Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

Low Life | 2 May 2009

Bad trade

issue 02 May 2009

Kalgoorlie, Western Australia

Yesterday my friend Digger and I spent the afternoon touring the brothels of Kalgoorlie, an old gold and nickel mining town in the middle of nowhere. In more prosperous years Kalgoorlie had as many as 18 houses of ill-repute, but now there are just three. The global economic downturn has dealt Kalgoorlie a solid blow, though locals are expecting things to pick up again, and soon. We spent an hour at 181 Langtree’s — motto: ‘The girls are yum at 181’ — a new and elaborately themed brothel operating with just two working girls at the moment, but six more, they told us, were starting work on Anzac Day.

Prostitution is traditional in Kalgoorlie. In the heady gold-rush days, girls would come from the coast on camel trains — from Perth a gruelling 18-day trek.

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