The Mining Hall of Fame is our destination for today. Here we are able to immerse ourselves in mining history, memorabilia, and displays. We book in for an underground mine tour and another gold pour. While waiting we explore the various areas including the huge 793C dump truck and underground miner's refuge. There are many displays of mining equipment and infrastructure that keep us busy until it is our turn to gather at the massive shaft headframe.
We choose our hard hats and wait to take our place in the small cage for the journey underground. It is a tight fit for 2 adults 2 kids and an operator. We are told that when this was a working mine that this cage would take 6 beefy miners for each trip. We travel 35m to the first level where we disembark. We meet Jim who is our guide and an old hand at underground mining who in his later years has become a tour guide.
We are kept entertained with an educational, informative and funny narrative of the hardship and conditions of underground mining. Too soon we return to the surface informed and amazed at the tenacity and perseverance of the underground miners and the dangerous conditions that they encountered every day. We head to the gold room to see the gold pour. Although we had seen gold pours in Perth it is still interesting and informative. We find that the day has gone too fast and we still have much to see. We decide to come back tomorrow as our entry ticket allows us 2 days entry. 8/9/2011
We come back to the Mining Hall of Fame to see what we couldn't fit in yesterday. We go through the main display building which houses a huge display of minerals from around the world. There are more 'ite's' than you can poke a stick at. Stolzite, Manganocalcite, Rhodonite, Apophyllite, Kutnahorite, and Calaverite just to name a few. There are also many more well know minerals and gems such as Gypsum, Copper, Silver, Rubies, Diamonds and of course Gold. We learn about the different methods of mining that are required for the different minerals. We read stories of the various prospectors and of the booms and busts associated with the mining industry. After we had dug through all the information we could process, we took our leave and headed elsewhere.
The local RFDS base is our next stop but we arrive to late for the last tour of the day. We have a look through their display of memorabilia where the kids pedal on the Traeger pedal radio ( again ). We then head back to camp to find we had more neighbors in the overflow area where we were setup. After we all introduced ourselves the chairs and drinks came out and many stories of our separate adventures were told. We head to bed a bit later than planned but still set the alarm as we are off across the Nullabour tomorrow.
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