Goldfields Pub Crawl for New Years Eve
Here’s how far we’ve travelled so far, and a larger version of the ground covered in this post. If only Wikicamps included more detail in their maps…
To add context to the above map, the red line meets the green at Kalgoorlie, northbound the green line forks at Kambalda, Coolgardie is where the left green line meets the yellow highway, continuing north the route hits bumps at Ora Banda and Broad Arrow. The northernmost point of the route is Kookynie, and Kalgoorlie is nearly directly west of Coolgardie. With the geography lesson covered, on to the story…
In our last post, we turned away from the Holland Track that had been closed due to a bush fire on December 29th. We spent that night roughly 80km from Norseman WA, at a beautiful campsite.
The next morning, we set off early to get to Kalgoorlie, through Norseman and Coolgardie. Upon arriving in Norseman we found a pretty well established residential neighborhood, with a Hotel that looked as though it was the place to be in bygone years, and coin-op showers by the visitors’ center. After obliging ourselves of said showers, we continued north to Coolgardie.
Coolgardie had several historic looking buildings along the main drag, but it was very hot and we didn’t stick around long enough to learn much about the place. We had lunch in a park that had been thoroughly vandalised, refueled, and continued on to Kalgoorlie.
Other than the mining history and outback culture of the area, we also intended to see three of the bars listed in our Australian Bush Pubs book. Since we weren’t pressed for time as we drove into Kalgoorlie, we decided to continue through town and another 40km toward the first of them, the Broad Arrow Tavern. There was another Jeep parked out front too, but the owner wasn’t interested in chatting.
Instead we chatted up the bartender over a couple rounds, and she encouraged us to write our names on whatever wall space we could find, so we took the opportunity to advertise this blog!
Since the temperatures were reaching the mid 40’s back in Kalgoorlie, we decided to get a room for a couple nights at the local Best Western, saving us from sweating ourselves to sleep in the tent, and facilitating driving around and exploring the area. Within the first hour in our room Pam found 3 cockroaches, so Pam went to explain this to the front desk. Apparently they handed her a can of insecticide and told her that’s the outback and to have a nice night. Hahaha.
After a great night’s sleep and a slow morning, we set off for the Grand Hotel Kookynie – an outback pub in a town that describes itself as a living ghost town, 200km north of Kalgoorlie. As Pam and I neared the destination, we realised we’d driven for over 2 hours only to show up in a derelict mining town at 5pm on New Years Eve, and wondered if the place would even be open… the last 10 minutes of the drive were completely silent in anticipation. Hallelujah, the long drive was rewarded! The lights were on, the air conditioning units were spinning, and there was a horse acting as bouncer at the door!
The host / bartender was an elderly woman and a real character, who had owned the hotel for the last 15 years. She recognised us as Canadian since she’d spent many years there herself, and we traded stories over a pint and perused the vast collection of memorabilia in the place. We also met a few ladies spending the night there, who were on a tour of outback hotels for one of their 50th birthdays. Before long we had to get back in the Jeep because we had another pub to see, and wanted to avoid driving after dark.
Pam and I were reluctantly back on the road, wishing we’d booked a room in Kookynie with some character rather than with the cockroaches at a generic Best Western. Still, our spirits were high as heading back in the direction of Kalgoorlie we set our sights on the historic Ora Banda Inn. This place wasn’t in the middle of a town, it was squeezed between two active and very productive mines. We arrived with just enough light left in the sky for a couple pictures.
Walking in, we passed a large table of people outside, and almost no-one inside. We rocked up to the bar, ordered a couple beers, and asked if we could still have dinner. Apparently the bartender was also the owner and the cook, and it was nearly 8pm on New Years’ Eve, but she was reeally nice and said “Eh, why not? What’ll you have?”. The table outside was mostly staff, plus a few miners; We must’ve seemed pretty crazy to them, randomly rocking up after dark on the last day of the year with foreign accents and a yellow jeep.
Dinner was great, especially after a day of a few beers and big kay’s, but I’ll spare you the food pics taken by my partner in crime. While waiting for the meal we explored all of the evidence of the mining history in the great rooms of the old place, and after dinner chatted with the owner, whose husband was pulling a shift underground at the time, about Australia, and Canada, and the Coles FlyBys rewards program. When paying for our meal, she explained that if we didn’t already have a place to stay, we were welcome to spend the night. Again, what a shame our belongings were back at the Best Western.
We made the 60km journey back to town slowly, and using every single LED mounted to the Jeep, and passed out when we got to our room around 10pm. Happy New Years!
After a slow morning and a late breakfast we packed up and hit the road again, bound for Esperance and a last chance to prepare ourselves for the Nullarbor. But first, I wouldn’t let us leave town without checking out the Kalgoorlie Super Pit mine. It’s the largest open-pit mine on earth, and visible from space. To say we were blown away would be an understatement!
Due to our late start, we ended up choosing a free campsite just shy of Esperance called Salmon Gums. It wasn’t much other than a place to park, but it sure was remote, and the sun set did not disappoint. In our next post, we’ll get to Esperance and beyond!
