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Kalgoorlie is a town built on mining. Prospectors have scarred the dusty red earth around a settlement in the western Australia outback for 125 years.
My name is John Jones. I was born in Kalgoorlie. My father was a sandalwooder way up at Laverton, northeast of Kalgoorlie.
Jones has been exploring for minerals for half a century. He made his first discovery in the late 1960s.
I got drinking in a hotel at Widgiemooltha and some Canadian American guys, the Anaconda Company said nickel occurs in a straight line. So I got the ruler out that night east of Kalgoorlie and I ran a straight line up past Kalgoorlie to a place Scotia.
The next day I went up there and I just walked straight into the discovery.
Western Australia has abundant mineral resources, including iron ore, nickel, lithium and copper. But Kalgoorlie's fame is built on gold.
I'm sitting alongside a legend, Paddy Hannan was in 1893, he wandered from Coolgardie up to Kalgoorlie. And in the one afternoon there he was picking up lots of gold nuggets. And he wandered back into Coolgardie and started a huge rush.
Thousands of migrants flooded into Kalgoorlie following the Irishman's discovery, transforming it into a regional centre. Scores of mines were dug, and in the 1980s, businessman Alan Bond led an ambitious plan to amalgamate them to create one of the world's biggest gold mines on the edge of time.
This is on the south side of the fabulous golden mile Super Pit. Behind me, obviously, right here is one of the loader buckets from one of the huge $18 million dollar excavators that loads the dump trucks down below.
The Super Pit is owned by North American miners, Barrick and Newmont. Every year it yields a bounty of 700 ounces of gold. Since Paddy Hannan made the first discovery in 1893, more than 60 million ounces of gold have been mined from this area, known as the golden mile.
The gold industry has experienced a difficult few years, which caused exploration activity to fall. But there are signs of recovery.
Whilst politicians in Australia say the resource boom's over, can I suggest very strongly that the resource exploration side of the business is gathering real pace.
Any increase in exploration is good news for Kalgoorlie, which is hoping its abundant mineral riches can continue to support the town for another century. Jamie Smyth, Financial Times, Kalgoorlie.
