About the Pipeline (most info from Wickipedia)

The project
The pipeline was commissioned in 1896 and was completed in 1903. It was established to deliver water to communities that had rapidly grown in Western Australia 's "Eastern Goldfields ", such as Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie . During the early 1890s, thousands of settlers had swarmed into the barren and dry desert centre of Western Australia in search of gold, but existing infrastructure for the supply of water was non-existent and an urgent need arose.

The scheme enabled the benefits of the gold discovery to be realised and brought immense wealth into the previously struggling economy. Abundant water became available at a cost of three shillings and sixpence per thousand gallons, compared to water which had been carted by rail to Coolgardie previously at the rate of over A£3 per thousand gallons. The position was even worse at Kalgoorlie.

On 16 July 1896, the Premier of Western Australia, Sir John Forrest introduced to Western Australian Parliament a bill to authorise the raising of a loan of £2.5 million to construct the scheme: the pipeline would cart five million gallons (23,000 m³) of water per day to the Goldfields from a dam on the Helena River near Mundaring Weir in Perth, a distance of about 550km.

The scheme was devised by C. Y. O'Connor who oversaw its design and most of the construction project. Although supported by Premier Forrest, O'Connor had to deal with widespread criticism and derision from members of the Western Australian Parliament as well as the local press based on a belief that scope of the engineering task was too great and that it would never work. There was also a concern that the gold discoveries would soon dry up and the state would be left with a significant debt to repay but little or no commerce to support it.

Completion
O'Connor committed suicide in March 1902 less than 12 months before the final commissioning of the pipeline. Lady Forrest officially started the pumping machinery at Pumping Station number one on the 22 January, and on 24 January 1903 water flowed into the Mt Charlotte Reservoir at Kalgoorlie. O'Connors' engineer-in-chief, C. S. R. Palmer took over the project after his death, seeing it through to its successful completion. The government conducted an inquiry into the scheme and found no basis for the press accusations of corruption or misdemeanours on the part of O'Connor.

Pipeline
The pipes were manufactured locally from flat steel sheets imported from Germany and the United States that were pressed into upper and lower halves that were then welded together to form a finished pipe. (No technology was available in those days that allowed for the manufacture of a pipe of this size - 76cm in diameter) Mephan Ferguson was awarded the first manufacturing contract and built a fabrication plant at Falkirk (now known as the Perth suburb of Maylands ) to produce half of the 60,000 pipes required. Hoskins Engineering established a factory near Midland Junction (now known simply as Midland ) to produce the other half. When built, the pipeline was the longest fresh-water pipeline in the world.


This is a section of the original pipe. The lines along its length are the joints of the upper and lower halves. A lot of the pipe has been replaced and is now being placed underground to keep the water cool. This had also been done originally, but too many invisible leaks forced the pipe to be placed above ground for better control of leakage.

The pipeline ran alongside the route of the earlier route of the Eastern Railway and the Eastern Goldfields Railway for parts of its route, so that the railway service and the pipeline had an interdependence through the sparsely populated wilderness. The scheme required significant infrastructure in power generation to support the pumping stations. Communities oriented to its management grew up along the route. The pipeline continues to operate today, supplying water to over 100,000 people in over 33,000 households as well as mines, farms and other enterprises.

Kookynie to Lake Ballard

I leave Niagara Dam to checkout rock formations near a small town of Kookynie, about 20km further east on the dirt road. When I get there, not any sign or other indication of those rock formations I read about. I walk into the old Pub and straight away get a scolding for walking on der frshly washed floor which was not appearant when coming into the dark hallway. She was friendly enough and points me in the right direction: "… follow that road for about 2 miles, cross the cattle grid and keep goin' until you get to the second grid, cross that and then follow the track on your left for about 5km…" Good enough, a few more miles of dirt will be alright. The country around me is still flat, very dry and the growth of scrub is sparse, surprising even, that ANYTHING would be growing in this parched land. There are signs of flodding though, sand that has been washed into dried-up rivulets some time ago.

The rock formations are very beautiful and absolutely worth the trip.


I find one other 'traveller' climbing the rocks and we exchange our surprise and take some pictures, me with her camera, she with mine so I can also see myself inside one of my own pictures.

you didn't know I was THAT powerful, did you?

