Kalgoorlie vs. Coober Pedy: which historic Aussie mining town comes up trumps?

When it comes to visiting Australia's precious mineral centres, which hole is your goal? Our sparring experts dig deep to present the best bang for your buck in this week's Two Ways to Go.

Cynics might suggest this Two Ways to Go be entitled: "Which hole should you visit?" But the comparison of Kalgoorlie and its mining Super Pit with Coober Pedy and its hidey-hole existence showcases iconic Aussie towns that should be holes on your bucket list, dear Liza, dear Liza.

Let's begin with the biggest hole.

Kalgoorlie's Super Pit is a 3.5km by 1.5km and 600-metre-deep mining phenomenon, producing 900,000 ounces of gold a year. Visitors can get down among the conga line of enormous trucks that each ferry 225 tonnes of rock out of the hole.

And if you are there during the daily blast, it's even more moving. Coober Pedy's mole people might be very nice, but Kalgoorlie is a boom town that gives you more bang for your buck.

When Irish prospector Paddy Hannan stumbled across the precious metal in 1893, it began a gold rush that continues to this day. The area around the find (indeed, Kalgoorlie was originally known as Hannan's Find) is touted as the world's richest square mile of earth. The storied and moneyed history is told in gleaming detail at the Museum of the Goldfields.

Paddy's statue sits on Hannan Street, the wide main road of the ever-prosperous town that was once Australia's second biggest settlement after Sydney. Pubs sat on every corner in those halcyon days, and many remain, including the heritage-listed Palace Hotel at the top of the street.

One Palace Hotel resident was a 22-year-old mining engineer by the name of Herbert Hoover, later the 31st President of the United States.

Herbert fell in love with a local barmaid and an excerpt of a love poem he wrote to her is on display beside the ornate mirror he gifted to the pub on his departure.

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The Hoover Mirror remains a treasured asset of the Palace. It is not known if Herb's GF was a "skimpy", that intrepid band of Kal barmaids who accept tips for revealing their own assets.

The sex industry was another feature of Kalgoorlie's boom, and a string of legal brothels lined Hay Street. Ladies of the night decorated the front of corrugated iron buildings known as the "starting stalls" and traded until the turn of the 21st century. Today, the last brothel standing, the Pink House, offers historic tours and a look behind the scenes.

Pinks and every other colour burst forth in a spectacular display along the Goldfields Wildflower Trail in winter and spring, just before the annual Kalgoorlie racing round blends suits, fascinators and champagne with thongs, stubbies and Swan Lager tinnies.

Amy might be lured by the fool's gold glint of Coober Pedy's subterranean chic, but for a hole lot more, it's Kal for Mal.

You know the drill: Mal can guarantee you'll have a blast in Kalgoorlie. Scheduled explosions are the Netflix of WA's mining mecca - along with mega machinery, gazing into an enormous hole in the ground, and Australia's oldest brothel.

Sue me for sexism, but sisters - are you thinking what I'm thinking? If you dig Kalgoorlie, you're probably a bloke. While Mal's waiting for his next big bang, we'll head instead to the world's opal capital, where the pursuit of precious rainbow stones built a creative community based on ingenuity and innovation. A place of hidden depths.

Since Coober Pedy's opals were first unearthed in 1915, this South Australian outback gem has been the land down under's town down under, with more than half its people dwelling beneath ground level, sheltered from the cactus-cooking heat up top. And although opal prospecting's lingo of noodling, specking, potch and mullock might sound like a menu for Kalgoorlie's most experimental customers, Coober Pedy's underground scene is an entirely PG playground.

In this lunar landscape, nobody bats an eye at a life-sized spaceship parked on the main street. It was left behind after Vin Diesel shot Pitch Black here 25 years ago and you can see the flick occasionally - along with Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, also filmed here - at the local drive-in, where a "no explosives" warning greets audiences. Unlike Kalgoorlie, Coober Pedy prefers its entertainment gelignite-free. You can wonder at the Big Winch 360, Australia's only permanent full-circle cinema, and in nearby natural stunner The Kanku-Breakaways Conservation Park, giant rock formations glow in ever-changing flaming hues at sunset.

Leave Mal to his boom with a view. I wouldn't say Kalgoorlie is the pits, but in Coober Pedy the pleasure is all mine.