The explosives magazine

Upon arrival on Kangaroo Island to begin the job of getting the broken down crushing plant into working order, I immediately became aware of what it is to be an outsider. Only a month previously I had been there staying at the Ozone Hotel in the capacity of a holiday tourist, and at that time any local was happy to make your acquaintance – especially in the bars of the town's two hotels. Newcomers in the hotel bars were a source of the odd free drinks, the only cost to the locals, a steady stream of Island lore.

I was only a mild drinker, but the moment I showed an interest in the idle quarry's workings, I was quickly passed through the hands of the local casual labour pool, all of whom appeared to reside at the bars throughout most of the day. Their source of income had been cut by the quarry's winter shut down, and well into the summer showed no signs of starting up once more. Many of them also worked as stevedores when a ship was berthed at the Kingscote wharf, but they were keen to see their earnings supplemented by the quarry as soon as possible. I was being volunteered plenty of advice, but no hint of manual assistance, and as soon as it became known that a front end loader had arrived at the port for my use, there was joy that the hard labour at the quarry face would cease, but this turned to a wall of silence when they realised I would only be requiring the services of one of the locals, and this position was earmarked for the son of the quarry's owner!
As it happened I was destined to run the whole operation on my own, and at this point my only source of cooperation came from the foreman of the local council who owned an old ute, whereas I didn't have the luxury of wheels of any description!

My first major job involved getting the loader into the quarry hole carried out by plenty of hard yakka by myself, my only official helper always being mysteriously absent at such times, and to this end, I decided that a small amount of explosives would help, and set off on the hunt for the magazine which the owner assured me existed! It soon became obvious that it's location was a closely guarded secret, it being considered the last weapon of resistance against my success! However, eventually someone directed me to a vague location on the nearby hillside, which I eventually found. It was nothing more than a shallow hole excavated from the loose rock and once covered (apparently) by a loose sheet of steel – but of course completely innocent of the explosives! This led to an extended goose chase through the hotel bars and private homes, culminating in a nighttime visit to a small dingy tin shack on the outskirts of Kingscote, the humble abode of one of the previously mentioned casual workers.

There he sat in almost total darkness on an unmade bed of wheat sacks and old dirty blankets, the only light emanating from the fire in the open front of an old broken wood cookstove. On an old packing case sat the remains of an evening meal, and a half full bottle of red, and it was to this character that I once more put the question, 'Where are the explosives?' The reply was in the form of the offer of a drink from the bottle which I refused, and after quite some time, during which I became sure that this was yet another run around, he reached under the bed and started to pull out empty bottles and other refuse, until he pointed at the vague shape of a timber box, which I hauled out into the light. Joy! It was a half filled box of explosives! The next question was where are the detonators? A tin of these little devils were finally scratched out from under the bed! There is an absolute rule that detonators and explosives must be kept stored separate, but this didn't apply here, and I was immediately faced with the problem of constructing a safe storage, but I had my explosives, and work went ahead. It had never occurred to the old custodian, or for that matter his mates, that a stray ember from his cookstove fire could have sent him off on his final celestial journey!

I was eventually accepted into the community, when I returned some months later with a wife, this transformed me from a seemingly always covered in dust individual to a responsible citizen. There were even people years later, who expressed surprise that I was the same person who had spent those few early months covered in dust and grease, running along the beach, or driving a load of crushed gravel out to the various stacking points on the Island roads. There was also the stranger who lived in a caravan at the local sports ground at the same time, and was never seen during the daylight hours, and only glimpsed at odd times running back and forth around the town.

One amusing sidelight of this later years recognition, came about through Barbara giving me a wristwatch when I first knew her. I had never worn a watch, as I never seemed to need one, and as a mechanic, I had found that something strapped to your wrist was always getting entangled at the worst possible moment. Anyhow I had this new watch and as I was forever being asked, 'Where is your watch?' I had taken to wearing it, but it almost always finished up in the top pocket of my mechanic's overalls out of harm's way – but eventually it just disappeared one day without a trace!

One of my daily problems with the crushing was a gravity chute that was prone to blockage at times, and when this occurred it was my practice to stop feeding stone, and straddle the offending chute, and pushing the stone downwards by hand, sometimes lifting the blocked chute bodily and dropping it on to it's support structure to get the stone moving. So one day years later I had a customer bring his car into my panel beating shop for repairs, and we got to talking, and he was surprised to find that I was the same guy who used to run the crushing plant some years ago, and his next remark was, ' Did you ever lose a wrist watch?' Seems that he had a load of crushed stone delivered for his new home foundations and found this long string of little cogs and stuff held together by the mainspring! He hung it on a nail in his machinery shed, and it was still there it seemed! The watch had fallen out of my top pocket as I bent over the problem chute and straight through the secondary crusher, which was a roller crushing device! He later gave it back to me, but Barbara wasn't impressed!

Reducing solid rock down to screenings appears a pretty dusty and boring business to the average person, who gives it little thought, but as with any occupation, there is job satisfaction involved, and being in the machinery side of the operation, and being able to design and build something that will withstand the enormous strains, impacts and vibrations, and keep the dust and grit out of wearing surfaces, is a challenge at all times. No breakdowns and the good tally at the end of each day's work, which is reflected in a substantial pay packet at the end of the week, kept me in the business and it's related operations for 43 years!