Today we went to the Kalgoorlie super pit and mill tour, which went for 2 and half a hours (instead of 1 and a half hours if we did just the super pit tour). When we got on the bus we drove through town to the mines. First we went to see the blast, which we were lucky to see because you don’t always see the blast. It sounded like a gunshot. There was a two second sound delay between seeing the blast and hearing the boom because light is faster than sound.

Then we went around and a guide gave us information like the difference between real gold and fool’s gold. We also saw the crusher and the mill. When we were in the mill there were eye washing stations with green lights above them. Our guide, Dan, explained that they were eye cleaning stations and they had green lights because if there was an acid spillage the colour you see last before you turn blind is green. Approximately 12% of the gold can be separated in the mill by centrifuging (spinning in a big tank). Then they use a lot of chemical such as lime, hydrochloric acid and xanthax with compressed air to actually make the gold float to the top of the tank which gets another 60 to 70% of the gold out. Lastly they use cyanide and copper sulphate to dissolve the remaining gold and separate it out. Next we saw the scrapyard/salvage yard where there was a half burnt out enormous dump truck that had a fire in it’s hydraulic system.

Then we went back to the caravan and did our usual stuff like what I am doing right now, writing this blog.