As you might off noticed I placed an add for Kalgoorlie Cops on the blog, and fair dinkum it's a little ripper of a show. And if you have watched the show you would off noticed what the coppers up that way have to go through each day, you can only imagine what it's like to keep
the peace in a town full of drunken rowdy miners. This is the town's Sergeant Cameron Clifford or Sherk to his mates, and it's his job to look after Kalgoorlie every night.... good luck to him you wouldn't get me in that job for quids! But for the mob who don't know where or what is Kalgoorlie i'll give ya a run down on this beaut bush town.Now Kal is located 595 kilometres (370 miles) east-northeast of our state capital Perth town, pretty well in the middle of the never never mate. Way back in the 1890's a fella named Paddy Hannan found some Gold and before you could say 'Stone the crows', hundreads of blokes had swarmed the place in search of the yellow cake. Since then the place has gone from strengh to strengh, and now- a-days Gold is the main industry in the town along with another metal nickel.
The population is around thirty three thousand (mostly miners) who spend most of there time working in the mines surrounding Kal, and when they hit the town and it's watering holes thats when all hell breaks loose. Ofcause if you got the chance to watch Kalgoorlie Cops then you
would off noticed what goes on at night around Kal, yes it's full of colourful characters but it doesn't take much to start a barmy.... just a few beers and a sheilah is all it takes!The concentrated area of large gold mines surrounding the original Hannan find is often referred to as the Golden Mile, and is considered by some to be the richest square mile of earth on the planet.
The Super Pit is an open-cut gold mine approximately 3.6 kilometres (2.2 miles) long, 1.6 kilometres (1.0 mi) wide and 512 metres (1,680 ft) deep...crikey! Employees must live in Kalgoorlie it is not a fly-in-fly-out operation, which helps the town to survive when a lot of other bush towns are starting to close down. The mine is expected to be productive until about 2017 (unless they can extend it's life a bit longer), at that point it is planned to abandon it and allow the groundwater to seep in and fill it. It is estimated it will take about 50 years to fill completely full.
Each of the massive mine dump trucks carrie 225 tonnes of rock and the round trip takes about 35 minutes, most of that time being the slow uphill haul and what would you pay for one of these big buggers you may ask? Well the going price is around US$5 million.... stone the crows thats a lot of moolah hay. Have a gander at some of these stats... each truck wheel runs on the largest tyre in the world and is attached to the axle using 47 nuts! (I'd hate to have to change that tyre), each tyre is just over four meters tall and weight in at
5,300 kgs... strewth! And if your interrested in buying one, it will set you back a whopping $42,500 EACH (no mates rates here!)Kal is also known as the adoped home of one of Australias greatest comedians... that loveable larrikin Kevin Bloody Wilson, his humour is regarded as politically incorrect but that doesn't stop him from performing on average 120 concerts a year. He has recorded 16 albums but recieves no airplay as his songs ain't the sort of stuff that you'd like your kiddies to listen to (trust me mate), but that didn't stop him from selling more than 3.6 million albums!
And so thats Kalgoorlie and fairdinkum it's just a bloody ripper place out in the middle of nowhere, and if you ever get the chance to have a gander then give it a bloody good go. You'll love it out there in the heat and the flies, and yes do pop into the pubs at night for a cold one as it's a real eye opener.... trust me mate!
Hay if you want a little laugh then have a gander at this post in youtube, it's a send up of Kalgoorlie Cops called Kambalda Cops. Fairdinkum mate it's pretty well done and good for a laught.