Feature by Max Brearley
When C. Y. O'Connor looked to construct a pipeline from Perth to Kalgoorlie many said it couldn’t be done, or that it was an expensive folly. This was 1896 and the pipeline, which became known as the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme was, on completion in 1903, thought to be one of the great engineering achievements of the time; enabling the development of not just the Goldfields, but the farms and communities that stretch along its 600km, from the Darling Scarp, through the Avon Valley and to the red dirt of the Goldfields.
Along the route to Kalgoorlie you can now follow the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail, to historic sites and pump stations that owe as much to the gold story as the stories of riches discovered and lost.
Kalgoorlie
Mundaring
Aptly no.1 Pump Station at Mundaring Weir is the starting point of a road trip through outback history. Now operated by the National Trust, it’s open to visitors; walking through its vast halls, looking at where the steam engines hungry for wood were fed by workers, you get a sense of an age of invention and ingenuity.
Northam
In Northam in the Avon Valley, 100 km northeast of Perth, we stop to find the work of international artists Phlegm and HENSE, a part of the PUBLIC Silo Trail. Across 8 silos the works add colour to the meeting of country and industrial landscapes.
Northam
Cunderdin
The Ettamogah pub at Cunderdin is one of the stranger sights on the road to Kalgoorlie; a real life imagining of the fictional pub of Ken Maynard’s cartoon in the Australasian Post cartoons. While it’s all cartoon on the outside, it’s a working pub and restaurant inside.
Merredin
Another stop on the PUBLIC Silo Trail at Merredin finds a work by Western Australian street artist Kyle Hughes-Odgers. Across four 35 metre high silos it took 200litres of paint and 168 hours of work.
Also at Merredin the Railway Museum is a place to look back, as you climb the signal tower and tour the station that first opened in 1895.
Merridin Silo Art
Southern Cross
A town founded by prospectors, Southern Cross 371km east of Perth, is steeped in the history of the gold rush. The Yilgarn History Museum tells a story not just of gold, but agriculture and life in a country town, with displays of prospecting gear, minerals and civic artifacts. Housed in what was the Registrar’s Office and Courthouse, it adds context to life in a small town.
Karalee Rocks
Some 40 minutes east of Southern Cross, for those camping, Karalee Rocks offers an ideal overnight stay. It’s another stop on the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail. Here, around 4km off the highway, expansive granite outcrops were vital in collecting the most precious of resources. The granite was used to capture the sparse rainfall; running off the rocks and channeled into a rudimentary aqueduct – which still stands – and then deposited in an earth tank holding 50 million litres of water.
Boorabbin National Park
From Karalee Rocks there’s less than 2 hours to Kalgoorlie, driving through Boorabbin National Park, within the Great Western Woodlands; the largest area of intact Mediterranean climate woodland left anywhere on Earth.
Taking two or three days to make your way to Kalgoorlie, stopping as you go in hotels, campsites and free sites, you’ll discover an individual way of life, towns with civic pride and the ghosts of the past.