Big Blue Sky Mining

I got to thinking about yesteryear,

and recalled a time when I sat on a porch, watching and waiting as a storm approached. Barely sheltered beneath the overhang from the blistering heat of a summers day... 

We were living in Kambalda, a small mining town in Western Australia, of roughly five thousand people, mostly men. The majority were housed in the cell-like barracks of the single mens quarters. Because we were married, we were lucky to have a small house owned by the company, for a nominal rent deducted from our pay check once a month.

The town itself was a little odd in that it was actually two towns, East Kambalda and Kambalda West and lies approximately 380miles inland from Perth, 80miles north of Norseman and 35miles south of Kalgoorlie. The 'claim to fame' of the original town of Red Hill, where East Kambalda now stands, was gold. Percy Larkin, a prospector, discovered in 1897 large shoots/veins of gold that started a goldrush and produced over 30,000 ounces over the next ten years. By 1908, the gold, and the hopeful had long gone, with the land reverting to scrub and bush once more.

Not until 1964, the year I was born, when Western Mining Corporation began an exploratory drilling program to prove up Kambalda's nickel reserves, discovered ten years prior, did the people start to come back. By 1966, full production had begun at Silver Lake Mine, which sparked the great Australian nickel boom of the 60's and made fortunes for some speculators on the stock exchange...and lost fortunes for others.

I don't remember now when Western Mining Corporation began drilling for gold, but I was there in the late 80's when they were.

The people that lived and worked in Kambalda, were without a doubt the hardest working, toughest and some, the most downright ornery SOB's I've ever met in my life! They played hard too, yet were family orientated and loyal. Once you became a member of 'the mining family' you were treated as such and it was something that we all relied on. Especially when times got tough or when someone needed help. A more generous, compassionate, caring and fun-loving bunch of misfits from around Australia and different parts of the world, who were far more than just the people we worked with, I've yet to meet. They were our friends, our neighbors, our extended family. 

For recreation, we had Lake Lefroy on the doorstep. A massive salt lake covering over three hundred square miles, perfect for land yachting and for the optimistic contenders looking to break and set new land speed records.

The first time I saw it, was on the day I arrived. Coming from Kalgoorlie, I came over a rise and saw what appeared to be the ocean spread out before me. It looked breathtaking, with the water glittering so brightly in the sun that I had to squint. It went on forever disappearing into a mirage of shimmering reflected heat.

Yet I soon learnt that most of it though, is only a few inches deep and not even that in the summer. The water would evaporate in the scorching heat and the top would dry to a thick crispy whitish crust that rusted metal like acid. One lesson I never forgot as I learnt it the hard way came at a tough personal cost to my tenderest body parts. Stuck in the bottom of the goldmine pit sampling and cooking in the 48C heat (118F)I watched as the water truck came down the sloping dirt road into the open cast pit, spraying down salt water on the road to lay the dust. Desperate to cool off, I jumped on the running board of the truck as he came closer to where I was and asked the driver if I could get wet. He obliged and I was duly saturated from head to toe and grinned a mile wide at the instant relief. Until I started to dry. An oven-like dry heat that sucked the moisture from your skin, soon had my skin, hair and clothes dry in minutes. But I had forgotten about the HIGH salt content. As I dried while I worked, moving along behind the drill rig and taking samples from different depths, the salt began to crust behind and around the shell of my ears. Between my thighs front and back, under my arms and my neck. It felt like ground glass with every movement, scouring the skin raw over the last hour of my workday until I could barely move from the pain... I learned to rinse off after that in FRESH water.            

There were places we'd swim, left over pit mines, that because they were below the water table, they'd stay filled with salt water and became pit lakes. Some were impossibly deep yet the salt saturation was so high you virtually couldn't sink. Amazing how quickly even the bizarre became normal. It was great for learning to swim in or how to windsurf... Even if it did totally mess with your head.

One day, while heading between jobs, I stopped the ute by the side of the lake and watched the Oils, -the rock band Midnight Oil, do some takes for their music video, Blue Sky Mine... Totally surreal watching this big tall bald man hopping and bopping around on the salt flats, looking for all the world like he were doing a parody of a rain dance. The other members of the band beating their instruments, assistants and the like gathered around and a track had been laid with a rolling train like contraption that a cameraman appeared to use, to pan around them. Fabulous music video and shows a lot from the town too including the Red Hill lookout. The song follows...even better loud!

We also had the local speedway, the horses we kept and rode and the music club. That was fun. A Sunday arvo at our place, would mean a house full of muso's and their instruments surrounding our collective children, as they banged away on drums, triangles, kazoos, whistles and harps. Even a few upturned cooking pots with a wooden spoon or two made a good racket in a pinch. We'd cook a 'few shrimps on the barbie' and jam the day away, until we were hoarse and the little ones had conked out. We were pretty good too! Even did a few gigs at several pubs...

Then there were the incredible places worthy of visiting like the run we did down to Esperance on the Great Australian Bite, with it's perfect, perfect! Empty white sand beaches and waters so clear it was like looking through glass...   

