DARLOT DREAMS

I’d never heard of the settlement of Darlot. Like so many other places around Kalgoorlie, there was a gold-rush there in the 1890’s. It must have been total desperation which drove so many people to these places.  The harsh conditions they endured after walking, rarely riding, when they arrived is hard to imagine: no water, no heating, no houses, sometimes not even tents, nothing. Some wheeled their meagre belongings in a wheel-barrow. Suddenly 5000 people were there, with no infrastructure in place.

The mulga around these areas was all cut down for firewood, or to make humpies, and even to make coffins. Yes, there is a cemetery in each now depleted little settlement. Many headstones depict the heartbreak and suffering. Lack of sanitation meant many died of typhoid fever. Children were very susceptible to disease. Some adults and children just died of dehydration.

Poignantly at Darlot cemetery is the story told by a flock of budgerigars; in short it says “if they’d just followed us, we would take them to water, as we went there every morning and night”.

A lot of gold was recovered but the cost of the most basic items, eventually hauled in by camels, was outrageously inflated.  Did the prospectors fulfill their dreams? Some might have, but was it worth the heartbreaking situation?  Was it greed or desperation which drove them? We’ll probably never know.