Visit to Western Australia (Perth)

I spent last week visiting our Komatsu operations in Western Australia. I flew with my branch manager from Mackay - John Gibson, and we stayed at the Intercontinential Burswood (very smart), in Perth. We spent a few very interesting days going over our operations in Perth and then flew to a small historic (and still working) gold mining town called Kalgoorlie (about and hour away by 737)into the outback.

What a lovely place - all still untouched and very much 1890's buildings and quaint. Visited the KCGM Superpit - some details for those that are interested...

Biggest Gold mine in Australia - will be mined to 2017
850 000 oz per year of Gold produced
25% of the machine operatiors are women (the truck drivers)
Caterpillar 793 trucks - 2400hp V-16 engines = 4000 litres of fuel each per day
Their tyres each weigh 6 tonnes and cost $ 25 000.
Superpit is 3.2Kms long 1.3Kms wide and will end up 630m deep (currently 500m)
Komatsu PC 8000 Hydraulic face shovels
Weight of each machine 650 tonnes , loads 70 tonne of dirt per bucket 35 Cubic meters.
245 000 tonnes of ore moved per day
Cost of a PC 8 000 Komatsu machine - $ 10 000 000 each (they have 8)
So far the mine has produced 50 000 000 oz of gold

So a mildly interesting place for a guy like me.....
Perth is a very nice place and I got so lost driving around town, that I now know how to get to and away from the Subiaco Oval from each of the 360 degrees, and find my hotel.

Only bad point was I put on 500 grams of the weight I had lost, but then who can blame me I drank soda water in the pub like a girl, didn't touch the puddings in the hotel, and ate what I should have albeit slightly more than I should have...