We followed the road for six hundred miles, there were no turnings off except one in all that length . The South Australian desert seemed endless.
We eventually landed at Maralinga on a newly constructed runway with new buildings and workshops, we were impressed to see it all, but we were not allowed to hang about, a peppery little sergeant directed us to a waiting vehicle, and we were driven to the camp, there were quite a few buildings, offices and stores mostly. But there were three messes, an officers mess, a seargeants mess and an airmans mess, all of the buildings were temporary- corrugated iron roofs and walls, which could get hot enough to burn any unprotected skin. We reported for duty and were allocated a small two man tent each. My tent was located at the end of a long row, there were about three hundred tents I believe, Gordon's tent was located at the opposite side to mine, he was required to work in the decontamination unit, I was to work in the cookhouse- a humble cook's assistant. I grew to love cooking and still do! At that time all national sevice men were only allotted assistant trades, that was ok by me, I loved to eat as well as the next man! Working in the mess was unbearably hot during the day, but pleasant enough at night. The Australian food was excellent, and there was plenty of it. One thing that surprised me was the size of the potatoes, you only got about thirty to a hundred weight, and they were often hollow, caused by the rapid growing season and the sudden start of the dry season. I had the tent to myself. Almost! During the night, a large Iguana-which lived under the duckboards in my tent- would come out of his hole and climb up the side of my tent, between the actual tent and the fly sheet, then it would slide down the other side. this was repeated half a dozen times every night! Some times I used to drop pieces of meat down for it. Then I discovered that there were other less welcome guests! So I stopped feeding them. The first night that I slept there I was puzzled to see a great pile of blankets on the bed, thirteen in all, I thought that must be for two beds. That night when I lay down to sleep, I only used one blanket, the night was reasonably warm at that time, I woke up later feeling cold, and added another blanket. This process continued until I had all of the blankets on my bed. The night time temperature plummetted almost to freezing! One morning when we were off duty after working all night, I and my friends climbed the one hundred foot high water tower to sunbathe. Big mistake, the silver painted tank grew hotter until by ten 'oclock it was too hot to touch, fortunately we had a blanket each, but decending a one hundred foot tower when all the metalwork, including the steel ladder is too hot to touch is a tricky and dangerous pastime! More anon.
