Kalgoorlie Day 2: Let's Go Outback Tonight

***WARNING: This is an extremely long blog post, the longest yet. I advise taking it in chunks to avoid chronic back pain and eye problems caused by sitting in front of a computer screen for too long***

The first night staying at the camp school was rough. It wasn't a bad facility, about what you'd expect at a camp, but it was freezing cold that night. The building was not insulated at all and by nightfall the room was icy cold. I went to bed with all my clothes on, tucked under a bed sheet and three wool blankets and wearing a winter hat. Luckily that was enough.

In the morning, breakfast was served and tea was drinked (or drunk or drank or dranked or drunken?). Anyway I don't recall ever have any tea before this trip. I was completely surprised on my first taste about a month ago with just how awful and disgusting it tasted. What really gets me is that someone somewhere at some point in time made the first cup of tea. He tasted it. He realized that it was absolutely terrible. Yet, somehow more tea was made after that first cup, and now it's loved in every place the British ever colonized whose inhabitants didn't dump it in the Boston Harbor. Perhaps even more mind boggling is that me, a true patriot, someone who would've gladly led the charge on that tea ship back in 1773 if he'd only had the chance... how could I have ended up drinking nearly a dozen cups of tea in a weekend? Maybe it's all there was to drink at times or maybe the stuff just grows on you, I don't know. But I digress.



That's a picture of me in Menzies, our first stop of the day. I don't know how long the drive took to get there. I slept most of the way (looking at the outback gets redundant after I while), but it must have been at least an hour. Anyways Menzies was started as a mining town. It had gold for a while, but then it ran out. Most people left but a few still remain. The population is listed at 160 but the guy in charge of Menzies tourism that we spoke with said it was probably down in the 80s now. An interesting thing about Menzies is that it is basically the edge of Western Australia civilization. Head out to the east from Menzies and there's nothing but pure outback until you start to get close to the continent's east coast. While we were in town, Menzies was hosting the Grand Final (championship game) for womens netball. Apparently they have a league that includes all the small mining towns in the area. We watched some of the netball and cheered for the Menzies team who put on quite a show. I think the score was around 20-2 at halftime or something. I honestly don't think the players from the other town's team had ever played netball before. And for that matter you probably have never even heard of it before. It's like basketball except no backboard, players can only move within their positional zones (e.g. only two girls allowed inside the 3 point line), of course no 3 pointers because you're not allowed to shoot from outside that line, oh and did I mention you're not allowed to dribble or move with the ball. That probably wasn't easy to understand so I shot a short clip of the action. Menzies is in blue. (Ironically, they didn't have any nets on their rims while playing netball.)



My biggest gripe with the sport is that shots are only taken from about a foot away from the basket, and with contact being illegal, it becomes pretty boring when compared to basketball. Nonetheless, how many people can say they've watched a netball grand final between two nearly abandoned mining towns in the middle of the outback? Very few I imagine and that's what counts.

***Recommend taking a break at this time. Get a drink. Take a walk. Hug a child.***

After Menzies, we headed out for a picnic lunch in the outback near the special Lake Ballard. The lake is special because it houses an art installation called "Inside Australia". I'd also like to add, at the risk of sounding pessimistic, that the lake doesn't actually have any water in it. It was quite muddy while we were there so I guess maybe that's a lake half full. Anyways, the art featured in the lake is some 51 statues depicting people that were scanned in by computer and then had their massed reduced by two-thirds or something. I have no idea basically they look like skinny people and they all looked the same so I think computer scanning may have been overkill. Nonetheless, it was a really interesting place to explore, and I took the opportunity to try out art photography.



The rest of the "art" album is on picasa here.

Now because the lake was so muddy everyone took of their shoes so they wouldn't get dirty. I myself, wanting to avoid having muddy feet for the rest of the day, chose to keep my shiny white shoes on. I figured I could manage by walking slow and watching my step, and I actually did make it with my shiny white shoes intact! Now I wasn't able to go quite as far as the shoeless crowd, but like our bus driver/tour guide said when I got back, "Once you've seen one of those statues, you've seen them all." I took a video to give you a better idea of the surroundings than pictures could offer. I apologize in advance, the narrator is terrible.





In between Lake Ballard and dinner we went on a nature walk at an abandoned sheep shearing station (ranch). There's not much to say about that as it amounted to walking around in a circle in the outback looking for interesting stuff and finding nothing. So then we went to dinner.

We had dinner at the Broad Arrow Tavern. Supposedly, the tavern is located in a ghost town and is the only thing left in operation. We arrived after dark, however, and I couldn't see anything other than the restaurant so who knows if it really was a ghost town. I can tell you that there was no source of light in any direction other than the tavern and looking out into the blackness just beyond was a bit eerie. The food at the tavern was great. I ordered the "Broady", which is a hamburger topped with bacon and a fried egg. I've noticed that many many burger places feature this kind of burger (including the Tommy More dining hall) and I imagine it must be the staple Australian take on the burger. It was excellent. Another interesting attribute of Broad Arrow Tavern is it walls. Every inch of the walls are open for patrons to write on, and just about every inch of the place has been written on. We managed to find an open spot up high and after standing on some chairs we wrote ND '09, surrounded by each of our names and hometowns. As I was signing my name, I began to wonder. This tavern was on the fringe of civilization, surrounded by dirt roads for miles in the most isolated state on the most isolated continent in the world, not to mention being located on almost exactly the complete opposite side of the earth from my home. Would I ever be able to come back to this place again?

Here's pictures!
Day 2 album
Andrew's Day 2