Golden Pipeline

From the past to the present. Coolgardie is where gold was first discovered and you should acknowledge the spot that started the rush.

So do stop to read the sign on the eastern outskirts of Coolgardie that identifies where Bayley and Ford picked up a fortune in nuggets.

Another feature of the country is the presence of flies. They are exactly the same as the common housefly of NZ in appearance but as regards obnoxiousness and a general cause for worry they are equal to a hundred NZ ones rolled into one. They fly into your mouth, promenade all over your face, buzz into your ears, and keep rushing into your eyes until you nearly go mad. Nothing will keep them off and some will even stop in the corner of your eye until death ensues, which will be in most cases the tenth part of a second.

Usually when you reach after a fly with the rapidity of lightning, the blow descends without hurting anything but your own feelings and the fly simply flies away about 6 inches and settles back in your eye with exasperating coolness. John Aspinall 1895

Hopefully you won’t be troubled too much by the flies as New Zealand prospector John Aspinall was, but you will be able to see why the area where gold was first found was so named for the terrain. On another occasion Aspinall writes in his diary that Fly Flat was converted into a lake after 14 hours of rain much to the delight of the diggers desperate for water.

There was a great run on tanks and some people have saved 100 pounds worth of water. We have a job to keep the water out of our tent and I got soaked while cooking the breakfast, so we had a cold dinner and tried to believe we were suffering for the good of the country. All the streets were flooded and a lot of shops swamped out. Condenser men looked glum and Coolgardie Water Supply shares dropped 15 pounds [note he is referring to a private company, not the government scheme].

John Aspinall 1895