A visit to The Museum of the Goldfields was in order today , the entry to it was below this head frame , which is also used as a lookout .
After checking out where to go and what there is to see , we headed up in the lift to the viewing platform . Views over Kalgoorlie CBD and Mt Charlotte mine were there for all to see .
Back down the lift to the basement where the gold display is - $4,000,000 worth of it . Exhibits ranged from nuggets , to alluvial gold and gold bars of differing sizes .
An interesting side story to this, is the roads and cart tracks around Kalgoorlie Boulder were laid with material which was later identified as having gold tellurides in it - people thought that it was fools gold . Another story is the catholic church and one hotel were made from bricks made at a nearby town , and they used gold carrying material to make the bricks with - before they knew about it - so there is still an expensive church in town built from expensive bricks , apparently the hotel has been demolished .
Another story is the mine replaced the main streets in Kalgoorlie as they used similar materials to form the roads foundations .
There was also some gold jewellery on display .
On display was also a skull of a marsupial lion - the head of which would have been the size of a basketball with some very large teeth .
There are some outside buildings - an old bank building , a miners cottage , a timber companies office , a mobile police station , The British Arms Hotel - built between some miners cottages - a very narrow hotel .
The clock on the hotel has it's workings inside the room beside the clock , these are the working parts.
Inside another room was a dentist's room , I'm glad I wasn't about when they were using this stuff .
This is the miners cottage .
In another shed were 2 rooms from one of the minefields early entrepreneurs , a gentleman that organised machinery for mining and leased it out , very successfully as well ! One room is the Boardroom and the other his office , both built with solid jarrah walls & ceilings .
The clock on the mantlepiece is still ticking away .
Here's an old typewriter from the timber office - it would have been a busy office , as they used a lot of timber for mine props etc etc .
Mulga Bill's bike is also on display , minus the drive belt/chain and pedals , but still is impressive .
Some of the old photos left an impression on us - they were a tough breed back then - here's some of the miners - no smiles anywhere .
Then there's this guy pushing his barrow with all his worldly belongings in it , to try to make his fortune in gold .
Outside was an interesting exhibit -
These are 3 different samples of pipes used for the Golden Pipeline from Perth to Kalgoorlie . The furthest is a section of pipeline , all steel that was formed and held together by a "H" piece that was crimped down to hold the pipe together . Then there's the timber section in the middle that was assembled and wrapped in wire to hold it together - there were 67 klms of this timber pipe used in the pipeline !! Then the closest section is cement lined steel pipe .
The Golden Pipeline was an engineering masterpiece of the day , to be able to transfer water that far , through various pumping stations and elevation changes is quite amazing . The engineer in charge was C Y O'Connor . He was under immense pressure to get this job done and eventually it got to great for him - he rode his horse into the surf near Fremantle and shot himself .
And on that somber note , that's your lot . Cheers
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