Posts From A Country

The Super Pit is the name given to the open-cut gold mine that is the economic reason for the existence of Kalgoorlie. The statistics of this mine are truily impressive. The open cut pit is 3.5km long by 1.5 km wide by 750 meters deep (in US measures that is 2.1 miles x 1 mile x 2500 ft. Gold bearing ore is brought from the bottom of this pit in trucks that carry about 230 tons per load, each trip uses about 50 gallons of diesel fuel and the mine in total uses between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 liters of diesel per month (thats 1.5 to 1.75 millions gallons per month). A tour of this operation has been on our Australian todo-list almost since the start of our planning and today was the day.

At sea.

The photos below are from a day excursion into the nearby Black Forest. As you can see the weather was great and made for good photos of the forest, lake and historic buildings.

Today was another excursion; this time to the local small town named Breisach Am Rhein which overlooks the Rhine River and the border with France. After Breisach Am Rhein we ventured into France to visit an old walled city called Neuf-Brisach where we found a large crowd and a noisy festival underway as part of the May day (May 1st) celebrations.