Australia's most unlikely tourist destination

MARALINGA

When nuclear tests took place in the Great Victoria Desert 70 years ago, the program was shrouded with secrecy. Today, Maralinga shares its story, so Grant and Linda join a tour to uncover some of its secrets.

It was a full day behind the wheel as we pulled into one of Ceduna’s caravan parks to call it a night. We were back on the road the next morning at a reasonable hour after a quick pack up and refuel for the 79 before heading west. After driving for nearly 180 kilometres on the blacktop, we reached the Maralinga turn-off. There was no signpost to be found here (which we later learned is intentional to avoid unwanted visitors), so the instructions we had came in handy. Making our way north, we reached the Trans-Australian Railway line at Ooldea by late morning. The railway story is a long and interesting one as it originally began back in 1917, spanning a considerable distance from Kalgoorlie through to Port Augusta. Some centenary celebrations were held at Ooldea in 2017 and the commemoration memorial made a good spot for our lunch stop. It’s also a place where we got phone service as well.

Australia’s most unlikely tourist destination BY GRANT & LINDA HANAN

A short distance away we found another memorial belonging to Daisy Bates. Daisy spent well over a decade living at Ooldea while conducting welfare work with local aboriginals. While some would say her work was controversial, she was awarded a CBE in 1935 and lived to the ripe old age of 91. It was time to continue so it was back on the road to push on. Maralinga is a total of almost 400km north-west of Ceduna. We reached Maralinga’s entrance and were stopped dead in our tracks by some high cyclone fencing that’s topped with a few runs of barbed wire and locked double gates. If that wasn’t enough of a deterrent to say it’s a no-go zone, a large sign to our left indicated we’d arrived at a former nuclear test site. I don’t think we’re alone when saying we were never taught anything about what happened at Maralinga while growing up. Everything about the place had always been hushhush. It was only through a family friend whose husband worked at Maralinga that I learnt of this strange place. As it turned out, his life was cut short through cancer years ago. And although it was never proven, the family always blamed his time at Maralinga for that. As we’ve gotten older and reflect more on things, it was just one of those places we wanted to visit if we ever got the chance. Knowing the site was off limits to the public until around 10 years ago, we knew tours had become increasingly popular as the word got out. Now was the time to make it happen. Another reason for our visit was to experience more of Len Beadell’s work. We’ve managed to travel many of his outback roads and tracks over the years, with Maralinga the hub of his work so to speak.

But from what we’d already experienced, it was clear a Maralinga visit isn’t the type of destination where you can simply drop in. Pulling up at those ominous locked gates made that loud and clear. While nuclear testing ceased around half a century ago, we’d heard security is still tight. So jumping on a tour with Maralinga Tours is the only way you’re able to experience the place. Having booked our tour some weeks earlier, it includes everything you need to visit. The tour covers site directions, road permits, an escorted group tour, plus camping in the village. On the day, Robin Matthews was our guide for the tour. He played a massive part at Maralinga for decades and knew the place better than most. We’d pre-arranged a time to meet Robin at the gates and we didn’t have to wait long. We spotted his troopy bobbing along in the distance before eventually pulling up to a stop on the other side of the gates. After a short meet and greet, Robin pulled out a bundle of keys to unlock the gates and we drove through

That’s the end of the line unless you’ve pre-arranged a tour. before they were locked again behind us. Back in his vehicle, we followed Robin to the village along a 60-plus year old bitumen road that is still in remarkably good condition. As we drove through the village, it was a bit of a concrete jungle. There were plenty of slabs to be seen where many buildings once were. We all pulled up next to a large building which turned out to be the camping amenities block. Next door there was a camp kitchen, and these buildings are all surrounded by large concrete slabs. Robin explained many of the buildings had been sold off during the clean-up and have received a new lease of life on stations and in towns further south.

... the concrete slabs are a metre thick!

No complaints about this campsite!

