Good Things to do in Kalgoorlie in August

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Goldfields Highway Sign Goldfields Highway Sign kalgoorlie western australia stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images Pixabay

Kalgoorlie is about 600 kilometres from Perth. It takes us over seven hours to get here from Perth because we stop to walk the dog and he has a drink, too. We gave up on buying lunch on the way after pretty awful food from a roadhouse on a previous trip. Now we buy continental salad rolls before we leave Perth and pack our water bottles. We also had a packet of Dutch speculaas spice biscuits. We had dinner when we arrived.

This is such a good time of the year to visit Kalgoorlie. The weather is still mild with cool evenings, avoiding the hot weather during the summer months. Western Australia has had heavy winter rain and the wild flowers are beginning to bloom. The country side is green, lush and not very dusty, yet.

Although our son was at the West Australian School of Mines in Kalgoorlie I’d never visited their Geology Museum. If you’re interested in rocks and where they are found you’ll love this collection. I really liked the old fashioned specimen labels and display cases plus the museum is part of a lovely, well maintained old building.

One day we went to Gwalia, about two and a half hours driving time from Kalgoorlie. The Gwalia townsite’s $3.5 million dollar Upgrade Project in 2019 won the Heritage Award for the Shire of Leonora. Gold was discovered here in 1896. By 1919 the Sons of Gwalia was the deepest mine in Western Australia. Many of the miners came from overseas, especially Italy and in 1939-1945 the Italian mine workers were interned.

The Sons of Gwalia operated from the 1890s until December 1963. When the gold mine closed the population fell from 1200 plus to 40 in less than three weeks. Buildings still in Gwalia include some houses, the school house, the shop, the guesthouse and the hotel. There’s a museum and many buildings with mining artifacts. You can take your dog into all the buildings except the entrance and the cafe. The mine manager’s house once housed Herbert Hoover, the future 31st President of the United States

The Mine manager’s house still has some original fittings and furnishings. It now houses a small cafe, too. The coffee was very good! Our wrap for lunch was good, too.

Our 89 year old neighbour spent a few years in Gwalia when her husband was appointed head teacher. They had three boys under 3 and fairly basic accommodation. The Schoolmaster’s House has been restored so I took photos for her.

Open cut gold mine in Gwalia now.

Herbert Hoover, the mine manager in 1898, designed and had built the Mine manager’s House, the Mine Office and the Assay Office. He also designed the angled head frame, above, the only remaining wooden incline head frame in Australia.

The State Hotel, now privately owned. In 1903 the State Government built the hotel to provide a licensed premise and lessen the “sly grog” trade. In March 1919 the State’s first ever beer strike occurred. The locals demanded a different brand of beer, better prices, cleaner glasses and that the disagreeable manager be dismissed. The boycott lasted seven months! In the meanwhile, a pneumonia influenza epidemic hit the town and the empty hotel was commandeered by the Health Department as a hospital.

View of Kalgoorlie Nickel Smelter chimney from lookout on the way out of town.

The next day my son and I had a wonderful day exploring ghost towns, newly established and older mines and enjoying the beautiful landscape. After heavy winter rains the area is green and not too dusty. The weather while we were in Kalgoorlie was lovely.

Old mining head originally at Bailey’s Reward Mine relocated to Lions Lookout out of Coolgardie.

Sculptures in dried out lake.

What remains of the Premier Hotel at Kunanalling, a ghost town. Originally called 25 Mile as the mine was 25 miles from Coolgardie, Kunanalling was gazetted as a town site in 1896. At its peak more than 800 people lived in the town.

Disused open cut mine, possibly originally called the Premier Mine.

Sign post for nearby towns, except Credo Station.

Beautiful freshwater lagoon at Rowels Conservation Park. A really lovely, peaceful lake with a camping area and covered picnic areas.

Another ghost town, Daveyhurst, once home to over 1000 people.

Remains of the battery at Daveyhurst.

Lake by Pianto Road heading towards Yarri Road.

Wildflowers have begun appearing but we were probably two weeks too early for the best. There are over 12 000 species of wild flowers in Australia.

