Australia’s Gold Miners Rush to Outback

Charlie’s face looked creviced from countless days under the Western Australia sun. A three-day growth of stubble covered his chin. But his keen blue eyes shone with the passion of discovery.

“Once you find your first 10-ounce nugget, you’re hooked,” he said with a toothless grin. “The one- and two-ouncers don’t mean much, but once you find your first 10-ouncer, that’s it.”

Charlie--the only name he ever used--is one of a new generation of prospectors plumbing the rich, red soil of the Australian outback in a 20th-Century gold rush.

We were chatting over ale and ginger beer at the Broad Arrow Tavern about 10 miles outside of Kalgoorlie, the gold-mining capital of Australia.

Made of weathered corrugated iron and stained with streaks of rust, the tavern is set in the bleak gold fields, relieved by only occasional eucalyptus and cottonwood trees. A fine red dust hangs over everything.

Break From Work

Inside the tavern, 50-year-old photographs line the grimy walls and a couple of cheery bartenders serve pints of beer to a roomful of miners and swagmen (itinerant workers). The red dust covers them, too. Kim (last names seem superfluous out here) has come from Sri Lanka to work for one of the big mining companies.

“The pay is good,” he said. “I work here to save up money and then I’ll return to Sri Lanka.”

Kalgoorlie’s gold rush is a boon to travelers as well as to miners.

A one-hour flight on Ansett Airlines or a four-hour train ride on the India/Pacific Railroad will take visitors from the modern seacoast city of Perth to the rugged charm of Western Australia’s gold fields. Day trips in the surrounding countryside give visitors a glimpse of life in a present-day frontier town.

Kalgoorlie’s first boom came in the 1890s and the original turn-of-the-century buildings still line the main street.

By the end of the 1960s all the mines except one had closed, but more sophisticated techniques have made once-abandoned mines profitable again. Now the area supports 10 large mining companies.

About 2,000 miners work the fields, and the number increases almost daily. “Australia is becoming one the largest gold-producing countries in the world,” Ted Cockram, manager of tourism for the gold fields, said.

Our tour of the gold country began with a drive down Hannan Street, a broad road named for Patrick Hannan, the young Irishman who in 1893 made the find that started Kalgoorlie’s first gold rush.

Victorian Era hotels, housewares stores and shops selling prospecting equipment line the street. Off the main road, the roofs on nearly all the homes are of corrugated iron.

“It’s the only thing that will keep the red dust out,” our guide Jill, a pretty, 40ish woman with lively brown eyes, said. “Sometimes in the summertime the dust storms are so bad you can hardly see.”

Hoover’s ‘White House’

Jill took us by the “White House,” a little white home where former President Herbert Hoover lived when he worked in Kalgoorlie as a young mining engineer in the early 1900s. A must on the tour is Hay Street, the red-light district just a block off Hannan.

“Prostitution is not really legal in Australia, but here in Kalgoorlie it’s accepted,” Jill said as we drove by what are called the “starting stalls,” a collection of low-rise buildings that look more like stables than houses of ill repute. She pointed out the house of the legendary Mona Maxwell, who at age 90 finally retired from the profession and is considered a town matriarch.

“I have had some of the ladies in my home for dinner,” said Jill, who has the decorum of a college librarian, “and I’m proud to call them my friends.”

After scanning the high points of Kalgoorlie the dusty, non-air-conditioned bus headed outside of town past several working mines and into the outback. The red plain stretches to the horizon and is marked by groves of fire trees and tall, white-barked eucalyptus.

Purple Flannel Blooms

Occasionally we see a flock of emus running through the bush, or a herd of sheep, mottled red by the ever-present dust. Jill points out the wildflowers that line the road--wild hop, “pig face” and purple flannel.

We pull over to the side of the dirt road and get out to see an aboriginal water hole--a tiny pool of water half-hidden by a rock outcropping. “It’s a natural spring,” Jill said. “The aborigines can find these water holes in the most remote parts of the outback. They care for them, keep them clean. To keep insects out, they’ll make a lattice of reeds and place it over the water so the bugs can climb out.”

The water hole is slightly muddy, so Jill thinks the aborigines have left it for some reason and moved on. “It’s still clean enough to drink from, though,” she says, cupping some water in her hand and taking a sip.

