Blue sky biohazard
Australia: blue skies, big open brown spaces, lots and lots of minerals and one particularly nasty one. Chrysotile was once mined to make asbestos – a popular, cheap housing material used in Australia in the 50s, 60s and 70s. It's now widely known that asbestos is highly toxic and leads to nasty lung related diseases, including cancer. The mine site was in Wittenoom; a town by the same name servicing the workers of what was a booming industry. But since discovering the hazardous effects of asbestos, Wittenoom has been deserted. Situated in the Pilbara region in northern Western Australia the area still appeals to many travellers – and quite rightly. The gorges and waterfalls of nearby Karijini National Park are naturally spectacular. Iconic 80s Australian rock band, Midnight Oil released the album Blue Sky Mining in 1987, featuring a track, Blue Sky Mine which cut to the core of the mining industry and made Wittenoom infamous. Its lyrics still resonate with miners and their families who've lobbied their incredibly wealthy ex-employers for justice and compensation to cover medical costs and damages.
"So I'm caught at the junction still waiting for medicine - The sweat of my brow keeps on feeding the engine - Hope the crumbs in my pocket can keep me for another night... And the company takes what the company wants - And nothing's as precious - As a hole in the ground..."
Where as once curiosity may have seen you risk a side trip to Wittenoom it's no longer possible. It doesn't exist. It has been decommissioned, taken off the maps, the electricity – switched off. As an interesting aside, if the Labor party (currently in opposition) wins government at the Australian election this weekend, then ex-Oils frontman, Peter Garrett (member for Kingsford Smith) will be the new Minister for the Environment. It will be interesting to see if he stays true to his activist roots.
My relationship to Wittenoom has to do with another hazard entirely. Age 9, on the round-Australia trip in our Toyota Hiace, we stopped at Hamersley Gorge in the Kimberley with hopes of a pleasing swim. Eager, my brother and I set off, in thongs, on a goat track to descend into the gorge - overlooking an official walking track further along the ridge. I took a tumble and sliced open an 8cm wound on my leg. Blood everywhere, I scrambled back to the top where aghast, Mum and Dad strapped up my leg and fanged it the 50 minute drive to the nearest town – then Wittenoom. When we arrived at the medical centre/hospital, it was closed, so we buzzed for nurse who drove in from around an hour away. She used butterfly clips to secure the wound and disinfected it, but it was only arriving in Port Hedland days later I could have it stitched. I hobbled around what was left of the North West of Western Australia, hotter and bothered than ever before.
Hot. Damn hot. And hazardous indeed.