Goodbye July.

2016 is rushing past me at a rate of knots. And I am still struggling with the concept of dates past 2000. I really want to adopt the short, sharp version "twenty sixteen", rather than the long winded "two thousand and sixteen".  Rather annoyingly, I still tend to use the extended term unless I actually think about what I am saying. Maybe I just need more time to get used to this new-fangled century!

I used to believe time was variable,depending on my enjoyment of the particular present. Back in the days of three school terms, the days seemed much longer and slower, compared with the speed that school holidays came and went. Waiting for birthdays, for weekends, for Christmas seemed interminable. Now, the whole system has sped up exponentially. Years are coming and going in a blink of an eye, often before I have become entirely comfortable with the current state of play.

Take this month for example. My birthday and our trip to Kalgoorlie only took up ten days of July, but I have no idea what happened to the rest of the thirty-one days. Even when we deliberately try and slow down time - have a slob day, take nanna naps or just stay at home together - the speed feels faster that it should.

I've turned fifty-five. Ye Gods. My body, energy levels, face and hair all tell me my age, but in my head, I still feel like the imaginative, gauche, sensitive klutz I've always been. Sometimes, it's a tremendous shock when I see myself in the mirror. Who is that random, saggy, rounded older woman staring back at me?

Age does have its own unique advantages. After seven years, I still surprise Michael, make him laugh (often in utter disbelief) and never run out of what to say to him. Or conversely, just sit with him, quietly, holding each other's hands. We both know that time is limited, so we are determined to snatch fun with both hands every chance we get. We laugh at every opportunity. We have extraordinary family and friends but we are also content in each other's company. Gone is the loneliness I used to experience in other relationships. Now forty-seven years seems an eminently sensible time to wait for the love of my life.

So, here we are, returned and refreshed from our holiday, back in the East End Gallery. We have had a variety of other artists, day-trippers and locals in the Gallery today and I have not had a single moment of boredom.This afternoon, sitting at my desk, time is passing about as slowly as is possible. And I am relishing the delight of my own semi-stillness, watching the wind in the trees, the scuttling grey clouds in the pale blue winter sky, the Red Vault's flags whipping around merrily and brightly.

Just as well I'm grabbing some down time. August is two days away and is already filling up. We are opening the Gallery on the next two Wednesdays to cater for groups visiting Beverley. The agricultural show is in three weeks. In the middle, we have to make a trip to Perth for yet another hospital appointment. Oh whoopee, the joys of ageing!

In concluding this post, I thought I might share the happy news that Christmas Day is only twenty-one weeks away. Before we know, "twenty seventeen" will be upon us and we'll start the ball rolling all over again.

At twenty-four with a tiny Vanessa...

um....some time later...

almost forty-eight...

in Bali at forty-eight...

with the love of my love at fifty

fifty-four

and at fifty-five a week ago.

 The Beverley Show is three weeks away...

 oh golly gosh...

enjoy the ride!

Back to the Future

Final morning in Kalgoorlie. Bright, breezy and cold. We were craving a warm comforting breakfast so we made our way in Henry to the local Dome cafe. We decided on pancakes and waffles. Every mouthful was worth the calories.

Packing up. Including some found metal artifacts. Only we would bring rusty items back in our luggage. Finally ready. We drove Henry to Wayne's home, handed him the keys and accepted a lift to the Kalgoorlie Railway Station. The Prospector was already waiting. This was a positive sign that we would leave on time at least.

Farewell Kal. Until the next time. The train journey was not very comfortable. We were in the front seats so our legs were jammed against a wall. The travel information - following our route, driver camera, and upcoming stations - froze on the monitors soon after leaving Kalgoorlie and never recovered. Others in our carriage had similar issues with the limited entertainment on offer.

We were bored. And living in fear of our lives. Across the aisle, Typhoid Mary was coughing and hacking and snorting merrily and frequently. I swapped seats with Michael to move him as far away as possible from the plague carrier. Then one started behind us. Oh goody...

Finally Cunderdin. Meredith was waiting for us with her conservative orange car (named Dandaloo) in the freezing darkness of the car park. Three minutes later, we were whisked into their warm little home. Meredith had cooked a roast pork dinner with pudding and ice cream for dessert.

