Monday, November 3rd, 2008: I submitted my thesis. I was happy to have it submitted, but now am anxiously awaiting my mark. It felt so good to have it done after a whole year of study and research on blogging.
Friday, November 7th, 2008: Debbie submitted her thesis and we rolled out of ECU's car park at about 10:30am. In the style of Thelma & Louise (except without the convertible), we hightailed it outta there and headed straight for the hills - the Perth Hills! Beyond the Perth Hills is the beginning of the great abyss of the Wheatbelt and beyond that - where we were headed - the scrub-filled Goldfields, home of the world's largest gold mining pit or Super Pit, the most alcohol consumed in WA, and seven brothels - two of which offer tours.
Kalgoorlie (Kal by the locals): After a quick 600 km (360 mile) stretch of a drive we rolled into Kalgoorlie at about 5:30 Friday night on our black steeds - I mean in our rented black Hyundai i30 - looking for a few cold ones and a place to rest our heads for the night. Debbie was determined to get there in less time than the 7 hours and 50 minutes Google Maps had estimated it would take and we managed to make it in about 7. Debbie likened Kalgoorlie to the old mining town at Paris's Disneyland... in other words it was surreal. You could just imagine the whistle of the old west as a tumble weed rolled across the road and two cowboy's got ready to shoot it out in the main street. The streets were orginally made extra wide for the long-ago used camel trains to be able to turn around in and they were once also paved in fool's gold before locals found out real gold could be extracted from fool's gold and feverishly tore the streets up to get in on the riches. Kalgoorlie is one of two prolific telluride (fool's gold) sites in the world, the other being Boulder, Colorado.
We checked out a few of the local hostels for acommodation. They were filled with fly-in, fly-out mine workers. Shoe racks near the lobby entrance lined with mud-caked work boots gave this away. At another hostel we walked into the lounge/ dining area in search of the receptionist and found ourselves the objects of much wonderment. The young men in their early to mid-twenties slowly averted their gazes from the television show they were glued to and gaped at us with forks poised over their dinner plates with looks of bewilderment as we asked where the receptionist was. Either they didn't understand English or they hadn't seen such clean, wholesome-looking young women in a long time... my guess was the latter. After that entertaining search, we landed at the York Hotel, a lovely old-timey hotel in the heart of the town... and with no trace of mine workers or their work boots.
The York Hotel ran a lively pub scene in the evenings, but had a charming alley courtyard and served free continental breakfast in the stately dining room in the morning. Debbie and I shared a tidy little twin room - a room with two twin beds - with a shared 
bathroom down the hall. There was also a slightly slanting balcony above the hotels covered entrance which overlooked the main street. Here we relaxed with a few Coronas after our long drive and watched the sun go down over the Spinifex and salt bushes of the scrub-filled horizon. For an old historic hotel, it had everything we were looking for in budget acommodation.
bathroom down the hall. There was also a slightly slanting balcony above the hotels covered entrance which overlooked the main street. Here we relaxed with a few Coronas after our long drive and watched the sun go down over the Spinifex and salt bushes of the scrub-filled horizon. For an old historic hotel, it had everything we were looking for in budget acommodation. After getting settled in and toasting over a few beers on the hotel's balcony, our night began with dinner and drinks at a nice restaurant down the main street from our hotel called The Blue Monkey. It was on the pricier side, but had a nice atmosphere and good food. Then we stopped into Judd's on the way back to our hotel. There was live music, a young crowd and a massive men to women ratio! There was probably 5 guys to every girl and didn't the ladies know it. We sipped our beers and people watched for a while as the band played one enjoyable cover song after another. Debbie observed that the club style of dress that the people wore in Kal was much more casual than the type of dress you see at the clubs in Perth, noting that the girls looked like they were trying too hard and not quite getting it. What can you say? They're bogans (white trash Aussies)! At least they tried to look nice.
After Judd's we went in search of a "skimpy" bar where the barmaids wear next to nothing, but to no avail. A recent magazine article about the women who work in the mines said that Kalgoorlie is trying to clean up it's "skimpy" act and regulating the skimpies to have the women wear less revealing clothing such as sexy nighties instead of just bra and panties. This was what we found - nothing like the skimpy I went to with SM in Dampier. We settled on returning to the nightlife in the York Hotel, where it would be easiest to crawl off to bed should we become inebriated. Back at the York a glorified kareoke duo - guy on guitar and girl singer with pre-recorded music playing in the background - attempted to entertain the drunken crowd. We met a local miner who "lived" at the hotel on his time off from the mine. I thought it was really sad, a perfectly attractive guy making a good living but litereally living in a hotel in his downtime. What kind of lifestyle is that? The life of a mine worker.
The next day we set off to explore the Mining Hall of Fame and Museum's.
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