Michael Batson

Once upon a time way out west, I went to Kalgoorlie by bus to work. Later I went back by rail for a visit. The town of about 30,000 is an isolated stop on the line across Western Australia where one stretch of railway runs completely straight for 478km – the longest straight stretch of rail line anywhere in the world. Kal’ to the locals, is over 600kms from the world’s most isolated city, Perth. From there to Adelaide, it’s 2700km – like travelling from London to Moscow with almost nothing in between.

Tourists in Kalgoorlie are thin on the ground. People come from all over seeking the highly paid mining jobs. They work hard and play harder before moving on. Australia is making a fortune supplying raw materials to fuel Asia’s continued industrialisation and is home to half of the world’s largest mining company, BHP Billiton.

Kalgoorlie itself is a grid of broad, tree-lined streets. The main street, Hannan Street, was designed wide enough to turn an entire camel train around, once a requirement in outback Australia. Kalgoorlie and its twin town, Boulder, boast an interesting collection of architectural styles, many unconventional. Expect to see curious blends of Victorian gold boom, Edwardian, Moorish, and Art Nouveau styles.  The turn-of-the-20th century styles have melded to produce a bizarre mix of ornate facades, colonnaded footpaths, recessed verandas, stuccoed walls, and general overstatement.  

On Hannan Street is the Palace Hotel, one of Kalgoorlie’s grand old ladies, antiquated with unmistakable charm. Here once, miners striking it rich would shout ₤4000 worth of champagne in a single evening, a veritable fortune. Across the street is the Exchange Hotel.  Downstairs is the bar.  A chapter of the Gypsy Jokers Motorcycle Club dominated the pool table and the jukebox.  

Kalgoorlie accounts for the town with the most Harley-Davidson motorcycles sold in the state with the highest Harley ownership per head in Australia.  Outside, along the main street bikers sat drinking, cigarette smoke wafting out into the sunshine.  Their gleaming machines baking in the desert sun, the light reflected blindingly off the highly polished chrome.

For five hours a day the Exchange’s bar staff dress up – in their underwear. ‘Skimpies’ are an institution in desert town Australia. Barmaids arrive in Kalgoorlie from Perth for a tour of duty and, when I was there, cleared over $1200 per week; not bad coin.  Despite the best efforts of modern refrigeration innovation, electricity can’t get beer cold enough here.  To make it drinkable ice is needed.  Beer is first chilled in fridges, then placed in metal basins behind the bar and covered in ice, before being sold.  

“Don’t get out of bed for less than $1000 me.” A bull-like man with a shaven head next to me said. Unclear whether he meant daily, I asked what he did. “I’m a Rigger.” Apparently, this is Oz-speak for a scaffolder. He hailed from eastern Australia and told me he’d recently separated from his wife, “a wonderful woman”.

“You clean shaven all over?” He asked the skimpy serving behind the bar, his wife quickly forgotten. She had long brown hair and was deeply tanned, the product she said, of two weeks on “Rottie” or Rottnest Island near Perth. In suede bikini, she pressed herself up against the bar with a rapier-like reply, “Yeah, sponsored by Gillette me, born with a razor in my hand.”  She quickly followed up asking if he wanted another drink while casting a quick eye at me, but still stunned by her riposte, he didn’t reply.

At the employment office of the Federal Government (known by its acronym, CES) the sign said applicants should present themselves; ‘As though they were actually turning up for a job interview.’  To meet these standards Ken had a ZZ-Top beard and with his hairstyle looked like Scottish comedian, Billy Connolly.  His cut-off T-shirt met the local dress code.  His bare arms bore tattoos of naked women and he dressed in black jeans. He told me he was from Queensland and a stockyard-builder by “trade”. The jobs were standard fare for a small primary industry centre miles away from the regular stratum of metropolitan life; trade jobs, social workers for distant Aboriginal communities, mechanics, fitters, and a physiotherapist willing to work part time.  