We shared our "Photos of Old Kalgoorlie" book with Kim. He kept saying he had to go to bed. Except he was glued to our book. A marvellous evening. They were fantastic hosts. I'll have to get our act together when they come to visit the House that Rocks.

We left for home in our precious little buzz box, Goldie, in the late morning. We arrived home to the ecstatic greetings from the Three Stooges. The cat quickly recovered her demeanour when she realised our bed was back in commission.

And our feet have hit the ground running.

a small amount of luggage...

some handsome dude...

and his wife 

our chariot back to reality.

Up Close and Personal in Kalgoorlie-Boulder

We woke to another stunning Goldfields morning. This was the last full day of our "little holiday". We breakfasted at the Inner City Cafe and Catering on Hannan Street. Busy, bustling, toasty warm, good food and well priced. Completely stuffed after our hearty culinary start, we were looking forward to our lunchtime massages back at the hotel in the day spa.

In the meantime, we felt that we needed to walk off our feast beforehand. We hadn't visited the Superpit on this visit, so we chose to point Henry Honda in that direction. As we entered the access road to the lookout, we realised that the tourist view had changed location and we would be looking at the Superpit from a whole new angle.

To describe the dimension and scale of the Superpit is almost impossible. What started out as the Golden Mile, with countless small leases, was amalgamated in 1989 by Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM). Nearby Mt Charlotte, where Paddy Hannan had first found alluvial gold in 1893, is not part of the Superpit and remains an underground mine. Currently, the lifespan of Mt Charlotte has stretched to 2018. The Superpit's operations will extend to at least 2019, with gold processing to continue for another ten years. After that, who knows?

The open cut mine is approximately three and a half kilometres long, one and a half kilometres wide and six hundred metres deep. By the end of operations, the Superpit will have descended at least another hundred metres.

The lookout offered superb views. The position had changed from a central location to closer to the southern end. I spied a water truck at the very bottom, attending to its job spraying water to damp down the dust. From six hundred metres above, the truck resembled a flea doing a wee.

We left, suitably gobsmacked. The day was breezy and cold. After taking our photos, we retreated to Henry Honda and back to the hotel. Our massages were calling us. Miranda, at the Alleya Day Spa, took us in hand. Michael's back and shoulder massage was forty-five minutes of pure bliss. I was treated to a hand massage, a foot soak, file and paraffin wrap and reflexology on my troublesome tired feet. I was in heaven. Miranda and Alleya were the ultimate in pamperings for us.

Leaving Michael snug and relaxed in our room, I embarked on an hour's walk through the surrounding streets. From pink and grey galahs revelling in an afternoon snack to the quaint early miners' cottages, the wonderful laneways that remained from the time of the night carts and a representation of a poppet head in a front garden, I was in my element. I was even able to reduce my layers of clothing in the brisk afternoon air.

Returning, pink-cheeked and buzzing, Michael was in the bath. Miranda had recommended that he have a hot soak to ease his muscles and gain full benefit from the essential oils she had used. Shortly afterwards, the colour of a moderately cooked crab, he reluctantly left the water and joined me in the bedroom.

What to do in our final couple of hours of daylight. We knew that one of Michael's early sculptures - a large domed spider web, complete with redback, was resident in the Boulder garden belonging to our neighbour's son. On Burt Street. Which is an exceedingly long thoroughfare. I rang Lorna for a specific number. We then found the garden and the sculpture with ease.

Michael was chuffed. A big sculpture in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, his little spiders travelling the world and a hint of Dory ending up in Queensland boosted his self-esteem no end. I was thrilled for him.
In the fading daylight, we completed another cruise around Boulder photographing the entry statement and the infamous subway (due to its reliability to flood in heavy rain).

We finished our day with an early dinner at the Lemongrass Thai and Vietnamese restaurant. Due to rapidly depleting finances, we were pleased to enjoy a very tasty dinner (and the best fried ice cream I've ever had) at a very reasonable price.

Last evening in our room. We enjoyed a glass of vino each and retired to bed with a mixture of emotions. We'd had a wonderful break. We were very much looking forward to our own bed at the House that Rocks, but we were leaving with a relentless desire to return to the magic of the Goldfields later in the year.

