Guide to Kalgoorlie Western Australia Australia

Kalgoorlie is the heart of the Western Australian Goldfields and the largest inland city in the state, about 595 km east of Perth on the Great Eastern Highway. Together with its twin town of Boulder it forms the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, home to around 30,000 people. Gold has been mined here since Paddy Hannan’s find in 1893, and it still drives the city today, most visibly at the Super Pit, one of the largest open-cut gold mines in Australia.

This is Wangkatha (Wongi) country, and in December 2025 the Federal Court recognised the Marlinyu Ghoorlie claimants as Traditional Owners of the area around Kalgoorlie and Kambalda. For visitors, the city is a surprising mix: grand gold rush buildings and ornate pubs on Hannan Street, a working mine on the edge of town, good museums, and big events that fill every bed in town.

Kalgoorlie is also the main base for exploring the wider Goldfields. Ghost towns, salt lakes and old mining camps lie within a day’s drive, and the city is the start or finish point for many trips across the Nullarbor or north into the outback.

Known For

• The Super Pit, one of Australia’s largest gold mines
• Hannan Street’s gold rush pubs and buildings
• Paddy Hannan’s 1893 find and the Golden Mile

Things To Do in Kalgoorlie

The Super Pit

The Fimiston Open Pit, known as the Super Pit, is about 3.5 km long, 1.5 km wide and more than 600 m deep, and it is owned by Northern Star Resources. The free Super Pit Lookout is open from 7 am to 7 pm daily, and is now reached off Mount Monger Road from the Goldfields Highway; older guides that send you to Outram Street in Boulder are out of date. The lookout closes when blasts are due, and it has had short closures for road works, so check before you go. Guided Super Pit tours, which include the processing plant, leave from St Barbara Square on Hannan Street on weekdays and should be booked ahead in the busy season.

Museum of the Goldfields

At the top of Hannan Street, the WA Museum’s Goldfields branch has a lift up the Ivanhoe headframe to a 360-degree viewing platform, a strongroom of gold bars and nuggets, and the tiny British Arms Hotel, once billed as the narrowest pub in the southern hemisphere. Entry is by donation.

Hannan Street

Hannan Street is lined with some of the finest gold rush buildings in Australia. Walk past the Town Hall, built in 1908 and home to the visitor centre, and the grand corner pubs of the 1890s, including the Exchange, the Palace and the York. An audio walking tour picks out more than 50 stops, and the visitor centre runs a heritage tram tour of the city’s highlights.

Hannans North Tourist Mine

On the Goldfields Highway just north of the city centre, Hannans North is an open-air mining museum with more than 30 exhibits, gold panning, old mine buildings and giant haul trucks you can climb into. There are no underground tours. Opening hours vary with the season.

Mount Charlotte Reservoir Lookout

Mount Charlotte is the end of the Golden Pipeline, the 530 km water pipeline from Mundaring Weir near Perth that opened in 1903 and made life on the Goldfields possible. The lookout gives wide views over the city and is open around the clock.

Questa Casa

On Hay Street, once the town’s red-light district, Questa Casa claims to be the oldest working brothel in Australia, operating since about 1904. Daily parlour tours are for over-18s only and must be booked by phone.

Broad Arrow Tavern

About 38 km north, the Broad Arrow Tavern is a classic outback pub from 1896, with walls covered in visitors’ signatures. It makes a good lunch stop on a drive to the ghost towns.

Golden Quest Discovery Trail

The 965 km Golden Quest Discovery Trail links Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie, Kanowna, Kookynie, Menzies, Leonora, Gwalia and Laverton, with signs and stories at 25 sites along the way.

Events

The Diggers and Dealers mining forum is held in early August, and Race Round, with the Boulder Cup, the Hannans Handicap and the Kalgoorlie Cup, runs from late September into early October. The Kalgoorlie-Boulder Heritage Festival is held from April to May, and the off-road Kalgoorlie Desert Race runs in late October. Accommodation books out during these events, so plan well ahead.

Where To Stay

Kalgoorlie has several caravan parks. The Acclaim BIG4 Prospector Holiday Park on the Great Eastern Highway has a pool, playground and camp kitchen; the Acclaim Goldminer Caravan Park, about 3.5 km from the centre, has big-rig sites and air-conditioned cabins; and Discovery Parks Kalgoorlie Goldfields is on Burt Street on the Boulder side. Hotels, motels and the historic pubs on Hannan Street also have rooms.

Fully self-contained vehicles can stay for free for up to 72 hours at Centennial Park, on the corner of Patroni and Hannan Streets, but tents, camper trailers and generators are not allowed. Lake Douglas Recreation Reserve, about 12 km west with the last 2 km unsealed, is another free 72-hour stop with toilets, tables and fire pits. There are dump and water points on Forrest Street and at Centennial Park, caravan parking on Cheetham Street, and daytime long-vehicle parking on Cassidy Street. All the main roads into Kalgoorlie are sealed and suit big rigs, and the city has full fuel and services.

Eat & Drink

Hannan Street’s grand pubs are the centre of Kalgoorlie’s food and drink scene. The Exchange Hotel, built in 1895, has a family restaurant; the Palace Hotel has meals and the Gold Bar; the York Hotel has a balcony and a winter fireplace; and the Kalgoorlie Hotel has a big beer garden and live bands. The Star and Garter Hotel and the Piccadilly Hotel are popular local pubs, and there are plenty of cafes and restaurants along Hannan and Maritana Streets.

History

In June 1893, Paddy Hannan, Tom Flanagan and Dan Shea found gold near Mount Charlotte, and Hannan’s claim on 17 June set off a rush to what became the Golden Mile, one of the richest gold fields in the world. The railway from Perth arrived in 1896. Water was so scarce that typhoid killed many early miners, until C.Y. O’Connor’s Golden Pipeline brought water from Mundaring Weir in 1903, sadly after O’Connor’s death in 1902.

Through the 20th century, dozens of underground mines worked the Golden Mile. In the late 1980s Alan Bond began combining the leases, and in 1989 Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines was formed to create the Super Pit. The same year, the towns of Kalgoorlie and Boulder merged into one city. Northern Star Resources has owned the whole mine since 2021.

Getting to Kalgoorlie

Kalgoorlie is about 595 km east of Perth on the Great Eastern Highway, around six and a half to seven hours’ drive. Transwa’s Prospector train runs from East Perth to Kalgoorlie in about seven hours, and the Indian Pacific stops here on its way across the Nullarbor. Kalgoorlie-Boulder Airport has daily flights from Perth of about an hour and ten minutes with Qantas and Virgin Australia.

The best time to visit is April to October. Summers are hot, with January averages in the low 30s, while winter days are mild and nights can be frosty. Book early for August and for the September to October racing season.