40 km north east of Coolgardie. These two old goldfield towns were amalgamated in 1989, and christened Kalgoorlie-Boulder, though Kalgoorlie remains the evocative name and historic centre of attraction, while Boulder is now one of the main suburbs.

On 10th June 1893, Paddy Hannan and a couple of his Irish prospecting pals were heading east from Kalgoorlie after a luckless eight months in the goldfields. Their packhorse went lame, and they were forced to camp under a tree (which can still be seen at the top end of Egan Street). When they woke in the morning, Hannan saw that they were in the middle of an undiscovered goldfield. Yahoo.

Another gold rush was soon in full swing. Kalgoorlie boomed and prospectors from far and wide headed for the ‘Golden Mile’. Within 15 years Kalgoorlie had a grandiose Town Hall on Hannan Street. Later, they even put up a statue to Hannan outside the Town Hall, and a copy of this still stands there. (The real one was so vandalized that they took it inside.) Hannan Street has several ornate balconied hotels and colonnaded government buildings from the old days, and, unlike Coolgardie, the place is still a thriving town with more than 30,000 inhabitants. But don’t expect civilization – the place has a reputation for outback culture at its most cussed, and they believe in keeping it way. You won’t find many poetry readings in the pubs. (However, if you’re built like Mike Tyson and feel like giving it a try, the place to go is The Federal at the upper end of Hannan Street.)

The most interesting and popular sight in town is the KCGM Super Pit and Super Pit Lookout (www.superpit.com.au) which is located in the south east corner of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. It is one of the top four gold producing mines in the world. You can take a guided tour, or more impressively take a 10-20 min flight over the super pit and see the outstanding man made carvings across West Australia. Flights will cost around $80 (www.goldfieldsairservices.com).

There is also the Western Australia Museum (open www.museum.wa.gov.au/museums/kalgoorlie-boulder) which is at the top of Hannan Street. The British Arms, which stands just beside the museum, used to be famous as the narrowest pub in Australia – it now is a display gallery with regular changing exhibits.

Another must is Hannan’s North Tourist Mine (open 9 am to 4 pm daily, entry fee, www.hannansnorth.com.au), which is north of town. This is an old gold mine which has been transformed into a slightly Disneyworld version of the real thing. But don’t miss the underground tour, which is the real thing.
In April of 2010 Kalgoorlie-Boulder was hit by a 5.0 magnitude earthquake which damaged numerous historical buildings.

Detour, Leonora

240 km north of Kalgoorlie. This is a ride down a metalled road into a part of the outback that isn’t much visited by tourists. The main sights of interest here are the ghost towns left over from the gold-rush days.

The nearest ghost town to Kalgoorlie is Known. This is, in fact, off the route to Leonora, 20 km up the track road that leads northeast from Kalgoorlie-Boulder. It’s an eerie spot. At the turn of the century more than 10,000 people lived here, there were over two dozen bars and a dozen trains a day used to call in from Kalgoorlie. Three Irish brothers made it so rich here that they founded a shipping line. Now there’s nothing standing but the abandoned railway station, overlooking a heap of rubble. (There’s so little building material in this part of the outback that many ghost towns are quickly pillaged of anything that might be of use.)

The road to Leonora itself leads north from Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Around 30 km down the road you come to a nowheresville called Broad Arrow. This now has a population of just over a dozen. In the old goldfield days, 2,400 people made a living here. Nowadays, the most hectic scenes are at the Broad Arrow Tavern when the lads from Kalgoorlie come up on a weekend spree.

Another 25 km down the road you come to Ora Banda, which is in much the same state. In a further 70 km you arrive at Menzies, where the population reaches into three figures (just), though it’s difficult to tell this at high noon. Here, quite a few structures remain from the old days, when the local population ran to more than 5,000. These buildings include the Town Hall previously famous because of its clockless clock tower, a new clock was put in place in 2000 to celebrate the Millennium. Time doesn’t just stand still in Menzies, it isn’t here at all. Apparently they ordered one from England around the turn of the century, but the ship bringing it to Australia went down in a storm off the Cape of Good Hope. So they ordered another one, but by the time it arrived in Australia the gold had run out, so they couldn’t afford to ship it from Perth.

According to a knowledgeable old local, it ended up being used at the Perth’s main cricket ground for many years, but this information was greeted with a variety of sceptical noises by his colleagues.

Up the road, Leonora is a small mining town with a population of more than 1,400. However, the adjacent settlement of Gwalia is now a ghost town. For years the gold mine here was the largest in Western Australia outside Kalgoorlie. For a brief period at the turn of the 19thC it was run by the young Herbert Hoover, who 30 years later became the 31st president of the United States. The mine didn’t eventually close down until 1963. (Though it has been reopened since the price of gold has risen.) The old mine office houses the Gwalia Museum which has some particularly good exhibits. (www.gwalia.org.au; 9 am – 4 pm daily, excluding Christmas Day).