Kalgoorlie is a historic town in a state known for mining and pastoral interests. There’s so many historic buildings to investigate, ghost towns in the middle of nowhere to visit and striking landscapes with big horizon views. Soon there will be masses of stunning wild flowers.

Yesterday was DOG DAY. Well, that’s easy to celebrate, isn’t it?

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Cezanne, The China Room, Cooking and Sewing

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WATCHING

Cézanne SELF PORTRAIT (Depositphotos)

We are very lucky to live close to a cinema. It has parking at the back, too. On Sunday we went to see Cézanne: Portraits of Life, a documentary focusing on Cézanne’s many portraits. This documentary was filmed at the National Portrait Gallery in London, The National Gallery of Art in Washington and Musée d’Orsay in Paris with contributions from specialists and curators from each gallery.

There was lots of background information about his life in Aix -en- Provence and Paris, his wife and son and his perpetual letters to his father, requesting money. In fact, an enormous amount of his correspondence with family, other artists and friends was read throughout the documentary.

Many of us are more familiar with Cézanne’s landscapes, mostly painted in Aix-en-Provence but this film focused on his influence on modern art. His style of portrait painting, intending to capture the feeling of the subject rather than an accurate copy, is accredited with the development of the Modern Art movement.

Cézanne and also Van Gogh are considered the Fathers of Modern Art. Both are known for evident brushstrokes, avant garde perspective and vivid, bright colours. The influence of both painters was evident in the development of Fauvism and Cézanne’s works are considered the precursor to Cubism.

An interesting documentary and as close as we are going to get to artworks outside Western Australia for some time!

READING

The China Room by Sunjeev Suhota came well recommended and as usual, I borrowed it from the library. The story is based partially on his own family’s history and is well written. He writes about the arranged marriages of three brothers and the total subservience of the bought brides. They were virtual slaves to the mother and the three sons. The story is set in the early 1900s so I thought of it as past history, not as something that could happen now. Not an easy read but it was interesting.

Unfortunately, I also read about a local court case which concluded this week in Perth. An Afghani refugee entered into an arrangement with a man in Melbourne to’ buy’ the man’s 21 year old sister for $15 000. She was unwilling to come to WA and to marry the man but was forced to co-operate. Her husband felt she didn’t show him enough respect and the marriage is not consummated.

Eventually, after an argument, he picked up a kitchen knife and slashed her throat twice, then left her on the floor to die. He then rang her brother to tell him to come and pick up her body. In his summary the judge talks about the murderer’s sense of entitlement, that his wife should follow his demands, show respect and be totally available to him.

The Australian Federal Police say that the most common crime reported to them is human trafficking and slavery. It is conservatively estimated that 15.4 million women worldwide are living in forced marriages.

COOKING

Our two passion fruit vines went from healthy with flowers to dropping their leaves and looking awful. As they are now growing new leaves and look healthy again I am assuming the chilli thrip that decimated the roses also damaged our passion fruit. Luckily, a friend has shared her passion fruit! Delicious.

The new growth on the pruned roses is healthy and vigorous. I’ll be checking every day to make sure they are not under attack again. Apart from treating them I have added fresh potting mix to those in pots and fed them Seasol and added pea straw. Fingers crossed they remain healthy.

COOKING DUTCH CARROTS

Did you know carrots were purple until the late 15th century? Apparently the Dutch then hybridised orange carrots as a mark of respect for William of Orange who led the nation to independence. This belief is highly contested online!

Many recipes add honey to glazed Dutch carrots. I find them very sweet anyway, so prefer a recipe with garlic and rosemary.

Pre-heat oven to 200°C (400°F)

Begin by scrubbing the carrots and removing the foliage. You don’t need to peel them.

Line a baking dish with baking paper. Arrange the carrot in a single layer in the tray, drizzle with a little olive oil, sprinkle on a chopped garlic clove and salt and pepper.

Roast carrots for 15 minutes, sprinkle with chopped rosemary and return to the oven for 15 minutes or until they begin turning golden and caramelising on the edges. Serve hot. Delicious.

OTHER TREATS

Our son visited one of his favourite pastry shops. We all benefited! Crisp, moist and a rare treat.