Kalgoorlie was the town that nearly died in the mid-1970s but revived, largely due to the price of gold.  At that time, the cost of mining was US$130 an ounce and the price of gold was only US$110. As a result all but one of the mines closed in a town conditioned to boom and bust. An English journalist visiting Kalgoorlie in the early 1980s thought Kalgoorlie ‘conditioned and resilient’. A man’s town, so the women say. Sport is god and books are for no hopers.  The town only got a library in 1977, but an Olympic size swimming pool in 1937 – the first in the state.

“Mateship” it’s called. The mateship ethic lays great strength on a person’s ability to drink; and while you drink, you gamble.  On anything but particularly two-up, an illegal form of gambling involving tossing coins, but everyone knows it goes on.  Brothels are illegal too, but Hay Street in town is lined with them, the women sitting in stalls of corrugated iron like some Third World version of Amsterdam’s sex industry.

A visiting marriage guidance counsellor tells that deafness is a problem, but that men don’t like to talk about it.  “It’s not as bad down the mines as it used to be.  The Mines Department seen to that.  Dry boring is out. Everything has to be watered to keep the dust down.” Miners get trouble with their lungs clogging up – caused by the lubricant for the vast drilling machines.  Several litres a day gets spilled into the atmosphere.  And on a cold day the drills numb your hands, the vibrations are so harsh.

“The friendship between men is something you won’t find anywhere else and so is the relationship between the working men and the foremen and bosses.  You talk to them like workmates.  If they tell you to do something you think is not good, you tell them to go to buggery.  There is no hard discipline and this is a good feeling.” Tom, a miner, says Kalgoorlie feels classless; money makes the only difference and then it only means you spend more on the same things.

The brothels don’t have to close on pay night, it’s their busiest time.  During the day, tours of the premises are available. Mona is the best known madam.  They say she’s 80 and came to Kalgoorlie in 1958. “A town like this with more men than women need houses like this.  It keeps the women safe on the streets.  No one in this town wants to close us down.  One detective sergeant who was new to the area, tried a few years ago but the whole town held a march in protest. I’m strict on who I let in.  I’m not here to run a social service.  I’m here to make money, but on the other hand I do think I’m giving a service. Of course, not everyone comes here for sex.  They may come for a shower and to relax and have someone to talk to.  They tell me all their troubles and then they leave, having put something in the charity box.” The ‘stalls’ of the red light district are still there.  The Questa Casa establishment was the last of the original brothels. The sandwich board outside contained the quote for the day: ‘Would the person who took our stepladder please return it or the management will take further steps.’

Road trains hauling three trailers patrolled the perimeters of town. All vehicles were covered in the ubiquitous red dust of the desert.  Everywhere there were flies. Australian flies invade your space like no others and at night come the mosquitoes.

When they first discovered gold, Kalgoorlie’s long-term viability seemed doubtful due to the lack of water.  In 1896, they decided to lay a pipeline from Perth. They avoided going underground but it still cost a mind-boggling £3 million.  The project was full of problems and its designer, Charles O’Connor, thought the whole thing had misfired and committed suicide before the water began to gush.  Even today it is considered to be one of the great hydraulic engineering feats in the world.

In the mid-seventies when the goldmines began to close, and the town looked like disintegrating and the population began moving away in search of work, nickel was discovered down the road at Kambalda.  

Boulder is home to the Golden Mile, probably the wealthiest gold-mining locale for its size anywhere in the world.  In the 1890s almost 180,000 lived in the area. It had a reputation for lawlessness and violence. Since gold was first discovered in 1893 over 1550 tonnes have been mined from the Mile.

Nearby is the “Super Pit” the largest open cut mine in Australia, currently measuring 3500m long and over 360m deep. There’s a lookout, just off Goldfields Highway, open from 6am to 6pm daily except when they’re blasting.  The view from the lookout is awesome and the “Tonka” trucks at the bottom of the huge hole look like kid’s toys.

The town’s a mixture of quiet suburban streets and work shops with storage yards sometimes holding huge pieces of machinery. The wheel of a gigantic earth-moving vehicle dwarfed an entire building. Along the street the sign on the house asked “Did ya bring a beer?” written as one word. Well, did you?