Kalgoorlie

So it was time to get back to civilisation for a bit, we had been without mains power for 16 nights & Ruby needed a service. As we drove into Kalgoorlie she ticked over 49991km, so perfect for her scheduled service. As we had to get her serviced & resupply we decided to check into a caravan park for a few nights, we had heaps of washing to do as well! After reading a few reviews online we ended up at the Kalgoorlie Discovery caravan park. It was not cheap at $39 a night but at least it had some form of security (a boom gate & fence). We had been warned about the dangers of Kalgoorlie & to always be very careful with your belongings.  The park was okay, it's away from the main part of town, the sites are a decent size but are gravel & it has good amenities & a laundry. So after setting up camp we indulged in a long hot shower! We got lucky with our neighbours again & had a great chat to Debbie & Steve (thanks for the note guys we hope you are following the blog) about our travels & plans. The next day we did some laundry & then headed into town for a look around. Kalgoorlie has all of the shops /franchises you could want, set into a very old mining town facade. It is an interesting place, we can't really think of to many other towns that it is similar to. It is the first place we have ever had to pay to use a public toilet (35 cents) & one of the main attractions in town is what they call Skimpies (lovely ladies dressed in not much that try to entice you into the pub they are representing). It is also the first town we have felt really ripped off on two occasions. One was when we went to the pub for lunch & they wanted $37 for a steak (we declined & went elsewhere) and the other when we went to the butcher for our meat shop. We placed our order, got them to vaccum pack & freeze it for us & we picked it up the next day. As we were packing the meat into our engel I read the docket. They had charged us $42 kg for lamb cutlets. So it was in two packs, so 2 meals worth but it was $44 total, so $22 a meal (not good for the budget, it might have to be a no lunch day on the nights we have our Kalgoorlie gold plated cutlets!!). 

Day 1 at Kalgoorlie also involved giving a Ruby a much needed bath & clean up before her service. $20 at the car wash & she came up beautifully. We also took the  2 Engels out of the back of the car to give them a clean out & also switch them over to alternate them between being a fridge or freezer.

Day 2 involved getting up a bit earlier to get Ruby to Toyota by 7.30am. We then had breakfast in town & wandered down to the museum but unfortunately it didn't open until 10am so we went back up the street & I got myself a hair appointment to get spruced up as well. 2 hours later I finally emerged, much to Mats impatience. We got the call to say Ruby was done so we walked back to Toyota. We don't have a great history with Toyota  servicing & it reared it's ugly head again. We have installed a secondary after market fuel filter on Ruby, we asked them to replace it (we supplied a new one for them) & to also change the primary toyota filter as well, irrelevant of if it needed it or not (we would rather be safe than sorry with the remote travel we have planned). When we turned up Mat asked had they both been done & they thought they had but it wasn't on the docket so they went to check with the mechanic & yes it had been done, but the other service guy said no it hadn't. In the end we finally found out the Toyota one hadn't been changed, so another half an hour wait while they rectified the problem. There is always something..... Other than that Ruby was given a clean bill of health & even got her tyres shined & windex on her windows. 

Ruby all clean again (for 5 minutes anyway)

After-market fuel filter. 

After that it was a trip to the pub for lunch, picking up our meat order & then back to camp to look at the maps to plan our journey north. 

Day 3 at Kalgoorlie involved getting our shopping done, resupplying beer, more washing, fuel & starting to pack up camp to leave the next day. We went to the pub again for lunch, it was becoming a habit !! We didn't cook the whole time we were in Kalgoorlie, it was awesome! All days were lunch at the pub & not much for dinner. 

Pub lunch!!

It started to rain at about 9pm & was light all night & as we packed up in the morning, another wet pack up!! We left Kalgoorlie at 8am this morning & have come to a place called Malcolm dam, it's gorgeous (more on that on our next post). Kalgoorlie was a great place to resupply & we didn't mind the town, but 4 nights in a caravan park was definitely long enough!!! I didn't take many photos but we did visit the super pit, the big gold mine on the edge of town, it was huge.

So we have finally started to head North & we are very excited to see what we find.