Tuesday morning and 0600 found me standing in the street outside Chris and Shirley's place waitng for Didier to arrive in a taxi to start our field trip. They arrived on time and the first stage was out to McMinn's Lagoon to the home and farm of my friend Mike. There we met up with his wife Chris (Mike was away on a job in WA) and she gave us the keys to Mike's truck and a memory stick with all the pictures I needed to complete the presentation Mike and I had scheduled for the next day at the conference in Darwin.
As the sun came up we set off in the truck (Toyota Land Cruiser, FWD tray back V8 diesel) and headed south down the Stuart Highway. Breakfast was at the BP station at Adelaide River (100km south), a real throw back to the old days at work with OSS. When, after 200 km, we reached Pine Creek we turned left onto the Kakadu Highway and into the southern end of Kakadu Park.
Dider and the truck at the edge of the valley
A short stop at the ranger station to tell them we were on a site visit and to pass on the day's paper (NT News - an old tradition from the days when I doing regular work visists at the sites).
Then we drove down into the South Alligator Valley and began looking at some of the sites. There were 13 uranium mines in the valley in the 50s and 60s which were abandoned when the wrok finished and one of my last jobs at OSS was planning their remediation. Mike has been managing the design and construction phase of the programme and this year we hope all the work will finally be finished. We started in 1999 so it has been a long haul.
Our first stop in the valley was the old homestead built in 1953 by Joe Callanan. Joe was a cattle farmer who noticed soem mineralisation in rocks on a hill at his station. He thought it was copper but in June 1953 a geologist identified the first uranium deposit and the site was named Coronation Hill, the native name is Guratba. This was one of the 13 uranium mines that were worked over the following 10-15 years.
The homestead - a bijou country residence indeed!
The first sites were an old cleared area and then the location of the final disposal site which will be built this year. At Guratba we walked up the hill a little way to look at the progress of the revegetation which had been seeded in 2007. So far it is looking pretty good. Then we drove around to the other side of the hill to get a good distance shot.
Guratba (Coronation Hill) showing revegetation progress
Then a quick look at the South Alligator River at the old Gimbat Stataion Causeway and reminder for Dider about one of the local safety hazards. We did not see a crocodile but you know they are never far away.
South Alligator River at Gimbat crossing
Didier and a croc warning sign - note two types of crocodiles - both bite
Then we drove up to the old mine at Palette for a superb view across the valley - and to see the state of the old site which will get a final clean up during the campaign ths year
Palette mine site
The view across the valley from Palette towards Koolpin Gorge.
We then drove down the valley stopping to look at the old Koolpin minesite,the former uranium mill site at Rockhole and ended up at the Gunlom Waterfall. This was the famous big waterfall seen in the original Crocodile Dundee movie. Of course as it was the dry season there was not too much water flowing over the falls.
Gunlom waterfall
By this time it was getting towards the time to head home after quite a long time in the field. But we stopped off in the old mining town of Pine Creek on the way home to view the former gold mine pit. This is now a water filled void used for fishing and water ski-ing-and another example of Mike's remediation skills in both plannng and execution of the works.
Enterprise pit, Pine Creek.
So we drove home having had a great trip. For Didier a chance to see a unique remediation problem in the uranium mining business; and for me a chance to catch up on a project and an area that had been so much a part of my working life for so many years.
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