Tanami Desert Diary - PART 5

(Return to - PART 1, PART 2, PART 3, PART 4)

A Cessna brought the ‘Word of God’ to the Tanami one fateful day. An evangelist in the form of a naive, young Geologist, fresh out of Uni, barely out of his teens.

We’re a friendly mob out here. We even make Geologists welcome, but we’re quite unaware of his less forgivable proclivities at this time.

Camping in the desert is a rough and ready affair that is fluid and set with certain discomforts. It’s the first time our new Geo has camped out, and it becomes obvious he’s never done much for himself before. He expects an array of amenities that aren’t forthcoming. City ways in a feral wasteland don't mix too well, and he finds the lack of power points in the surrounding trees disturbing.

Immediately, his cover story of being ‘one of the lads’, goes awry. Someone normal complains they’ve forgotten to pack something. He jumps in to commiserate with his own clanger.

‘Mum packed his bag so he’s not sure he’s got any pyjamas.’

Even at school camp that would be a violation of etiquette. Out here in the desert, it classifies as information NOT to share. A group of young lads who pride themselves on adaptability and independence don't take kindly to Mama’s Boys. Finding out he’s a God-bothering religious nut was anti-climactic.

His sentence is handed down. ‘Not to be included in rule breaking activities.’

To fuel our distain, he’d unashamedly and openly fill in some sort of bible-study worksheet after we’d knocked off for the day. We’d sit around the fire drinking beer and smoking dope. He’d try to convince us to change our evil ways with short lived sermons, then storm off up a sand dune to ‘pray for us’. We heathens found the concept vaguely threatening.

He’s a nice enough lad to get along with, even if he’d been brainwashed at an early age to fear both God and Devil in their multitude of forms. While his parents were beating Jesus into him, they should have taught him a few domestic skills as well.

I had to check on him after he requested a side trip to a remote area. Perhaps he was trying to follow Jesus’ forty day diet. More likely he wanted to get away from our influence. What I found after two days showed he wasn’t being very strict with the fasting.

None of us ‘normals’ were big on cleanliness, but we all knew how food poisoning occurs, and how to keep ants, wasps and larger carnivores out of the camp by cleaning up. He had no awareness of how disgusting the site was. It was like walking into the aftermath of a five year olds birthday party. Half eaten rotting food and canned drinks lay everywhere. Rubbish piled on benches, dirty pots still in the fireplace. He’d put a plate down, forget about it and get another.

I cleaned it up. What really burns my arse is that he would have thanked divine intervention for providing the service.

(Like it? See – PART 6) Coming Soon

Tanami Desert Diary - PART 4

(Return to - PART 1, PART 2, PART 3)

Good luck ran with my new nickname as much as bad luck seemed to plague people with the name Michael at the Tanami.

We thought Mike had all the luck. He’s the only guy getting laid in the desert after he cracked onto the cleaning lady. Not as bad as it sounds, she was young and we were jealous.

One rare Mine Camp visit he must have stayed up late with his new sweetheart and felt a bit tired the next morning. Driving back to the workshop he somehow hit a boulder bigger than a Landcruiser’s wheel. He said he had his head under the dash looking for something.

After managing to drive completely over the top of the rock and getting catapulted into the roof and smashing his lips into the gear knob on the way down, he wasn't feeling too good. Lucky he didn’t knock his teeth out. Normally you’d hide the circumstances of an accident like this but the Big Boss had chosen that day to visit the Mine and saw the whole thing.

The ute’s transfer case didn't survive the incident. All that heavy armour plating we relied on to crawl over rocky outcrops and smash against tree stumps wasn't meant to hit boulders at 50 Kph. $11,000 and a few months later we got the ute back.

Mike got the arse.

(Like it? See - Part 5).

Tanami Desert Diary - PART 3

(Return to – PART 1, PART 2)

My first day at Tanami mine could be described as stressful. I had to change five tyres some bastard had left behind from their last camp visit. The new boy gets these jobs even though the saying ‘you fucked it, you fixed it’ meant something back then.

Then I loaded two armour-plated Toyota utes with supplies to take to the exploration crew deep in the desert. The utes were bulldozers on wheels and we used them that way too. 10mm thick bash plates underneath, reinforced bull bars, and full roll cage braced to the chassis.

Since it was my first time out I was given a guide. A lad called Deaf Mick would show me the way. With around a tonne and half on the back of each ute in 44’s of fuel, food and other crap we drove off down the Tanami (goat) Track.

Deaf Mick disappeared in the dust and even at 140kph I couldn’t catch him. I also couldn’t see because of the dust he threw up. The overloaded ute wandered back and forth across the loose sand. I clung to the wheel, foot to the floor shitting myself. I had no chance of getting Mick on the radio. He had a habit of turning it off. He’s deaf, why would he bother with it?

I had to back off and only got to the camp late by following his dust trail from many kilometres back. He wanted to know what took me so long. I was too insecure to explain what a frightening trip I had.

