In the trenches



You never know what you might find

 

Take a gamble on a track you have never been down before. For example the one kilometre track South to Fraser Range station on the Eyre Highway. The track winds itself into a valley surrounded by rugged, bare hills. You will come to a garden where the bougainvilleas are blooming profusely, you are greeted by the southerly wind in the mint trees and galahs are cutting through the air, screeching. Rough Aussie, colonial style outbuildings dot the valley where you can spend the night in stone cottages or there are more basic mining style quarters you can crash for the night. If you have rocked up with a caravan or a tent you’re in luck because the park has great camping facilities, powered sites, clean ablution blocks and a massive fire pit visitors gather round to tell their life story.

 

The garden with the Bogans in full bloom

If you are a semi-grey nomad you could even take a chance and ask for a job and get it. The next couple of episodes will describe some of the work that we were doing on the station.

The weather closing in

There are many ways to get fit or to flog yourself to fight the bulge. One way of physical torture I hadn’t quite experienced yet is the art of digging. One morning the station owner gathered all the boys together and gave us all shovels, picks, massive crow bars and rakes. The more skilled workers jumped on machinery called Kangas, Front end-loaders and plain and simple diggers. A network of trenches for gas pipes are to be dug around the caravan park and outbuildings of Fraser Range caravan park. This kind of blokey work is completely foreign to me usually done by workman or those men who do real work for a living. Guys with suntans, beards and long hair that you see on the side of the road leaning on shovels smoking fags. I pretty soon found out why they are leaning on their shovels. It is to wait for their spine to reassemble after collapsing in a thousand pieces. Good Lord.

 

The battle field with some of my handy work on display

Out of self defense I quickly learnt the hand signals required to work with a fully loaded front end loader thrashing its way towards the trench where at the bottom you are the guy directing this monstrosity with a massive shovel of allergy inducing red dust.  Hand signal ‘Stop’ is required at the exact moment the bucket hangs above your head in the trench. Hand signal ‘Turning Knob’ to tilt shovel down and start dropping red dust in the trench. Oh yes! Please move to the side and out of the way of the cascading rubble before turning the knob. Make sure the driver can see you and your little ‘Stop’ hand signal when there is enough rubble in the trench so that you wont have to use your puny shovel for spreading dirt more than you want to. You get to lean on that shovel for a couple of seconds before the loader is back with the next back-breaking load.

 

A scoop in action

Towards the end of three heavy days in the trenches and being shelled by loaded buckets the heavens opened up and large drops of rain mixed itself with red dirt and workmen as if whipping up a lumpy custard. Our boots became heavy with caked tennis rackets of dirt stuck to the soles of our shoes. We struggled on through the torrential down-pour as if nothing happened until I caught site of my front-end bomber trying to wipe down his front windscreen while mumbling “I can’t see a f…g thing”. This is when again, out of self defense,  I initiated a bold move and defiantly climbed out of my trench facing a possible battle with the enemy in the digger. I flung my shovel away in disdain when at that precise moment I heard the foreman yell out from his trench “that’s enough of this shit boys” and we were encouraged to get out of the rain before we would catch pneumonia. I was more worried about being buried alive and being found by a surprised archeologist 2000 years later.  “A curious primitive burial ritual from around the year 2000” would have been his or her conclusion.

A bleak resting place

 

On my way to the shower I noticed everything I touched with feet or hands had dollops of mud attached to it. I stood under the shower and the water turned that orangey, red that surrounds us at Fraser Range. A great day out with the boys. Now, where are my fags??

Grey Bits

Stay away from the area behind any moving machinery as the driver doesn’t have a clear view of what’s behind him.

Josh an awesome station hand in action

Working windscreen wipers would be handy.

Now I understand why manual labourers wear hi-vis clothing.

 

I can see clearly now

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