SEWING

We are having a cold, wet winter. Many of us have discovered draughts under our doors, never noticed before but now very cold and obvious. A while back I made draught excluders for my Mother (here) and this time my son requested two, one for his en suite door and one for the bedroom door. I made these out of the same remnant fabric I used before and filled them with fibre fill. They are very effective

I remember draught excluders on the farm where I grew up. They were heavy and not very flexible. I don’t know what they were filled with, but they lasted forever. Several people have suggested they were traditionally filled with sand or sawdust. Rolled up old towels could be used at a pinch. Everyone seemed to have ‘door sausages’ so maybe doors weren’t as well fitted, the winters were colder or there was less heating.

Did you miss International Orangutan Day yesterday?

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Three Books and Removing Permanent Ink from Cotton

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READING

Our library has a special display of books called XPRESS READS. These are new or popular titles. They can be borrowed for seven days and cannot be renewed. Other loans are for 14 days and can be renewed unless requested by another member of the library.

I borrowed Fresh Water For Flowers from the XPRESS READS area and can see why it is so popular. It is a great read! Written by Valérie Perrin, it has been translated from French into over thirty languages and has won many awards. Perrin has been named as one of the ten best selling authors in France and this was the best selling book in Italy in 2020. It was translated for Europa Editions by Hildegarde Serle.

This is the story of a girl brought up in foster homes and her experiences. It recounts Violette’s life over many years, through young love, motherhood, work, her unfaithful husband and the friends she makes along the way. The story is also about the lives of many characters involved with the family. These personalities add strength to this story of of love and loss, hope and despair.

This is a story about hope and resilience. Despite being 482 pages long I read it in two days. Perrin herself writes that it starts out appealing to women but then the women say to their husbands, ‘You must read this book.’ My husband says he’ll have a look at it, but has not committed to reading it.

The second book I read was A Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot. This is a very popular book online at the moment and was highly recommended to me. Generally, the comments say the story will stay with you for a long time. It is a wonderful story. Written by Marianne Cronin who is 30, it suffers from poor editing and *historical errors. The story is thought provoking and charming but I’m slow to adapt to snappy, poorly constructed sentences and I feel this diminishes the cleverness of this book. You must make up your own mind as it is a big hit in America.

*For instance, p81 during an event in 1940, Margot asks her grandmother “Do you have a tissue?’ Although tissues had been invented as a cold cream remover, they were unavailable during the war years and didn’t really become widely used until 1954 when they were advertised on popular TV shows.

Thirdly, Small Pleasures written by Clare Chambers and also highly recommended to me. A gentle, beautifully written book about the monotonous life of a female journalist who investigates a claim of parthenogenesis. Chambers heard an interview on BBC Radio 4 about a geneticist, Dr Helen Spurway, who in 1955 observed that a species of fish was capable of spontaneously producing female progeny. This was partially replicated with a rabbit, so Dr Helen Spurway speculated about whether spontaneous parthenogenesis was provable in other mammals, specifically women. Was a virgin birth possible? This story is about a woman who claims her child was conceived without the involvement of a male.

REMOVING PERMANENT INK FROM COTTON

I uncapped a permanent ink pen and the ink had pooled in the cap. It bubbled and splattered on my favourite, thick, very old cotton tablecloth. I use it as a tablecloth as I really like the thick floral pattern which looks embossed on the fabric, but my Mother, who gave it to me, thinks it was a bedspread.

Soaked the stains in a borax paste, my usual whitening method, but that didn’t work. More searching online resulted in soaking the stains with hand sanitiser then washing the tablecloth in cold water. That didn’t work, either, nor did isopropyl alcohol topped off with dishwashing liquid both gently massaged in with an old toothbrush.

The final attempt to remove the stains involved a product bought from the supermarket. The stained area of the cloth was soaked in Dr Beckmann’s Colour Run Remover overnight, then washed and hung out in the sun to dry. Almost perfect! There is still a slight shadow where the biggest stain was but another soak will probably deal with that and certainly hanging in the sun has bleached it a little. My tablecloth is back, my permanent markers are secured in a (recycled) ziplock bag and I am very relieved.

