Kalgoorlie Miner: (5) Kalgoorlie Image

Once upon a time, back in my student days, I was wandering out of Centrelink having collected my polony and rice money for the fortnight, when I saw a kangaroo hopping eastwards along Egan St. I watched it casually make it's way past the world's tallest bin, had a chuckle to myself, and then grinned like a Cheshire cat who just ate the cream and was about to stretch out in the summer sun.

A similar, if slightly less dramatic, event occurred only a few weeks ago when I saw a tumbleweed moseying down Roberts St on a breezy day.

Occasions like these are exciting for me because they confirm my preferred reality of Kalgoorlie-Boulder - not actual reality, but my reality.

Such events make me feel like the legendary Don Quixote de la Mancha, from Miguel de Cervantes 1605 novel "Don Quixote", who becomes obsessed by fictional knight's tales of valour, and henceforth roams the world believing that he is a mighty knight - of course in my reality I am not a knight, but rather a lovable rogue scraping through life armed only with my razor-sharp wit and trusty six-shooter.

The widely accepted "Wild West" image of the city, as inaccurate as it may be, is what brings tourists here and makes it an exciting place to live, so I don't see the point in trying to fight it - in fact I actively promote it.

I say lets tear up the bitumen roads, make saloon doors and honky-tonk pianists compulsory in pubs, and demolish houses not made from weatherboard and pressed tin. Let's have the council employ a dozen bearded ruffians to swagger up and down Hannan and Burt Streets in their underground gear, king browns of Hannan's Lager in hand, scaring tourists with threatening glares all the while.

I want visitors to regale and captivate their city-dwelling friends with stories about the perversely alluring aspects of the Goldfields that we all know and pompously pretend not to love - skimpies, bikies, and gold-stealin' miners. Let's keep the 90:10 male:female ratio myth alive just for laughs hey?

I'm certain that most of us thrive on relaying yarns (feigned disgust optional) that portray Kalgoorlie-Boulder as being rougher than a chain-smoking brothel madam. For example, when I saw a couple of bikies at the Kalgoorlie Cup this year, I made sure to point them out to visiting friends and then relay highly dramatised legends from Ora Banda and The Foundry Hotel.

Can you (yes you, the reader) tell me, without your pulse quickening or brow sweating, that you don't get any joy or chest-swelling pride out of telling such embellished half-truths about life in this city? If you reckon you don't then with utmost confidence I hereby brand you a liar and/or a wowser.

So I say let’s promote Kalgoorlie-Boulder in a way that gets people coming here, and let them be pleasantly surprised when they arrive. If travelers wanted to experience fully clothed barstaff, well planned streets and Eton manners then they would visit Canberra, and if they wanted to lounge about under a palm tree then they would surely choose a tropical Queensland island over a grubby Burt Street round-about.

I'd like to go into the Wilson Street plastic grass but that's a 500 word rant on its own.