But he also tells us the concrete slabs are a We made our way over to the basketball metre thick! Seriously? The British probably and tennis courts that funnily enough still had a good reason they needed to be this had their rings and nets. And we were way, but we had no idea why when the quite surprised to find patchy mobile phone buildings were only lightweight aluminium. coverage at the old swimming pool site It turns out the British government didn’t do given Maralinga’s remote location. things by halves and spent big money in One of the more substantial buildings in the all directions. Besides erecting a range of village that’s still in use is the old hospital buildings and quarters for up to 2,000 staff, complex. After being de-commissioned the village had its own cinema, church, it was used as living quarters and office barber shop, basketball and tennis courts. space by the commonwealth police. These And all of this in the desert. But wait for days it’s the site caretaker’s home. Another it … the village also had an Olympic sized of the original village buildings is now swimming pool that was put in well before being used as a museum. A variety of items the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne! from the site were on display that have After Robin had given us the rundown been collected over the years. Detailed of the place, we went about setting up maps, photos and other memorabilia camp. We were here for a couple of nights also adorned the walls, so it was a good and there was no shortage of concrete slabs to choose from. The village had some well-kept amenities that included hot showers and toilets plus a free washing machine for visitor use. That’s not something we see too often. The camp kitchen comes with a gas BBQ and close by was a communal firepit with wood provided. With setting up done and dusted, the rest of the afternoon was free to look around the village. Bits and pieces that are now on display in the museum.

opportunity to get familiar with the site in general. But it was the old cinema footage playing that we really found interesting. We watched several short films and documentaries that shared all sorts of info about Maralinga’s history. Watching these really turned out to be a good pre-cursor to the formal tour with Robin. The tour started early the following morning with Robin pulling up with the bus. Around a dozen of us piled in before heading off to the village airport. All of us entered the terminal building and found it contained dozens of old-school-style kerosene lamps that were originally used to light up the runway. There was plenty to read on the walls here as well with a mix of signs and posters. Numerous storyboards provided interesting information about Maralinga while Robin brought the stories to life and answered any questions. It was then a short walk outside to the runway which was still in very good nick. That really came as no surprise, when Robin explained, “The touchdown pads at either end are built on five metres of reinforced concrete!” Back in the day up to 30 planes used the airstrip each day during testing. Maralinga’s airstrip is also one of the longest in the southern hemisphere. That too came as no surprise when learning the runway had been registered as a backup should the US space shuttle of the day ever need to land. Just behind the terminal complex sat an old troop carrier. But this was far from your average troopy as it had been heavily modified. Apparently, there were a number of troopies that had been modified like this one and used to check the site’s radiation levels during one of the clean-ups. It was back in the bus to our next stop - Lough Mackew. A strange name for the village’s water catchment area, but nonetheless it was a real oasis. British engineers had designed the site’s airstrip to include stormwater drains on its edges to collect water runoff. This in turn flowed into the dam. After having some time to settle, the water was syphoned off and pumped into water tanks back at the village. Our bus made another stop at a well named after the explorer, William Tietkens. He initially supported explorer Ernest Giles on his central Australia expedition in the mid 1870s. William then went on to lead his own expedition a decade later through the land where Maralinga lies. That was his last big stint in SA before moving to NSW shortly

A heavily modified troopy used during site clean-up.

Maralinga’s water catchment area.

afterwards to take up a surveying position with the Department of Lands. But it’s Len Beadell’s name that people most associate with Maralinga. And there were many things we experienced that could be attributed to him in some shape or form. Things like survey markers, the village layout, access roads and detonation site locations were all some of Len’s handiwork. And examples of his gunbarrel, dead straight road building style could be seen everywhere we went. The roads are still in extremely good condition even though they were laid more than half a century ago. From here, much of the tour focuses on the Maralinga Forward Area. This is an area about 30 kilometres north of the village, where nearly a dozen major atomic bomb trials and hundreds of smaller test explosions were conducted. These major trials were designed to explode nuclear devices and used different techniques to record their effects. Some of the trials had bombs detonated from purpose-built 31-metrehigh towers. Others were detonated at ground level, air dropped, or 300 metres up in the air from a balloon.