Ghost Town Sites

We climbed back into the bus, and as we continued the drive, Jill pointed out several ghost towns that thrived when the earlier rush was on and then collapsed when the mines were depleted. Only there’s nothing there.

“The buildings in these early gold towns were all of corrugated iron,” Jill said. “When a mine closed down, the miners would just take their houses apart and move on to the next location.” A careful look in the direction of sites like Golden Arrow might reveal a few piles of mangled metal--all that remains of a once-booming settlement.

In the middle of nowhere, Ora Banda, population 23, is a town that thrived early in the century and then nearly disappeared. The only building in town is the Ora Banda Hotel, a square-stone structure that houses a restaurant, tavern and general store.

In 1985 the Klaussen family restored the 1911-era hotel and now runs the place as a lunch-stop oasis in the bush.

A long, hand-carved bar stretches across one wall and the ceiling is of pressed tin. A big friendly dog greets us as we enter the restaurant.

Members of the Klaussen family work the lunch hour--tending bar, running back to the kitchen to bring forth steaming meat pies and steak sandwiches, and all the while tending the general store next door. Chocolate bars and dime-store toys are displayed beneath a fine coating of dust.

Education in ‘Two-Up’

After lunch we drive on through the outback, stopping at such sites as the State Battery, the wood and iron shed where independent prospectors have their ore processed and weighed; Grants Patch, an open field strewn with gemstones, where we’re given little hammers and invited to break open fragments of rock to discover the crystalline structures inside, and finally, the Kalgoorlie Two-Up School.

Two-Up is Australia’s contribution to the gambling world. Two pennies are tossed in the air by a “spinner” and bets are taken on whether they land two heads or two tails. (If it’s one of each, you spin again.)

The Kalgoorlie Two-Up School is an open-air “amphitheater,” as Jill describes it, made of--what else--corrugated iron. We stood spellbound as craggy-faced miners and bushmen sat around the dusty arena and wagered piles of money on the spinner’s toss.

On our return to Kalgoorlie we stopped at the Maritana Fish Co. and had, in this land-locked town, delectable fish and chips, freshly made and sizzling hot. Then we boarded the plane for the trip back to a more familiar world.

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Goldrush Tours in Kalgoorlie offers 14 guided tours of the gold fields and sights. We took the six-hour Ghost Town Tour that left about 10:45 a.m. and returned by dinnertime. It cost $25 Australian (about $20 U.S.). Other tours include visits to such mining towns as Coolgardie and Kambalda, a Gemstones and Gold Fossicking expedition that includes some amateur prospecting and a daylong wildflower excursion.

On your own you can visit the Hainault Gold Mine, which was closed in 1968 and reopened as a working museum. You put on hard hats and descend into the shafts, where former miners demonstrate the grueling process of extracting gold.

Or take a ride on the Rattler, a train that takes visitors on an hourlong trip around the “Golden Mile” of working and defunct mines. The Golden Mile Museum in Kalgoorlie has exhibits tracing the history of the gold fields.

Accommodations include modern motels such as the Tower Motor Hotel, the Midas Motel and the Hospitality Inn, all of which have pools and air conditioning. Rates run from $50 to $75 Australian ($40 to $56 U.S.).

For a flavor of the old gold-rush days you might want to stay in one of the older hotels along Hannan Street. Built around the turn of the century, such hotels as the York, the Palace and the Exchange make up in character what they lack in luxury. Rates are $25 to $45 Australian.

Dining in Kalgoorlie is generally informal. The Kalgoorlie Pancake Factory serves homemade soups and a variety of pancakes, the Sunshine Inn has vegetarian food and the Amalfi restaurant serves dishes such as Scotch fillets with whiskey cream sauce and fish fillets with banana and Pernod. The Palace Hotel also has a good restaurant, and then there are the fish and chips at the Maritana Fish Co.

Kalgoorlie is one hour from Perth by air, 7 1/2 hours by train. Ansett Airlines has daily flights for $142 Australian (about $100 U.S.) one way; Skywest has a one-way fare of $93 Australian. The Prospector, a commuter train from Perth, runs every day but Sunday and costs $37 U.S. one way.

For more information about a variety of gold-field tours, contact the Australian Tourist Commission, 2121 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 1200, Los Angeles 90067, (213) 552-1988.