Kalgoorlie and Lake Ballard Explorer

Strap yourself in for a wild ride. A golden journey down a past laced with boom-and-bust tales and modern-day ingenuity, from Kalgoorlie to Lake Ballard in four days and just over 1,500 kilometres. Scandals, scallywags, successes and swindles, abandoned towns, brothels, bootleggers and rebellions: the Goldfields have seen it all – now you can too. Experience this trip year-round, but a visit from mid-July to late October lays forth all the riches of wildflower season. From Perth, head to charming Merredin, following the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail: an engineering marvel that fed drinking water via a pipeline into the remote goldfield towns. They said it couldn’t be done, but one man dared to dream. Coolgardie kick-started the great gold rush in 1892. Grandiose buildings from a bygone era conjure images of the colourful characters that once roamed the wide streets seeking fortune. Kalgoorlie is a mash-up of old and new. Old-time saloons may have been replaced by stylish microbreweries, but Kalgoorlie retains its boom-town atmosphere. Glimpse its gold-rush past in the museums, monuments and heritage buildings, or in the spectacular operational open-pit gold mine, the Super Pit. Fossick your way along the Golden Mile, once considered the richest square mile in the world, to the adjoining town of Boulder. Relive Menzies’ prospecting past with a spot of lunch in this heritage town. A jewel in the Golden Outback’s crown, Lake Ballard is a mecca for art lovers. Dotting the flat vast salt plains are 51 enthralling steel sculptures by world-renowned British artist Antony Gormley. On the trip back to Perth, stretch your legs at Northam, where pretty white swans swim in the Avon River and hot-air balloons float as calmly as clouds in the sky.