The journey from Esperance to Kalgoorlie was a long one but I had Tim (who I met in the backpackers in Esperance and went and got shedded with the night before we left) for company on the way up. He's a good laugh and I think it also took the edge off of the fact that my neck was really painful after my bicycle crash the day before. The journey I will admit is not an exciting one, the scenery gets very 'samey' after a while but as we approached Kalgoorlie I was fixated on the low lying cloud across the vast salt plains. I've never seen anything like it and it was another first for my trip. Tim's niece was kind enough to drop me off at the hostel and I booked in.

The hostel is very nice, big building with a pool table and swimming pool out the back. I have been put in a flat out the back with 3 other girls. It's nice being able to do your own cooking and watch TV without loads of people around. My first night in Kalgoorlie was pretty much a bust, I never did a thing but watch TV and go to sleep.

My first full day in Kalgoorlie was a complete waste of time as well, but in the evening I went to a comedy show titled Jim and his goat down at a little place called Sylvesters. Sylvesters reminded me of a club from back home, one in which if it was busy you could probably excuse the sticky floor! The comedian was crude as promised but the goat had no part in the act! Talk about false advertising! Emma and Jeremy decided that we had to stay out so they took me into a place called The Exchange. It's Halloween weekend in Kalgoorlie so that explained the 2 men dressed as nuns! The live music was alright but since they both made me skull my beer before we moved onto Gold bar I can't really form an opinion. Now...I have never seen topless ladies serving behind a bar before until now. Kind of weird but I was told what to expect before I came here so it wasn't a complete shock. I ended up staying in there with Maddy and met some other people and it turned out to be a very late night. I am far too easily led. They managed to convince me that a guy we were talking to was gay and he had a clown fetish. So I went fishing for him as his 'wing man' whilst they all were pissing themselves laughing at the table. Why would I have had a cause to disbelieve them? Well the clown thing was a bit weird...Any hoo, we then went into Monty's (all night diner on Hannan Street) and made it back about 5 am - not bad for my first night out in a new town!

I made some new friends last night and that made me feel a lot better about being in a mining town in the almost middle of nowhere. Damian (who I met last night) became my chauffeur for the day and took me to all the 'sights' that Kal has to offer. We went to the super pit and oh my god. It's huge! The little cars in the bottom look like tonka toys or match box cars! It was almost hard to believe that something to that scale was man made. It got me thinking about The Grand Canyon and when I went to visit a couple years ago, watching the trucks here just making me want to go back there.

I never thought I would stop in a place like Kalgoorlie, I always thought it would be somewhere more accessible or cosmopolitan but I've decided to stay here for a while and who knows if things go well, pick up some work and make some more friends in the process. There are still some other things for me to see such as to take one of the Brothel tours...although...I discovered that it is a tour facility by day and an actual working Brothel by night!

OH! And for people who know how much I hate this at this point in the year...there is a giant Christmas tree on Hannan Street and the shops are playing all the Christmas songs! We're only just in November!

The picture is of course, the super pit!