There are all these piled up rocks of quite astonishing size and brilliant colours in the middle of this flat landscape.



Quite interesting also to see that most of the rocks seem to be made up of layers of stone, almost like a crust that has formed around them, as if the rocks had at one time been very hot and as it cooled down fairly rapidly from the outside the cooled layers separated from the main rock itself. What really happened I don't know, its just a way of trying to explain what I see.

The next stop on my plan of places to visit is Lake Ballard. This means that I have to retrace my steps, first back to the main highway, from there about 50km back to the township of Menzies that I passed through on my way up to Niagara Dam. At Menzies I re-fuel ($1.88 as against $1.70 at Kalgoorlie) then drive down a badly corrugated road towards Lake Ballard, a dried up salt lake, where an artist has placed 52 statues seemingly randomly all over this lake. When I get there, only 2 tourists with a rental car from Perth are out there on the lake. Its quite desolate with the heat shimmering in the distance of the white salt surface. A dome shaped hill seems to overlook the place, so I decide to take a walk to the top, giving me a vantage point for a different kind of view. I do feel very small in this environment. Signs on the shore point out that to take 4 litres of water per person if one should want to take the full tour across the lake. I check out two of the statues but find them not attractive or inspiring enough to wanting to venture out further on the lake.

View across Lake Ballard

I am already thirsty as I have finished my bottle of soft drink I have brought from my van. Its already 4.00pm and I decide to look for a campsite. Needless to say, no amenities at this place (yet), so I drive a few kilometres back the way I came, where I had seen a side road leading away from the main road. This turns out ok and I make it my place to stay for the night.

Visit to the Ghost town of Kanowna

Quite a thriving town Kalgoorlie, or, as it has been spelled on old photographs from around 1900, "Kalgurli". Gold obviously, has been the main stay of the region. When I drive out to the old ghost town of Kanowna, I find only a few head stones of what used to be the grave yard of the town. Not a single building left standing.

Some left-over grave stones at the old cemetary of Kanowna

When Gold had also been discovered at that very grave yard, most of the human remains had been moved to another site and the place had been dug over to extract any Gold from the ground. Just a few kilometres from there, another huge open-mine pit has been dug with on-going mining in this area to this day.

yet another open pit gold mine close to the old workings of Kenowna

This serves as a reminder that there is yet a lot of Gold in the ground and that it is being mined as I speak. This whole area in Western Australia is abundant with minerals of just about any kind we can think of: Gold, Silver, Platinum, Copper, Iron, Zinc, Molybdenum, Nickel and I am sure there are some more that I am not aware of...

I leave Kalgoorlie to drive north to what I am told, is a nice camp spot at Niagara Dam, about 190 km north-west. Driving north on the Goldfields Highway, there are several mining installations for the processing of the mined sands. There are also huge mountains of earth that have been piled up alongside the highway. A tall smoke stack on my right is belching white smoke that slowly drifts across the land. The sign pointing in its direction identifies the site as a "Roasting Facility" which is also part of the processing required to extract the precious metal from the ore.

I pass the town of Broad Arrow, or should I say, whats left of a community of 2400 at the turn of the century around 1900. The only building left standing is the hotel or Pub. This town once boasted eight hotels in its hayday. I pass yet another mining operation on my left and later I drive through Menzies which seems to consist of only a few buildings and a rather smart looking Townhall. After another 42km I arrive at my turn-off toward Niagara Dam and follow that road. After about 5km the bitumen runs out and I am driving on dirt, not too bad except for the last 5km that take me to the campsite. The Dam has been constructed and completed in 1904 where it was to serve as a water storage for the steam trains of the day that were yet to reach the area. As it urned out, water was discovered nearby only a very short time after the completion of the dam. Interesting to note that every bag of cement needed for the construction of the dam had been brought in by camel train!

I find a nice spot at the bottom of the dam wall. Its very peaceful and quiet and although I feel a bit dusty, I decide to stay a few nights and collect some firewood from previous camp fires of other campers that have used the site before me. I am also surprised to see that the toilet facilities here even have running water and a toilet that flushes! Not really that surprising with the dam nearby.

