Day 10 - Norseman to Esperance (via Kalgoorlie) - 650km

Today was one of those days where our end destination wasn't really that far however it involved a 400km detour to have a look at a big hole in the ground....the Superpit gold mine at Kalgoorlie.

Quote of the week from Kerrie while we visited the Tourist Information Centre: "Do they mine gold at Kalgoorlie?"...hhmm....is the Pope a Catholic? I thought to myself!!!.

This is one serious open cut mine...it is currently 330 metres deep and planned to go to 500 metres deep.....3.85km long by 1.35km wide.....and currently extracting 800,000 ounces of gold annually...yep it's a lot of money...you can do the maths...

The dump trucks carry 250 tonnes....and they look like little ants in this mine.

Don't know why these truck drivers get paid so much..looks like a cruisy type of job to me!!

 Compare the size of the dump truck to the cars in the photo below...might help to put the size of this operation into perspective...maybe.

After the superpit we headed back south to Esperance via Coolgardie...not much there except for the usual old gold rush era buildings as below.

On the road south to Esperance came across these lakes beside the road..not too sure what is causing the bluish colour...some sort of mineral I guess...

At the pub in Esperance we bumped into some Harley riders we had met the previous night at Norsemen so had dinner and drinks with them. They look tough but were nice guys and quite harmless.