Coolgardie is the older, quieter face of the Western Australian goldfields. In the 1890s it was a roaring gold-rush town with grand ambitions; today the traffic pushes on to Kalgoorlie-Boulder, leaving Coolgardie with wide streets, empty space, and a surprising run of handsome stone and brick buildings.
That contrast is the point. The Goldfields Exhibition Museum fills the old Warden's Court with mining stories, photographs, and odd survivals from boomtown life. Outside, Bayley Street still carries the shape of a place that expected to become much bigger than it did.
Coolgardie makes an easy detour from Kalgoorlie or a useful stop on the long road east. It is not polished, and that helps: you can read the boom and bust in the buildings without much interpretation.