I invite my neighbor, Russel, a young aboriginal Anthropolgist, to come join me by the fire and we have long conversations about Aboriginal Heritage and the preservation of the Sacred Sites around the place. He had also spent six years in the Australian Army being part of the SAS. He is certainly a big guy. If there was to be a fight, I would certaily like him to be on my side. He also tells me about some of the Aboriginal stories and beliefs in the spiritual world which I find fascinating.

Most of the roads leading into Niagara Dam are dirt, in a couple of days I will be driving on to Kookynie where there are some great large rock boulders that I want to see. The road there is all dirt as well. Driving on dirt does stir up quite a lot of dust that will be suspended in air for quite a few minutes before settling down again. The substance is extremely fine, powder-like and also quite gritty. What I have not talked about in this regard is, that the dust (Bull Dust in local jargon) also settles on your skin, with a very strong tendency to dry it up. I have noticed that the skin on my hands, around my fingernails, any cracks in the skin tend to get filled with the stuff that will not wash off in just a single good wash or shower. The skin gets very dry, so I usually put on some skin cream after I wash my hands again. I also notice that fingernails get quite brittle and dry, breaking and chipping much more easily.

A look at the land around Niagara Dam

I am writing this down so to help convey a better understanding of what its like to actually be living under bush conditions...

Merredin and on to Kalgoorlie

I enjoyed the town of Merredin very much and am very amazed at how progressive the town has been dealing with salination caused by rising groundwater levels, but will comment and write more about this when I return through this town on my way back to Perth. I leave Merredin after one night because of a total change in weather.

This morning there are low clouds in the sky and an incessant drizzle. The temperature has dropped, means that I leave the town after a fuel stop in the rain, with my heater on. I am heading east toward Kalgoorlie, about 320km away. I am still in the wheatbelt, lots of fields, all green and lush - this means, Happy Farmers that love to see their crops earning money. I intend to keep driving east, in the hope that I get to the end of this wet weather system. The sky really looks black and I see rain and fog all around me. Several times I see clearing skies ahead, but its always just a short break in the clouds, then its back to black skies.

Finally, about 180km east of Merredin, I get to see what is above all those black clouds, white cumulus clouds and blue sky. Yes! That’s exactly what I am looking for! I stop briefly at Coolgardie, another Gold Mining Town where back in the late 19th century Gold has also been discovered. Some of the grand buildings there also reflect the wealth generated by those discoveries.

Quite impressive buildings in Coolgardie

I arrive at Kalgoorlie, pick up some fruit and Ryebread, go to the Tourist Info to get some advice where to stay and head off to one of the caravan parks where I book myself in for 3 nights.

With the discovery of Gold back in those early days, the biggest problem for any of the miners was the lack of water. It was decided, a pipeline was to built to bring in water all the way from Perth, some 650km to the west of Kalgoorlie. On my way East, that pipeline, still in operation today follows along the highway, most of the way to Kalgoorlie.

Here a copy from one of the websites:
In 1895 the first plans were prepared for an engineering feat that would stagger the world — an attempt to pump water uphill some 500 km, from the hills near Perth to the goldfields of Coolgardie. Before construction began, the dream had become bigger. The pipeline was extended for water to be pumped even further east, to the new goldfields of Kalgoorlie.

On 24 January 1903, the dream became a reality when water, which began its journey at Mundaring Weir, flowed into to Mt Charlotte Reservoir at Kalgoorlie. Today, water is supplied to over 100 000 people and six million sheep in an area covering 44 000 square kilometres (two thirds the size of Tasmania).

If you would like further information on this subject, click on the link below to wickipedia Water Pipeline to Kalgoorlie

Kalgoorlie is the first large town since leaving Darwin. With over 35,000 inhabitants, its been a mining town for over 100 years, Gold still being dug out of the ground in open-cut mining which has produced a "Super Pit" on the outskirts of town. I drive out to the lookout over the Super Pit to get an idea of what this is all about. It is truly gigantic, similar in size to the iron ore mining operation I saw at Tom Price.


This gives an idea of the size of the equipment in use

Around 1.00pm I am told there will be blasting at the bottom of the Super Pit, obviously others want to take a look as well. Have a look at the short video clip I took of this event.

The area circled will be blasted today



Later I am taking part in a tour around the original mining shafts with a demonstration of pouring liquid "Gold" into an ingot.


There are many impressive buildings around town that bear witness to the wealth generated already more than a hundred years ago. The streets are well laid out and there is a sense of space wherever I drive.

