman.info; 68 Roberts St; 9am-5pm) has good public showers and is a mine of information about the Nullarbor trek; if you've just done the big trip, staff can issue you with your very own certificate to show the folks back home. A telecentre is close by for email.

The Historical & Geological Collection (9039 1593; Battery Rd; adult/child $2/1; 10am-1pm Mon, Wed, Thu & Fri or by request), in the quaint old School of Mines building, has items from the gold-rush days.

There's an excellent view of the town and surrounding salt lakes from the well-signposted Beacon Hill Mararoa Lookout, over the more than 4.2 million tonnes of mountainous tailings.

Eyre Highway

London to Moscow, or Perth to Adelaide? There's not much difference, distance wise. The 2700km Eyre Hwy crosses the southern edge of the vast Nullarbor Plain — a place travellers seem to want to cross just to prove they can. Be prepared for an almost meditative drive that takes days and needs a damn good supply of water and plenty of compilation CDs. North of the Eyre Hwy, the Trans-Australia Railway runs across the Nullarbor. One stretch of the railway runs dead straight for 478km — the longest piece of straight railway line in the world.

John Eyre deserves having a highway named after him because he was the first of his kind to cross the stretch in 1841. After a telegraph line was laid (1877), miners en route to the goldfields trekked across the vacuous plain under its negligible shade. In 1912 the first car made it across. By 1941 the rough-and-ready transcontinental highway carried a handful of vehicles a day. In 1969 the WA government surfaced the road as far as the South Australian border. Finally, in 1976, the last stretch was surfaced and now it runs close to the coast on the SA side, with the Nullarbor region ending dramatically at the cliffs of the Great Australian Bight.

From Norseman it's 725km to the South Australian border, near Eucla, and a further 480km to Ceduna (meaning 'a place to sit down and rest' in the local Aboriginal language) in SA. They aren't kidding! From Ceduna, it's still another 793km to Adelaide (a long day's drive) via Port Augusta.

Crossing the Nullarbor

Do outback rescue services a big favour and take some simple precautions. This is not the place to run out of petrol: high fuel prices range from 15 to 30 cents a litre above city prices and the longest distance between fuel stops is about 200km. Carry some drinking water (an active adult needs 5L per day in hot weather) in the unfortunate case you do have to sit it out by the roadside. Getting help for a mechanical breakdown can be expensive and time consuming, so make sure your vehicle is in good shape, you've got good tyres and at least a basic kit of simple spare parts. Be sure to book ahead if you're going to break up the drive with an overnight stay at one of the roadhouses. Check out www.nullarbornet.com.au for more information.