Did you miss World Lion Day on 10th August? Not sure what you give a lion for their special day, but all the things that come to mind are not socially acceptable.

August 12th is also World Elephant Day.

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Phalaenopis Orchids and Reading ‘Lost Property’

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CARING FOR PHALAENOPIS ORCHIDS

Are you a fan of phalaenopis orchids? Three phalaenopis orchids in celedon footed pots on my table look very pretty. Two have flowers and I am determined the third will grow a flower stem and bloom. I have gathered the most useful advice on caring for your orchid and hopefully getting repeat blooms.

Always buy an orchid with more flower buds on the stem waiting to open. Your plant will last longer.

In winter orchids don’t like to be over watered. Wait until the moss or other top soil is almost dry before you water them.

They don’t like sitting in water, either, so make sure their pot can drain into a saucer or rocks below the pot in case you over water.

Use specialist orchid food once a fortnight if you prefer liquid fertilisers or less often if you bury the pellets in the orchid mix, which isn’t soil but is rough and easily drained fibrous materials. The pellets are very effective but also very smelly.

white moth orchid plant Unsplash

Phalaenopis or moth orchids thrive in humidity so often can be found in bathrooms. They don’t like cold drafts.

After your orchid has finished flowering cut it off just above a point where you can see a growth nodule and place it outside in dappled light. It should bloom again next year. Sometimes I get repeat blooms and sometimes I don’t although I think fertilising regularly makes a difference.

Unstock

READING

I had two books to read, our bookclub book, Henry James’s ‘Portrait of a Lady” and Helen Paris’s ‘Lost Property’. ‘Lost Property’ was due back at the library this week, so that’s what I chose to read. It was not a book I would recommend although many reviewers have gushed about it.

The author seems to have decided one day to write a book about modern times. Maybe she drew a word bubble on a sheet of paper and surrounded it with every modern dilemma she could think of, so we have homosexual father, difficult relationship with mother, special words to repeat under pressure to deal with anxiety, sexual assault, the main protagonist disappearing and attempting suicide, absinthe fueled hallucinations with her father present, the mother’s death, an American Asian ‘with very white teeth’ and all sorts of misunderstandings which finally resolve and become a grand romance.

Based initially in the London Transport Lost Property department, Dot seems to live a one dimensional life. She goes to work in her felt suit ( is there such a thing?) because she likes a uniform, where she is pedantic and then goes home to the maisonette she shared with her mother who has dementia and is now in care. She drinks and sets about sorting her collection of travel books. One night she’ll sort them according to alphabetical order, the next night by alphabetical order based on the author’s name, then by continent, colour of the spine, countries she’s visited on top then later countries she’d like to visit in the future get top rating. She finds the sorting of these towers, her only decoration, soothing.

Her sister arranges to sell the maisonette to fund the mother’s care. Dot feels she can’t go back to her home after the agent and potential buyers have been in there poking around and moves to the basement at work. She misappropriates some ‘lost’ absinthe and after eating a tin of peaches, also lost property or some other tinned food, she settles into absinthe caused hallucinations in the company of her father. It doesn’t help.

A colleague follows her back to the basement and sexually assaults her, she grabs a few things, heads for a coastal town and settles in a B&B before attempting suicide. Ends up back in London, her mother dies, she sorts out some of the mysteries around her father and basically lives happily ever after with the American Asian. I wished I’d chosen the Henry James, also a very wordy author but his characters have some depth. We know very little about one dimensional Dot.

Napoleon initiated Lost Property offices, the first being in Paris. Over two hundred years ago, in 1805 he ordered his Prefect of Police to collect and store lost property. The Japanese claim there’s evidence that they started Lost property offices in 718.

The London Transport Lost Property office has had a long clock, funeral urns, wheelchairs, prosthetic body parts, wedding dresses and suitcases handed in as well as walking sticks, umbrellas, handbags and clothing.

Pixabay

Did you know all horses in the Southern Hemisphere celebrate their birthday on the first of August? This is because a mare’s cycle is stimulated by the days getting longer. A foal gestates for 11 months, so would be born during August. Happy birthday to all horses!

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