Some Snippets from Noel Barrett (continued)

Going on the round trip to Broome and Halls Creek was usually an adventure. Firstly there was the 2 am flight from Port Hedland to Broome, some sleep from 3.30 to 7 am if the key was left in the pub room door, then to work on the Broome WF2 radar, etc, that day. I then tried to catch up on some sleep before boarding the 3 am flight Broome to Derby the next morning. From about 4 am, sleeping or sitting in an old flywire enclosed terminal shed with bench seats at Derby, being eaten by midges, I then waited to catch the Twin Otter aircraft to Halls Creek via Fitzroy Crossing, Mount House or Koolan Island, etc, getting to Halls Creek at about 12.30 or 3 pm depending upon the route. I then got down to work on the radar, etc. Thank goodness the return trip was always better. Also, when the new DCA/Bureau building was opened at Derby, we could sleep in the Bureau OIC's office.

One of my most hair-raising activities was bringing one of the Bureau's cars, a Holden, back from Broome to Port Hedland on the old unsealed road after it was recovered having been stolen. Every time the car was braked it went into a sideways skid down the road; very hairy.

At about this time, late 1971, Allan Manson arrived in Port Hedland as a Radio Technician and we became responsible for AWS maintenance. This involved going away on the lighthouse ship Cape Don for three to six weeks at a time to service the AWS at Adele Island, Ashmore Reef, Rowley Shoals and Browse Island. The ship was usually boarded in Darwin although on one trip I flew from Port Hedland to Kununurra and then by light plane to Wyndham for the night before flying to Troughton Island off the Kimberley coast the next morning. A cyclone had just gone through the place and it was as rough as guts. Troughton Island, a shipping RDF (radio direction finding) base with two lightkeepers and their families, had a very interesting airstrip. Getting on board the Cape Don in the heavy seas was rather difficult, however, we made it. Since I had run out of smokes I got some from the purser. I lit up, and immediately rushed for the side of the ship and lost breakfast. I gave up smoking at that stage for some years. We had trouble with parts of these AWS being stolen, particularly at Ashmore Island where, for example, the copper wiring to the batteries was missing along with other odd bits. Working on these AWS in their hot huts with no air flow certainly kept the weight down. I remember that because of the ship's movements we only had a day at any AWS where there was no lighthouse or RDF beacons but that we had up to three days at any AWS where these other facilities existed. Interesting places those islands; hundreds of sea snakes at Ashmore Island and plenty of scorpions at Browse Island.

Bureau of Meteorology