A view over part of the town


Here is a copy from Wickipedia about the town:
Places, famous or infamous, that Kalgoorlie is noted for include its water pipeline, designed by C. Y. O'Connor, which brings in fresh water from Mundaring Weir near Perth; its Hay Street brothels (the street itself was apparently named after Hay Street, Perth); its two-up school; the goldfields railway loopline; the Kalgoorlie Town Hall; the Paddy Hannan statue/drinking fountain; the Super Pit; and Mt Charlotte lookout. Its main street is Hannan Street, named after the town's founder.

A funny sign for a place to eat (Hogs Breath)


A look down Hannan Street

One of the infamous brothels also serves as a museum and is a major national attraction.

New Norcia

Its been very windy last night (good thing I took down my awning last night) and there hs been some rain as well. Yes, it was blue skies all day yesterday, but…
After Breakfast I break camp and drive back to Cervantes where I forgot to return a key at the campground, then head on out towards New Norcia. I cross the main highway and follow a dirt road for the next 22km. Good road, well maintained and thanks to last night's rain, no dust either. Beautiful open country either side, everything looking lush and green, some grain growing but mostly pasture, populated with large numbers of sheep, happily gracing today's breakfast. In some fields I also see cattle, half of them grazing, the other half lying down on their stomachs, happily chewing the re-gurgitated grass they ate earlier today.

Countryside covered in a carpet of blue, just before Moora

I stop at Moora to make a phonecall as my Mobile is, once again, out of reach. I walk into the Hardware Store to ask for the Post Office but find no-one in the store, as I wander through the isles. Quite amazing how much more trusting the country community seems to be, anyone could have walked in and helped themselves with whatever there is on the shelves. I go into the camping equipment store next door, find the Hardware man in conversation in there as well. Post Office is just around the corner and down the road - easy. Outside , the only public phone in town. Across the road from there, I see Tourist Information where I collect a few brochures and a map from a very helpful young lady. Sealed road all the way to Norcia. Countryside same as before, all green, the dams full of water and the rivers I cross, all running water.

I arrive about 11.00am at New Norcia, park my van and stroll around this monastic community, started by Spanish Benedictine Monks, back in 1849.

This building also houses the St. Gertrude Chapel

Quite surprising really, to see what they have achieved, the beautiful art that is on display at their Museum/ Gallery. Its been raining on and off for most of the day and during the 2-hour guided tour around the various places inside the monastery, I got wet a few times, every time we had to go outside.


The monks also bake all the bread for all the people in the village, but having just had a long weekend, there will be no fresh bread tomorrow. I have heard that this bread is simply excellent and, as it won't be happening tomorrow morning, I will move on instead.


The beautiful Altar in the Chapel

In its heyday, there were over 50 monks living at this monastery, now, only 9 remain. The buildings all look as if they could do with a major upgrade, a lick of paint would also go a long way.

Gum Tree blossoms in the Chapel garden

All buildings are suffering badly from rising-damp and only one of them, the Chapel has been repaired. There were three schools, run quite separately and were kept apart with high brick walls, one for girls, one for boys and another for Aboriginal children. The walls have all been removed except for a short stretch that is also suffering from rising-damp. At one time the monastery held about 1 million acres of land, now only 40,000 acres remain.

The New Norcia Hotel is a building that was originally built by the monks and was intended to house members of the Spanish Royal Family, to whom an invitation had been extended - as the tour guide said: "…they are still waiting for that visit…" In the meantime, that grand old building also looks run-down and would require a major injection of funds to bring it up to modern standards. It has a nice "old World" ambience that reminds me of some of the old country houses in Ireland.

There is also an Art Gallery, displaying some interesting paintings, some of them from the 16th and 17th century. Thieves stole 26 of them back in 1986. All, except one have been returned a short time later but there was extensive damage that needed to be restored.

In a shed in the back, some old farming machinery is on display, some made on the premises, others, like an old "Lanz Bulldog" Tractor, the kind I remember from childhood.

Front end of a "Lanz Bulldog"

A single cylinder engine that had to be pre-heated with a kind of blowtorch and a big handcrank to get it started. I remember that machine rocking in place when idling at a stand still. (Not really surprising with a single cylinder engine)