Glass remnants found at a detonation site.

We came across a few of these during the tour. Size-wise, bombs ranged between one kiloton to a mind blowing 27 kilotons. For a bit of comparison, this is almost twice the size used at Hiroshima! With Robin behind the wheel, the tour bus stopped at the various ground zero sites which are all marked with concrete plinths. A few fragments of twisted steel can be seen here and there, but anything else that survived the blasts was buried during clean-ups. During the tour, we were shown a couple of massive pits that are scattered around the site where radiation level warning signage is displayed. We also saw areas where elements of the landscape are devoid of growing anything substantial. A stop at the Breakaway detonation site highlighted how hot things got when an area was scattered with sand that had been melted into glass. One of our group pulled out a Geiger counter to check radiation levels at Breakaway and the other detonation sites. I think he alleviated any concerns the group had about leaving with a “glow” after saying we’d be exposed to more radiation when travelling on a commercial aeroplane. As the day was drawing to a close, our last site visit was to the Tufi detonation site. Whilst the site had been prepared for another major test, the signing of the nuclear disarmament treaty made this detonation site redundant. This in turn was the end of Maralinga and cut its life short after only 10 years. By the time we arrived back at the village in the late afternoon there were ominous black clouds looming overhead. It was time to bunker down. The skies opened later that evening with a heavy downpour and spectacular light show lasting about 90 minutes. By morning the skies had cleared and everything dry again as we packed up. So the entire Maralinga concept turned out to be a very expensive exercise in more ways than one. Clean-up of the site began as early as 1964, but there were all sorts of issues with that. Some years later in 1985, a royal commission report found radiation

Aerial shot of the site at Tufi. Photo: Tim Froling

levels were still dangerous. Another 10 years passed by before the Australian Government decided to proceed with a rehabilitation project that cost $100m+. A group of scientists specialising in radiation management plus a rehabilitation advisory committee were put in place to oversee the project. It took five years to complete the project before the site was declared safe in all areas except two. Finally in 2009, this section of land was handed to the Maralinga Tjarutja organisation, who now manages it on behalf of the Anangu people.

Visiting Maralinga was a tour we didn’t want to end. The time went far too quick, and we still wanted to learn more. To Robin’s credit, he never glossed over the stories about the British, Australian and Indigenous connection to Maralinga, and he answered all sorts of questions the group threw at him that no doubt helped us get the most out of the tour. While plenty of books and documentaries have been published about Maralinga, it’s fair to say we’ll never know the entire story. But what is clear, is that the cost has been enormous … in terms of health, environment, and the public’s attitude towards the government and the role it played. Maralinga’s story is one every Australian should be aware of. While we might have only scratched the surface on this tour, we’ve come away with a greater knowledge of this turbulent chapter in Australia’s history.

INFORMATION BAY

LOCATION

Maralinga is located 400km northwest of Ceduna in South Australia on the edge of the Great Victorian Desert. It’s remote, so be prepared. High clearance vehicles are recommended.

WHAT TO BRING

You need to carry enough fuel for the return journey, plus bring your own food and camp gear (no alcohol permitted). Mobile phone coverage is limited once leaving the Eyre Highway until reaching the crossing of the Trans-Australian Railway Line at Ooldea (an hour’s drive from Maralinga). There’s patchy mobile service within the village. TOUR BOOKINGS

Maralinga Tours runs tours a couple of times a week during April to October. Bookings are essential and the package includes the tour, entry permits and camping fees. MARALINGA ACCESS

The tour booking includes a permit to travel the most direct route from Ceduna to Maralinga. Travelling any other route to Maralinga while passing through Maralinga Tjarutja Lands (MT) requires an additional permit. WANT TO KNOW MORE?

Contact Maralinga Tours maralingatours.com.au Mobile: 0427 581 341