Collegial in Kalgoorlie

I must admit I had no high expectations of Kalgoorlie. It was not a town I wanted to see. It’s a fairly big town (if you call having Target, KMart and other big retail a qualification for being labeled “big town”), born out of the greed for gold. The history of the region is a history of numerous gold rushes. Kalgoorlie’s notoriety as a present-day gold mine town– and having the largest open pit gold mine in the world– held no interest to me. But I needed to be there due to certain logistical reasons for the trip, so there I was.

Still, I had a great time!

It was because of this house I pulled up to: Forrest House.

It was just a room booking I made to ensure several days of needed rest before I moved onward. So, on a rainy day, I pulled up to the place, slightly damp from the downpour. But what was inside was a warm experience.

It turns out out that Forrest House is not just someone’s home– it’s a place of rentals of any length of stay where ten or so residents resided. And there I met some great people.

For one, there’s Russell. He showed me where to do the shopping and rode with me to the bike shop– in other words, he assisted me with a number of my chores. And he had an affinity for Asia, especially Japan, which I felt akin to, having spent several years growing up there myself. We were of the same age, and there were common things we could talk about in terms of where life takes us, and what one has to do to just survive in this world.

And then there’s Shannon, Yin, and Rodney, who all also lived at Forrest House, and a common friend Alicia (spelling unknown) . They made me feel at home there. They showed me how to have a good time in Kalgoorlie, hitting good spots for beer and just plain-old fun and stress-relieving frivolity. Going out for beer was a way to unwind after a long weekend working in businesses associated with mining in one way or another, but it was also a way for me to unwind after more than a week of pedaling without any extra day of rest.

All were in Kalgoorlie, not out of any hunt for gold. Like most people in Kalgoorlie, the mining industry offered opportunity to make a living, where the economic returns allowed one to just live life and make one’s way in the world. All of them were salt-of-the-earth people and honest and genuine hearts and just needed some way to make a living; their compassion shows in their attentiveness to strangers (me). Needless to say, each person’s private story is not open to be shared in a public space, but for me, hearing a part of a person’s life journey is one of the joys of traveling around, and makes it a pleasure to share in their lives, even for just a brief moment.

The town of Kalgoorlie is a microcosm of people of all backgrounds and from all over Asia, brought in by the lure that Kalgoorlie can provide enough to sustain one’s own life as one walks their own path. There I met these people who, like me, are simply making their own way in this daunting world. These people, to me, is the beauty of Kalgoorlie– the real gold that is there.