So I sat on the porch after working all day... The heat felt alive, rising up in waves to envelope and exhaust me of energy on contact. It even seemed to displace the very air itself, so hot and dry that it always left me slightly breathless, even after three years of living there. I thought about how that same heat which left my skin and eyeballs parched from the extreme aridity, sucked away any and all moisture, so that I rarely sweat. On this particular day, I was minus my steel cap boots and thick socks, my cargo shorts with every pocket crammed full with tools, bits and bobs, my t-shirt and hardhat. Sitting there in nothing but my bra and knickers, nursing a cold brew in one hand and a cigarette in the other, staring off to the horizon. Watching the storm approach. 

My clothes were littered by the backdoor, the chair I sat back in was old but comfortable and I had propped my legs up and crossed on the wooden railing in front of me. Hadn't even entered the house proper to shower, but had reached through the back door instead, flicked the fridge open and grabbed a beer. My hair, face and body where my work clothes didn't cover, were filthy with a thick layer of red dusty grime from the opencast gold mine pit where I worked.

That day I'd been a sampler, following along after the drill rig, taking samples of ore from each level and bagging them for collection. If you check out the music video at the bottom, you'll see the blasting, where the holes the rigs made, drilled into the rock every few yards or so, were filled with explosives, topped with blasting caps and wired back to an ignition box by the bombing crew, that came in after the samples had all been collected.  

A bit simplistic for sure, as there was no doubt more to it...

It could take them up to a week, just to fill all the holes... and scarcely seconds once rigged, for detonation to complete their work. Then the big trucks would make their way down, with the huge shovel rigs that filled them, to clear away the ore... and the process would begin once more...

Being a sampler was hot, dusty, dirty work with the sun constantly beating down upon my back. It was all I did for the first year. Just about sent me around the twist! Then I was assigned as a Geo assistant for a month when his hadn't turned up and followed him around everywhere instead. Climbing up and over the huge blasted and broken slabs of quartz, carting his charts and paraphernalia, recording notes, taking readings and the like. Maybe he put in a good word for me at the end, because I was rotated regularly to different jobs after that, going wherever I was needed. From lollipop girl, spotting for the trucks where they crossed the road, weighbridge operator, lab assay assistant, truck driver, roller driver, and general dogsbody/go-to/go-fetch/gofer girl... I loved it all! It was great!

I also worked as a barmaid at the local pub, with the longest bar I've ever seen in my life! And I started a bistro at the local golf club and ran that four nights a week.

I guess I'm just one of those people who can't do any one particular thing, exceptionally well, but I can turn my hand to just about anything without too much fuss. Something I've done a lot of over the years. Lucky for me, it was a 'skill' that was recognized and utilized by WMC accordingly and I was grateful because it kept my job interesting.

But right then. At that moment. I waited for the rain...

The storm had been steadily rolling in for the last few hours. To the east it was still cloudless, sunny and HOT. But to the southwest and coming swiftly closer was a dense black and purple wall that stretched for miles, flashing with fire and brimstone. It tickled me no end that one half of my vista, was bright day yet held the same space as the other half, dark as night. A false night perhaps, but thrilling, terrifying and majestic in it's fury... 

And then it was suddenly here. Everything was black now. I could smell ozone in the air, felt the soft hairs on my body rise erect with static electricity moments before a huge jagged bolt of lightening ripped through the roiling, churning blackness to strike at the earth, with an impact that I felt from where I sat. My eyes had gone 'funny' from the flash, I could literally feel the drop in temperature as it swiftly plummeted and the first fat drops of rain thunked on the corrugated iron roof in a quickening rata-tat-tat-tat. Then... like the breaching of a dam, the deluge poured down in an unbroken torrent, instantly soaking and darkening the dried and dusty red earth. The sound of it swirling around me was a deafening roar...

I stood in the rain with my head back and eyes closed, my underwear instantly drenched and plastered to my body. Holding my hands up level with my chest, the cupped palms were overflowing in a heartbeat as I opened myself completely to the moment. Reveling in the maelstrom. In the absolute chaos and pandemonium of the moment. The sweat, the dust and grown in red dirt of the desert and even the bone deep tiredness were dissolved in an instant. Washing me clean in the blink of an eye. 

It felt incredible. Rejuvenating. Invigorating.

Must have looked a sight, standing in in that storm with the lightening and thunder booming and flashing all around me. The rain was easing and catching movement, I looked back towards the porch where my husband stood with his arms and legs crossed leaning against the wooden post watching me. We grinned at one another no doubt for different reasons. He, because his mad wife was laughing like a loon and standing out in a storm and me, because I couldn't resist the magic of it. And just like that...the storm had passed.

Within moments, the sky brightened once again as the black mass moved off as quickly as it had come towards the north east. The landscape around me settled heavily into a wall of rising heat making the soaked earth steam and shimmer. The deafening cacophony of cicadas restarted and apart from the steady drips that fell from the eaves, it was like it had never been. 

I knew that there'd be wildflowers everywhere soon, orchids and the spectacular kangaroo paw, milkmaid,  poached egg daisies, blue pincushion, pink mulla mulla, orange immortelle, acacia, hakea and Sturt's desert pea. Transforming the red brown scrub land into a virtual paradise overnight.

Nowhere else I have lived since, has compared to the night skies. So clear and filled with stars that seemed close and bright enough to reach out and touch, without the lights from a nearby city to mar their splendor. Or for the storms we experienced. For their staggering fury, the sheer unbelievable intensity...and yet their brevity as well. When living in that teeny tiny town, in the middle of nowhere...