Head Em Up

 

Monday 18 July 2022 – Come in spinner

L’s cold still waking him up and making him cough a lot.  I suddenly thought that if I didn’t make him stress as much about keeping me awake by reading on my tablet he might relax and go back to sleep and it worked a treat.  Once he was back asleep, I went back to sleep also and we both slept in til about 8am.  We thought we might be awakened by the many mine workers living in the caravan park going off to work or by planes from the nearby airport but in the end it was the sound of the rain falling on the caravan roof that we woke to.  We had coffee and cereal – basically whatever was inside the van so we didn’t have to go outside in the rain to access the outside fridge – for breakfast and were finally about ready to explore Kalgoorlie by 9am.  Larry used both muscle memory and the GPS to locate the duplex he lived in circa 1984.  Unlike the Merredin house, according to Larry it looked much the same.  Whilst there were big puddles along the road due to the rain and Kalgoorlie’s poor drainage system, Larry reckons the water was deep enough one time for one of his mates to kayak down the road!

                                                        

We headed into town to find a pharmacy were L could fill the prescription he couldn’t fill in Perth on Saturday and then, as the Woolies was right next door, did a quick shop to get the last minute supplies for dinner tonight and for the next few day’s worth of free camping.  Back to the vans to drop everything off and then did a little scenic tour of Kalgoorlie including historic Burt Street in Boulder.  As the rain had cleared and there was blue sky and sunshine we headed up to Mount Charlotte for clear views across the town.  It was all much bigger than Larry remembered from when he was here in the 80’s! 

It was getting on for lunchtime so we headed into town to Hannan’s Bakery where L was good and bought a chicken and salad roll, J was less good and bought a bushman’s pie (which was very tasty with surprise boiled egg in the middle!) and Miranda completely bamboozled the lady behind the counter with her request for the ‘middle’ caramel slice (the lady thought M was specifying that she needed the piece of slice out of the middle of the display whilst M was just specifying the slice on the middle shelf).  Quite funny seeing the excavation of the slices to get to the middle!

We headed around to Hammond Park, which is a lovely little fenced off oasis in the town, where we found a dry picnic table under a cover and had a quick lunch then made sure we were up at the Super Pit lookout by 12.45pm as KCGM had suggested getting to the pit a little early before the schedule 1pm blast to ‘avoid disappointment’.  Well, 1pm came and went to the point we were discussing the sunk cost fallacy which relates to how long you will stay waiting for a lost cause given the diminishing likelihood of a reward for the waiting.  We decided 2pm was out cut off for standing around waiting for something to happen other than one work crew leaning on the side of a work car off in the distance then gave up in disgust, turned out backs on the pit and walked back to the car.  Of course, just as we made it to the car, there was a giant KERBOOM and that was the blast.  We dashed back to the viewing edge but there was no dust cloud to be seen as the blast was right at the bottom of the pit (not where we had been looking by the way!) and therefore probably in mud rather than dusty rock.  So wrong time, wrong place but at least we heard the boom!

                                                    

During our prolonged visit at the pit, L had decided his binoculars were sub par.  We had seen a great camping store near the Woolies in the morning so headed into one of the best camping, fishing, hunting stores we have been in.  It even had lots of cowboy outfits!  New binoculars and other small items were purchased (we all love a good camping store) and then, as we still had a bit of afternoon to spare we headed out of town to the old two up ring.

As Larry had spent some of his misspent early 20’s in Kalgoorlie stealing stop signs, drowning outdoor settings in pools and playing two up, he gave us a quick lesson in how two up is played with $50 notes placed under your foot on the concrete ring to bet and then shouting ‘head em up’ at the spinner.  We spent an enjoyable half hour or so which included the original men and women’s toilets and the more up to date version.  Just as were getting back in the car a ute swung in from the main road and headed right to my side of the car.  An old timer wound down his window and insisted on giving me a few original two up pennies as a souvenir which was lovely.  He also made my day when he asked how many kids I had in the car and how many pennies I needed!  I thanked him for the compliment and assured him my children were far to old to want to get dragged along on holiday with the parents and with that it was time to head back to camp.  L&J’s turn to cook tonight so a hearty chicken pasta bake which went down well in the cold evening air.  We then hooked into H’s birthday gin and birthday chocolate liqueur as well as our white chocolate port and called it dessert!