Kalgoorlie Sightseeing, Super Pit
Visit the Largest Open Cut Gold Mine in Australia
Many of the world’s large mines are located in isolated areas and inaccessible to visitors. The spectacular Super Pit, however, is right on the edge of the town of Kalgoorlie, allowing visitors a dramatic and fascinating insight into the modern mining industry.
History of the Super Pit
Gold was first discovered in the Kalgoorlie area, 600 km east of Perth, in 1893. Soon after, a large underground ore body called the Golden Mile was discovered. At the time it was the richest square mile on Earth. The Golden Mile became the heart of Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields and led to the establishment of the city of Kalgoorlie and its sister city of Boulder. The area was soon dotted with deep shaft gold mines, whose head frames dominated the skylines of Kalgoorlie and Boulder for over ninety years. Over 3,000 km of mine shafts were built during this time and 50 million ounces of gold extracted.
In 1989, in response to the need for a more efficient means of low grade ore extraction, a large number of the separate deep shaft mines were combined into a single open cut mine, the Super Pit.
Visiting the Super Pit
The Super Pit can be observed from a specially built visitors’ lookout off the Goldfields Highway, just five minutes drive from the centre of Kalgoorlie. The lookout is open from 7 am to 9 pm daily.
A Super Pit Shop is located nearby at 2 Burt Street, Boulder. Here can be bought related merchandise, including gold nuggets and splatters. The shop also provides a wealth of information about the Super Pit and features a model of the final 2017 pit design. Opening hours are 9 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday and 9.30 am to 12.30 pm on the third Sunday of every month.
Facts about the Super Pit
- The Super Pit is approximately 3.5 km long, 1.5 km wide and 360 m deep.
- It will eventually grow to be approximately 3.9 km long, 1.6 km wide and more than 600 m deep.
- The Super Pit is mined 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
- Although they look like toy trucks from the visitor lookout, the workhorses of the Super Pit are 34 giant Caterpillar 793 mining trucks costing $AU4 million each. Each truck weighs 166 tonne and has a payload of 225 tonne. It costs about $AU26 thousand just to replace a single tyre.
- Truck drivers work a 12 hour shift managing 18 loads per shift. 232,000 tonnes of ore and earth are moved from the Super Pit each day.
- The Super Pit is expected to be mined out and closed in 2017.
Getting to Kalgoorlie
- There are daily flights lasting 1 hr 20m one way from Perth to Kalgoorlie and return.
- Visitors can travel from Perth to Kalgoorlie by rail on the Prospector train service. The Prospector leaves Perth each day at 7.15 am with afternoon services available Mon, Fri and Sun. The journey takes about 6 hrs.
Super Pit, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
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