Deaf Mick wasn’t much for conversation. He had a hard time making sense of what the rest of us were saying without seeing our lips. After I grew a beard he stopped taking to me altogether. Not because he didn’t like me, he just couldn’t understand what I said with all that hair in the way. He used to have a hearing aid but somehow it had fallen out as he’d leaned over a hundred metre deep open drill hole. Down it went. He wasn’t getting that back.

(PART 4)

Tanami Desert Diary - PART 1

(Skip to - Politics)

There are several mine sites and mining towns in the NT and WA that I’ve called home. The only one with any claim to fame would be the Tanami Gold Mine. It is, or was, the most remote mine site in Australia, slap bang in the middle of the Tanami Desert. This dubious honour does not make it any more desirable to visit but I guess it helps with bragging rights. I also met my wife after the place was recommissioned which gives it a certain amount of sentimental value.

The roster at one time had me living there for 6 insane weeks at a time with 2 weeks off to spend the money piling up in the bank. Legally it was my primary place of residence. This worked out well a tax time as we could claim a heap in zone rebates. Working with the same people for 6 weeks at close quarters didn’t always work out that well.

I’ve already mentioned some of the hell flights experienced while flying to and from this place so I’ll go from there. Landing on the dirt strip involved a very low approach over the end of a deep pit. The strip had a hump in it too so the landings could be rough, depending on the winds and the pilot. We had to refuel the plane with 44’s of Avgas using a hand pump. You always cracked the seal of a new drum if you were flying out.

The mining had stopped as the pits reached the edge of the leases and the company abandoned the place to five blokes who filled the Care and Maintenance duties. Another fifteen or so Exploration blokes used the mine as a base when they weren’t scrounging the desert looking for more gold.

The camp was a ghost town. I had hundreds of empty rooms to choose from when I moved in. They were all very poorly maintained 3m by 3m dog boxes. The mine owners had held off repairing or upgrading anything as the available gold ran out so everything had deteriorated to a condition today’s miners wouldn’t accept.

I picked a donga and deemed it habitable. The way it rocked on the besser blocks that held it up as I walked across the room was only a minor irritation. The room felt a bit small so I kicked out the partition between my room and the next with my steel caps to make a double room. I had a squeaky single bed with a thrashed out mattress, an old bar fridge and an air-conditioner that had seven different squealing or grinding settings.

The desert can be frosty in the morning and scorch you skin off at over 55 degrees during the day so you left your A/C on all day. The camp electricity came from a smallish generator so every now and then the cleaner would turn off the power to our rooms in order to use the oven without tripping the circuits. She could have cooked a chicken faster in our rooms after it heated up without the A/C on.

Most of the lads in the field were young Geologists straight out of Uni and Fieldies (also known as JAFFA’s. Just Another Fucking Field Assistant). The exploration team lived in tents away from the mod cons my poxy room afforded me. I slept 5 star every night in comparison. Technically I belonged to exploration but since I drove the truck that delivered fuel, food and water to the camp sites I usually returned to the mine every night.

Finding the exploration teams in the middle of a desert wasn’t that easy. They moved around a lot. I had to do a bit of GPS work and got some very basic instructions third hand from my boss who manned the satellite phone.

The morning instructions might go like this. “Go down the road to the big anthill, turn left and drive 30 kilometres in a straight line until you see a water tank, follow the left hand creek bed until you see the drill rig mast somewhere out that way.” The two-way radio sometimes worked well enough to use to fine tune their location.

My truck was an old MAN cab/chassis with VW motor. I ripped the VW symbol off. (Hey, I was only young and it embarrassed me to be driving a VW. I gradually built up a lot of respect for that motor later on.) It could carry about 7 tonne and was 4 X 4 capable with a diff lock that I wasn’t allowed to touch. No air conditioner. It wasn’t a bad truck but we severely overloaded it at times and took it places better suited to a proper all-terrain vehicle, like a tank. I managed to keep it in fairly good nick by taking it steady.

I did bend it once while using the rear mounted HIAB to pull out star pickets. Climbing in and out of the truck to move it, and then lower the leg, and then pull out the picket got tedious. I tried to get a picket that was too far out and didn’t put the leg down. That laziness bent the chassis. I was not popular with the mechanic.

Sometimes I’d push my own track through the desert. Every now and then I’d hit a grid line and use that. Either way the going was so rough I’d be crawling along at 20 kph. Sometimes for eight hours at a time. A day might consist of 16 hours driving and one hour of loading and unloading. I learned to pack pillows around my legs. The rough country tried to smash me to pieces against the door, dash, roof and gear lever.

Ultra-fine Tanami desert dust is famous for destroying electronics. After my 'dust-proof, O-ringed' walkman died after only a few weeks these slow trips became incredibly monotonous. The mine sparky hooked up a couple of speakers and a stereo for me. I asked him to put the speakers just behind my head so I could blast heavy metal into my head properly.

Happy again! It didn’t take much in those days.

(Like it? See - Tanami Desert diary - Part 2)