One scoop = 80 tonnes...

three scoops for each haulpak (truck) = 230 tonnes...

the southern edge of the Superpit...

looking to the bottom...

terraces on the edges. Remember, each of those trucks way below carries 230 tonnes of rock...

the roads in and out. There are those haulpaks again...

aerial view of the Superpit. Half of Boulder (middle left of photo) disappeared inside it...

the punters waiting for a feed...

dinner time!

House with poppet head in a front yard...

looking east to the mullock heap on the edge of the Superpit...

restored miner's cottage...

just a beautiful house with a white picket fence...

Spider52 represented in Burt Street, Boulder...

and another photo!

Turning into the other end of Burt Street

Towards the subway - note the water height gauge...

and up the other side.

And the Clouds Finally Parted.

Our third morning dawned with a gloriously blue winter sky. The grey and the drizzle had gone. Our spirits soared.

A quick check on the weather map did not promise much in the way of warmth. The Big Freeze was continuing. We dressed in multiple layers and left the hotel. Deciding that we would return to the familiar, we had breakfast back at Blaze in Boulder. We left absolutely stuffed about an hour later.

Leaving the Big Smoke behind, we ventured west towards Coolgardie. As Kalgoorlie's almost twin, Coolgardie is tiny in comparison, with stunning federation architecture, very wide streets and a less hectic feel.

We chose not to savour Coolgardie's delights right then. That would come later. Instead, we turned the borrowed Honda onto North Coolgardie Road and travelled the short distance to the first of the deserted town sites. Bonnie Vale was gazetted in 1897, supposed named after a prospector named Bonnie who found a nugget in the vicinity in 1894. The town was not to last, but enjoyed its moment of fame as the site of a miner's rescue after nine days underground in 1907.

We gently turned the Honda onto the track leading away from the main road. Being very much a sophisticated city car, there was not a lot of clearance underneath the vehicle, so we picked our way carefully and slowly to avoid any unnecessary or alarming bumps.

We spent a very happy two or more hours, starting and stopping, walking and fossicking, looking and discarding. Mindful of our limited storage (the trusty trailer was nowhere in sight), we chose a few little delectable metal artefacts to add to our collection. Feeling seriously satisfied with ourselves, we left Bonnie Vale to return to Coolgardie.

Following ice creams, we set out to explore some of the local sights. The old railway station is now closed, apparently a museum, but there wasn't a soul around. The platform was dark and cold, but the train, two carriages and various pieces of equipment were sunlit and bright. We took photos and wandered here and there for a very pleasant half hour.

No trip was complete without a drive to the lookout and the expansive view from the top. Coolgardie is surrounded by giant mullock heaps, the waste material of a hundred years of mining. Many of the mullock heaps have been revegetated, so they now resemble low hills. Some of them were quite difficult to pick as artificially located, rather than genuine geographical features.

We drove lazily around the generous streets, enjoying the local historical buildings. The Cremorne Hotel, on the main street through town, had been beautifully restored and had become a private residence. Since our last visit, the verandahs had been reinstated, so the hotel had now been returned to its previous grandeur.

We cruised back through the late afternoon sun to Kalgoorlie and the warmth of our room. Knowing we were attending a  BBQ with Wayne and his family, I jumped into the spa bath for a wonderful bubbly soak. Michael joined me after I teased him that we couldn't go home without having christened the bath. He gracefully gave in. We both left the bath pink and deliciously toasty.

Wayne's family BBQ was a casual, easy gathering on his Mum and Dad's back verandah. Semi-open. Although I was sitting almost on top of one of the outside gas heaters, I remained chilly for the majority of the evening. The sensible guests attended with scarfs, beanies and gloves. The company made up for the cold, but I was still glad when we retired to our cosy little enclave.

As I thawed out, I drifted off to sleep, comfortably cuddling my beloved Michael. We'd had another wonderful day.

Michael with our City Slicker at Bonnie Vale...

random bits of metal at Bonnie Vale...

rivets - one of Michael's many loves...

echoes of the past...

view of the train cab...

Old Coolgardie Station

from the lookout...

afternoon light at the lookout...

 a Goldfields treasure...

looking north...

A Coolgardie original...

 and the Cremorne Hotel, sporting its new verandah.