Places We Like to Nomad: On the Gold Quest Trail

In the late 1800s and early 1900s gold was the name of the game on what are now known as the Goldfields of Western Australia, centred around Kalgoorlie, Coolgardie, Menzies, Leonora, Gwalia, Kookynie, Leinster and Laverton, to name a few locations. Thousands of hopeful prospectors flooded into the area, staked claims, some got lucky, and a lot got nothing or perished from disease, lack of water, or even suicide. Townships sprang up in the bush within weeks, boasting hundreds of shacks, hotels, pubs, and the facilities of a thriving community. Just as quickly, when the seam of gold ran out, the places were abandoned, buildings broken down and transported away, leaving hardly any sign of a once bustling site.

For the modern day traveller, there is now a Gold Quest Discovery Trail to follow on bitumen and dirt roads to visit the remains of this era.

Around 120kms north of Kalgoorlie, the once prosperous town of Menzies is now a shadow of its former self. Menzies Old Cemetery displays the heartbreak and toughness of the turn of the 20th century. Many graves show youngsters died from disease of all kinds, although a typhoid epidemic due to poor sanitation claimed many more of those in the cemetery, some remembered with tin cutout ornaments.

Another 110 kms north of Menzies, the community of Gwalia (a poetic Welsh name for Wales) clusters around the Sons of Gwalia mine, discovered in 1896. It attracted thousands in its heyday, a mine producing two million ounces of gold, until its closure in 1963. A new mining phase started in 1983 and continues today, 1600 metres below the surface as the deepest motorised mine in the world.

The open cut is impressive by any standard, particularly when you stand up the hill at the lookout in front of the beautiful Hoover House, designed in 1898-99, by the first mine manager, Herbert Hoover who later became President of the United States.

At the foot of the hill is a fascinating heritage site with authentic tin shacks, built from timber and corrugated iron, shops, guest homes and other buildings demonstrating the way the miners lived in the tough old days.

The lovely National Hotel, now unoccupied, was built by the government in 1903 to give the town a licenced premise to replace the sly grog trade.

Just up the road is Leonora, a former mining town with well preserved period shopfronts and facades gently fading away.

From Leonora, we visited the abandoned site of Malcolm, and the Old Rail Bridges, with foundations from the Gold era's heyday intact, nestled quietly in the bush on the old Malcolm-Laverton Railway Line, a few kms away.

Retracing our steps, we found the 'living ghost town' of Kookynie with a handful of inhabitants still looking for gold.

The Grand Hotel, the only one remaining from the past, was an icon of the Goldfields for many years. Sadly, when we passed by, there was a sign on the door to say it was closed and for sale due to ill health of the owners. Greeting us at the door was Willie an ex racing horse, whose dangling appendage proved his name. Willie, who is well known on TV and radio, had originally been put out to grass at a nearby station, but didn't get along with the other horses, so took off and adopted the hotel as his base where he would enter daily for a chat, a nuzzle and a drink at the bar

After a delightfully full day out in the Goldfields, we stopped close to Kalgoorlie at the Broad Arrow Tavern, another drinking establishment from the old times, which looks unassuming from the outside, but is covered, and I mean every inch is covered with signatures top to bottom inside. So we chatted to a local and Rob wrote our names in a tiny space even though the owner had said no more writing because the comments got too rude.