It was to be far from a day of rest this beautiful Sunday, the first of day of September, the first day of spring and fathers day to boot. So, first of all, I send out a great big happy fathers day to all of the dads out there, and trust yours was a day full of socks and jocks!

For us, it was to be a day full of sight seeing around Kalgoorlie, starting with a look at their weekly market. It was a compact array of craft stalls, numbering all of about 15 or so. Nothing took our fancy, although we spent a good while chatting to a couple of the stallholders about our recent travels. They didn’t seem surprised when we exclaimed how much we loved Kalgoorlie as they iterated their own love of the town. One lovely lady manning the raffle ticket booth told us how she had come here for 2 years. That was over 30 years ago.

The next entry in our itinerary was the Kalgoorlie heritage walk. You can hire an audio guide, to wear like an old school Walkman, which gives you a detailed description of the 30 odd sites you come across if you do the entire walk. We decided to forego the audio tour, and rely on the brochure we had collected from the information centre that provided us with a map and a brief description of each of the buildings listed. The second alteration we made to the plan was to complete the walk in sectors, allowing us to drive from point to point. This made it all that much easier on our feet, although possibly not any quicker, as we circled the town in ‘The Beast’ looking for each of the nominated buildings.

Some of the…

…buildings…

…found on the…

…heritage walk.

It was very enlightening to learn a little more about each of the towns more historic structures, as well as spotting quite a few other beautiful buildings that didn’t make the grade, for what ever reason, to be included in the walking notes.

With our walking/driving tour of town completed, we drove to the outskirts of town for another look at Hammond Park. This was the parkland we had detoured past yesterday, when we found the grounds to be inundated by screaming, yelling little people. Unfortunately, today was no different, but with our time here in Kalgoorlie running short, we gritted our teeth and immersed ourselves into the realm of families and young kids.

Holding the gates shut to keep the kids in!

With thick lush grass, set out around a central lake and several picnic huts scattered about, I could see the family friendly allure. Add that to the kangaroos and emus happily living out the back in their own special enclosure and a series of large birdcages with a range of feathered friends to amuse the crowds it was an enjoyable place to spend an hour or so. One cockatoo in particular had us in fits of laughter after it laughed boisterously back at us.

“Quick, get me out of here.”

“Who’s a pretty bird?”

The only thing I didn’t enjoy, was watching the unacceptable behavior of some of the kids, running about crazily chasing peacocks with sticks. I felt like picking up a branch myself and chasing the kids to see how they would like it, but I thought that there might be someone watching who would deem that to be unacceptable behavior.

With the wildlife in abundance at Hammond Park, dogs were not permitted, so after we had seen enough, we found a playing field where we could take our beloved animals out for a walk, before heading back to town for lunch. We stopped in at a café, where we could get a bite to eat and a drink, while reading the weekend paper as we waited for out next appointment.

Father or not, Bec was treating me to a special fathers day treat next. She was taking me to a brothel. She was even going to join me. Not in the way you might be thinking though. Hay Street in Kalgoorlie is well known as a redlight district, which in its heyday hosted 18 bordellos. There are now only 2 and it seems that the oldest profession in the world isn’t quite enough to maintain their viability. So at 3:00PM each day, the 102 year old doors of last remaining original house, ‘Questa Casa’ are thrown open to allow the curious public to take a peek behind the windowless pink façade.

Ready for the grand tour.

We were not the only inquisitive deviates about, as nearly 2 dozen paying customers squeezed into the little reception room at the front of the house, before a stream of further hopeful participants were turned away. Gladly, we were not greeted by name, which may have been a source of great embarrassment, by a plain looking woman of indeterminate age, who introduced herself as the madam. With a soft, breathy voice, she spoke in a way that belied her innocent demeanor. This was not a lady you would like to cross. She was a story teller though, and soon had us straining our ears, lapping up her tales of the Hay Street golden years. It was explained how all of the brothels that had sprung up around town during the gold rush years were moved to Hay Street to provide an easily managed precinct for them to operate within. The rules around them were strict, but stringently adhered to.

For $20.00 per person, much less than the currently offered evening services, we were given an intimate history of prostitution in Kalgoorlie, saw the original ‘starting stalls’ in which the deals are still negotiated between the willing participants before moving inside to the bedrooms, of which we were also given a viewing. As odd a tourist attraction it may seem, it was a thoroughly interesting, if not stimulating, experience.

It was after 4:00PM by the time we returned to the van, which gave us enough time to pack up what we could in readiness for hitting the road again tomorrow, before getting dinner ready. Of dire consequence, we retrieved our chicken from the fridge to find it still frozen. We are just not destined to have any luck with this fridge. I was all for melting them in the microwave, but the icy look I got from Bec at this suggestion was enough to re-freeze the hapless breasts. A heated debate ensured about the merits of thawing the chicken in the microwave as opposed to taking a trip to the hopefully still open supermarket to pick up some fresh fillets. Lengthy enough was our discussion, that the chicken was practically thawed by the time we decided just to hack it into small pieces and fry it up. Dinner I might add, was delicious!

Until next time, stay safe, have fun and don’t forget to write.