My life story, Henry J Macey [books for 20 year olds .TXT] 📗

I had mentioned gravel pits before, they were used to repair the dirt roads. They could be found alongside the roads all over Australia, the depth of them varied as to the amount found. In the wet, they would fill with water, a handy watering hole for animals and a cooling off place for humans. Because of the red dust, they were always murky, you could never tell how deep they were.

We were travelling north one very hot day just after a rainstorm had gone through the area. Because of the heat, we were driving in our underpants. Fifty feet from the road Don spied a very tempting pool of water. He pulled over and was halfway to the pool before I got out of the truck. I tried to shout a warning to check the depth! But he had already launched himself into the air. His arms outstretched, his feet together with the arched back he held his body in the classic swallow dive. Pity they always ended in a belly flop. When the water fell back his shoulders and red covered buttocks were visible above the water, which was only six inches deep. Don wore that gravel rash for quite a while.

At the bottom of the estate where they had dug the trench for the pipe was a large flat area the council had designated as a playing field. Several of us approached the council and asked if we could form a football club and use the field as our base. We would build a clubhouse from timber and plant the grass. The council said they would build a brick building for all to use, but they would let us plant the grass. We put an advert in the local paper to inform those living in the area that we wanted to start the football club for youngsters. There was a great response and we had teams from under-fives to fifteens.

One weekend we got all the parents together on the field to plant grass, which we had gathered from the riverbanks. And spent many weeks watering it until it covered the field completely.

Training the teams to get them ready to play their first games was done away from the field in back gardens. When all was ready we arrived at the field to play our first game to find a hockey game in progress. It came to pass the council had given them permission to play on the field as well. It was all settled and we got a roster worked out, for the use of the field.

We got our teams registered in the league, but there was a shortage of referees, so I became one. Roy Bell became a trainer and had many comments about my dark glasses and white stick. But that did not harm our friendship.

Having been on the Wittenoom freezer for almost a year we had never been held up and always got home by Saturday noon until one trip took us seven days to complete. It started as all the rest had, but as we drove up between Panes Find and Meeka a cyclone came inshore north of Meeka. It dropped heavy rain for hundreds of miles inland.

When we arrived at our depot at Meeka we were told that the road was to be closed. After unloading we walked up to the flying doctor's office, to see if there was anything for us to take when we got going. They had several packages of medicine for some stations they could not deliver because their landing strips were waterlogged.

So we decided to speak to the police and find out what the situation was. They were not too sure of the full extent of the flooding. Munderwindy had radioed to say the road that ran past them was boggy but had a firm base. Some stations had said no problem others had reported flooded roads. The only way to find out was to go and look.

We said we had plenty of food and water if we got bogged down we could eat out of the freezer. There was a discussion between our depot manager the police and the flying doctor as to the benefits of letting us go. They persuaded the police that we had the only real hope.

A car would never make it if the mud on the road was too deep. With our twin drive axles and two-foot clearance, we could drive our way through as long as we had traction. The flying doctor would radio our first drop with our ETA. They would radio back and so on. So we got our truck loaded with the medical supplies in the chiller part of the freezer and got going.

Therdoner copper mine was clear, as were the first few stations some being quite a way off the main highway. We were met at the entrances by the owners. We were also met by some we did not deliver to; they give us a mail to post on. It was not until we had driven a hundred miles or so north of Meeka that we ran into damp conditions.

By the time we got to Munderwindy we were down to a snail's pace and leaving deep ruts in the road. Arriving well after dark at Mt. Newman, after being bogged down for two hours and having to dig out our wheels for maybe a hundred yards we were half a day behind time.

The cook and his crew turned out to unload us and cooked us a meal. It was twenty miles back to the main road, all tarmac, so we drove to the end and parked on it for a three-hour sleep to wait for sunup. It turned out to be a good move, half an hour after we got going in the morning Don topped a rise and stopped.

In front of us was a puddle, you could see the road rising out of it maybe five miles in the distance. The roads were normally raised above the surrounding land by a foot or so. We could see the fence posts running in a straight-line ether side of the road. Being four feet high, you could tell the depth of the water by how high it was up the posts.

We judged it was only two feet at most. Don slowly drove into it keeping the truck in the middle of the posts and therefore on the road. In low gear, we made a steady bow wave as we crept forward keeping everything that could be crossed, Crossed! Climbing out of the water we gave a sigh of relief, half a mile up the road we found we were bogged down again. So it was out with the shovels and the two twenty-ton jacks, and a large slab of wood, once again.

Working with the two jacks, under one side of a drive axle we would raise it as high as we could. Then digging the soft mud from under it we would fill the trench with stone, brushwood plus anything we could find to give a firm base. Lowering the axle several times to pack it down, then refilling it until we were satisfied.

Then on to the next axle until all the wheels had been done. A trench between the drive and steering axle would be dug and filled, plus in front of the truck as far as we thought necessary. In this way, we worked our way out of the boggy area. While we were doing this we heard a light aircraft approaching. As it flew over us we recognised it as the aircraft from Wittenoom. It circled waggling its wings and then flew off in the direction of Wittenoom.

It was well into the night when we pulled up at Ethel Creek's entrance. There were a tractor and trailer parked across it. The road must have been too bad for us to go in, not being laid down to the standard of the main road it would be soft under our wheels. Deciding to wait until morning to unload their goods, we were about to get our heads down when we saw lights coming along the road.

It turned out to be a tractor from the station. They had been looking out for us and had seen our lights coming down the highway. So we loaded their goods onto the tractors and rode into Ethel Creek with them. From there we radioed the flying doctor at Meeka and reported on the condition of the road so far. We were taken back to our truck and had a sleep until dawn. The road was drying out fast with the hot sun beating down on it, but we still left ruts as we broke through the hard crust. Two hours after sunup we saw the light aircraft from Wittenoom flying towards us again following the line of the road. As it approached the pilot wiggled the wings and banked did three hundred and sixty degrees turn around us, then flew down the road a short distance. He turned and came back to fly parallel to us as low and as slow as he could then headed back to his stable.

By the time we got to Roy Hill the road was bone dry and showed no sign that there had been raining this far up, so it was full steam ahead for Wittenoom. As we pulled onto the tarmac strip to run into Wittenoom, twenty-eight hours behind schedule there were several cars parked on either side of the road flashing their lights and blowing their horns. The occupants cheered and waved as we passed, then pulled on to the road to follow us into town.

The first thing I wanted to do was ring Jane to let her know we would not be home on Saturday. She informed me that she already knew because it had been on the news. It appears a reporter picked up on all the radio traffic between the stations and flying doctor and as there was nothing else happening had turned it into a news story.

He had been in the aircraft that we had seen, and had taken photographs of us digging ourselves out of the boggy area. The road was closed for two weeks until the main roads department declared it fit for use. We could only go as far as the copper mine at Therdouna. This was only a part of our run, they flew Mt Newman's essentials by air.

Tom Price Paraburdoo and Wittenoom were supplied by adding a trailer to the Dampier freezer run. We did not know it then but the Wittenoom freezer’s days were numbered. The revelations about blue asbestos closed the mine at Wittenoom almost overnight and the town started to die.

Mt Newman was growing fast and was given its own freezer run. As it had to pass most of the drops we did on the