560 km east of Perth on the Great Eastern Highway. Coolgardie is a ghost of its former self. In September 1892, the lone prospector Arthur Bayley returned from here bringing with him a bag of gold nuggets. This set off one of the greatest gold rushes the world has ever known. And with reason: Coolgardie turned out to be the richest gold-field in Australia. Within eight years, the population of Coolgardie had multiplied from one Arthur Bayley to 15,000 would-be Arthur Bayleys. The town needed no less than four banks and three entire breweries (not to mention the scores of bars). In between banking their gold and quenching their thirst, the inhabitants also found time to invest their money on no less than two local stock exchanges and read seven daily newspapers. (Gold rushes, like the Wild West, always attracted large numbers of out-of-work hacks.) Five years later, the gold began to run out, and the hacks were forced to return to Grub Street, along with a large number of their readers.
     

Nowadays, just 800 people live here, and the place doesn’t even have a bank. Though it does have several incongruously grand public buildings, left over from the great newspaper era. The Old Government Buildings now house the fabulous Goldfields Exhibition, which will provide you with enough fascinating lore and golden nuggets of information with which to bore all your friends back home. (Did you know that there is enough gold in the world’s gold reserves to build two Taj Mahals?)
     

Also worth a visit is the moving local cemetery, which lies on the western outskirts. Coolgardie’s main thoroughfare is now named Bayley Street, after the one man who had no need to return here.