Mercure Hotel Plaza Kalgoorlie

... and immediate flooding. Cars were skidding round the roundabout as lightning stuck in all directions. Luckily we were safe inside the small pub. With about an hour to go we ran back in a gap in the storm to the station and got on the train.

Because of the time difference (we gained 2.5 hours) the day had been nearly 27 hours long and I was glad that it was now finally bedtime and Perth tomorrow!

... of my travels!!

Had a great night though and it was really nice to see Doug who I hadn't seen since I left my job at T4 9 months ago and also to meet the lovely Yanny and hear about their travels and share stories!!

I seem to remember phoning Pete on the way up the road to share my excitement with him AGAIN...and then I have a recollection of standing in the toilets talking to my mum and getting her to phone me at 4am to get me up...

Then I hit the sack...

... grade six kids, Nick who had a sister in my class then down the aisle a bit is his sister Jess and their Mum. Funniest thing that has ever happened lets see a kids in my class 600+ kms away from the school!. What a perfect start to the trip.

So to get over the excitement of it all we headed to the SuperPit which is the MASSIVE mining pitt just outside of town. I has an amazing observation ...

... hemisphere, which housed a fantastic display of Trades Unions banners, together with various buildings and artefacts which had been relocated to the museum.

To mis-quote, yet again, “quite excellent”.

Time for a quick lunch before returning to collect our bags and head off to the station to catch the Transwa Prospector train to Perth, a journey of six hundred plus kilometres, taking six and three quarter hours. This part of the blog ...

... out.... then went back to bed heart and adrenalin pumping. We found out the next day that Kalgoorlie had experienced a small tremor, only a 3 or something on the rumbling ground scale, nothing serious, however with the amount of old and uncharted shaft goldmines under Kalgoorlie it did worry me somewhat that it is in an earthquake prone area. anything of a decent size and the place will fall in on itself.

... of fusty warm chlorine would smack you in the face as soon as you walked in. The water was so chlorinated (to combat all of the little kids peeing in it I imagine) that it was difficult to get through an hour long swimming lesson without your eyes clouding over and stinging. By the time you left they were so bloodshot and streaming that any innocent passer by may wonder what torture these kids had just endured. The funny thing is the whole time I lived here I never noticed how ...

We took a dirt road to Kalgoorlie, 300km on a dead straight dirt road with a whole lot of nothing. We enjoyed the desert scenery and experienced the real outback. We got to see a few dried up salt lakes on the way up to Kalgoorlie. The road was empty; we only saw 3 other cars for the entire trip!! One of them was a road train; a huge yoke with 3 trailers on the back. We saw him coming from about ten minutes out and it was really moving. We decided to pull over ...

... afraid it would be a chemical thing). It did get a bit 'fragrant' at times but not nearly as bad as I've experienced at T in the Park. The whole train had air con which kept us comfortable throughout (got a teeny bit chilly at times but you just put a cardie on). Having a shower was a bit of a challenge (mostly just trying to keep upright with the movement of the train) but hey, it got us clean (and let's face it, we weren't exerting ourselves ...

... here often blur into one) it's difficult to portray just quite what it's like. As the general lunacy has been so consistent (and so constant) it's easy to look beyond the immediate mess in order to see a more palatable truth - a kind of deliberate state of denial if you like, one that's infinitely more comfortable. That way you can go about your business without getting too distracted by all the trivial mindlessness. Which is why lately I haven't been particularly fazed ...

... watching his reaction to what was going on around him and the sort of set-behaviour of some of these imbeciles sealed it for me in an instant. Finally I wasn't alone, and the relief was beyond measure. I'd got my medicine. I'd been 'saved' by an American. Working in the hotel has been great for the ever-ageing CV, having been fortunate enough to be thrown in the deep end with all the aspects and intricacies of running a hotel - from locking ...