by Matt Wright
* * *
After working on Lenny’s station for a summer, I landed a job working in maintenance up in Kings Canyon Resort, in the Northern Territory. There was a downside to my newfound appetite to succeed. I was determined to prove myself stronger, faster, fitter and generally better than everyone else. In the macho culture of the outback, that sort of attitude was always going to land me in a few dust-ups.
Just like at school, I was always puffing out my chest at anyone who gave me shit or looked at me the wrong way. The difference up at Kings Canyon was the size of my opponents. I was coming up against a lot of seriously tough blokes who had seen jacked-up little pricks a hundred times before. I took more than a few hidings.
Fighting wasn’t my only problem – I hadn’t shaken off the bad-boy behaviour of my schooldays. There was one bloke working at the resort who really pissed me off. Our paths crossed every time I was rostered in the bar in the restaurant, which happened from time to time. I haven’t got a very good reason for doing what I did to the bloke – he just struck me as a little snivelling backstabber who was always dobbing staff in to management. When he whispered under his breath that I didn’t have a clue how to serve a drink, I decided to teach him a lesson.
To get around the resort, most of us had our own bicycles. This bloke was no different. He owned the latest model, top-of-the-line mountain bike. He absolutely cherished the thing. If I wanted to piss him off the best way was to mess with his bike.
So, in the dead of night, I crept out of my bedroom and went to the maintenance store to get a pair of bolt-cutters and a length of rope. Then I walked to the resort’s bike rack. After cutting the bloke’s bike free, I wheeled it quietly out to one of the resort’s tennis courts. I stopped underneath one of the light towers there and looked up.
The light tower was a 10-metre pole crowned with a large, overhanging lamp that jutted out about a metre at a right angle. This would work just fine. I attached the rope to the bike and tied the other end around my waist. Then I climbed up the tower with the bike hanging beneath me. The tricky part was hauling myself to the very top of the tower and sitting astride the lamp, one leg dangling either side. I carefully balanced myself while untying the rope around my waist. I then looped the rope around the light tower and tied it fast. Satisfied that the knot would hold, I shimmied back down the pole. Once I was safely on the ground, I looked up. The bike was dangling about a metre below the lamp. I smiled all the way back to bed.
I woke up the next morning to a huge commotion. The fella was livid, convinced that someone had stolen his bike. He started hurling accusations everywhere. All non-essential staff members were sent to look for his bike. It was absolutely ridiculous. You would have thought a terrorist had planted a bomb somewhere. Not that I minded. I loved every minute of it.
Eventually, word came through that the bike had been found. I remember heading out to the tennis court with a couple of others and finding old mate staring up at the bike, mouth agape.
‘How the hell did it get up there?’ he asked.
It took every ounce of restraint not to piss myself laughing. A half-hearted attempt to retrieve the bike was mounted. But it was quickly called off when it was discovered that the resort didn’t have a ladder that could extend high enough to reach the bike.
Management was pissed off, too. Nobody stepped forward to claim responsibility, but everyone knew it was me. I had made no great secret of my dislike for the guy and I was the only person physically capable of doing something like that. Sure enough, a day after the discovery of the bike, Jodie – my boss – called me in to her office.
‘Matty,’ she said, ‘I know it was you.’
I kept quiet.
‘I don’t have any proof that you did it,’ she went on. ‘But I want you to get that bike down. I don’t care how. I just want it down by tomorrow.’
I gave her a half-smile, shrugged and left. That night, I crept back out to the tennis court with a large hunting knife. I looked around to make sure the coast was clear. Then I climbed back to the top of the light tower. I pulled out my knife, and cut the rope. The bike fell like a stone. It didn’t just smash when it hit the ground. It detonated. Wheels, spokes, gears and pieces of the alloy frame went everywhere. The bloke was fuming when he found his bike destroyed. But what could he do? There wasn’t a shred of evidence that connected me to the bike. It was the perfect crime.
* * *
That wasn’t the only bloke I went after. When I discovered one of the resort employees was with my ex-girlfriend, I hosed him down with the hotel’s fire extinguisher in the middle of the night. I didn’t have a right to complain or to be pissed off – I’d broken it off with her. I just didn’t like the idea of someone getting the better of me. I guess I had a few anger issues to work out.
I was pretty fit in those days. I also had a reputation for being a bit of a hothead, so most people kept their distance. But there was one time I picked a fight with the wrong bloke. His name was Shane. He was my best mate out at Kings Canyon and an absolute mad bastard.
Shane was the head chef at the resort. Although he was about 10 years older than me, we hit it off straight away. He wasn’t only a talented cook, he was also interested in fitness. This was a guy who knew how to handle himself in the boxing ring. Shane and I used to train together in the resort’s gym. He taught me how to box and used to slap me around in the process. One time, he let his other training partner loose on me. I was properly stitched up. His name was Steve and he was a full-blown meathead. If you weren’t fighting Steve, you would think he didn’t have a bad bone in his body. He was just a big friendly giant with a heart of gold. If you stirred him up, it was a different story. Steve was genuinely scary.
Shane had us together sparring one day. It was supposed to be a friendly workout. We were throwing half-jabs with barely enough power to bring up a bruise. That was until one of my jabs got Steve on the point of the nose. Steve’s eyes glazed over and his face went bright red. He charged me like a raging bull, throwing these giant haymakers. I was quick, running him around and telling him to calm down. But Steve had lost control. The only thing that would have made him stop is if he’d collapsed with exhaustion or laid me out. Unfortunately for me, Steve was fitter than I’d thought. He landed a beautiful uppercut that lifted me right off the ground. The next thing I remember was Shane standing over me, slapping me gently in the face. Steve was standing alongside looking genuinely remorseful.
Steve was big and powerful and had a habit of losing the plot. But he wasn’t dangerous like Shane. I discovered that firsthand when I pushed him too far. I guess you could say I had it coming. I was being an absolute pest one night after work, punching him in the arm every time he tried to drink his beer.
‘Cut that out,’ he said, in a cold tone.
Rather than stop, I upped the ante. I went to my bedroom and brought out my BB gun.
‘If you shoot me with that thing,’ he said, ‘I’ll stab you.’
I laughed, thinking he was making a hollow threat and aimed for his leg.
‘I’m serious,’ he said, completely calm. ‘I will fucking stab you.’
I shot him and then backed away in case he came after me. Shane roared like a wounded animal. He pushed back his chair and went off towards the restaurant. I followed him from a distance, laughing my head off, wondering what he was up to. He then reappeared holding a huge knife, his face bright red.
I ran towards my bedroom, stealing a quick glance over my shoulder and catching sight of Shane with his knife raised up high above his head. I made it to my bedroom and locked the door. The knife came through the cheaply made door and stopped inches from my head. I pushed my weight up against the door and braced myself as Shane tried to beat the thing down. He kicked it with all his force. Every so often, he’d drive the knife through the door to where he assumed I was standing. It’s a miracle he didn’t impale one of my hands. But the real challenge was holding him back when he started taking running jumps a
t the door. After 45 minutes, the door was hanging by a single hinge.
I started looking about the room for a shield to fend off the attacks if Shane got through the door. At the moment I thought I was about to be killed, Shane stopped. I don’t know why. Maybe someone on the other side of the door heard the commotion and called the boss in. Maybe he had injured his shoulder after smashing it into the door for nearly an hour. Whatever the reason, he’d made his point. I never shot him with a BB gun again.
* * *
Work at the Canyon was tough. Management would push you hard during work hours and then leave you to your own devices after. We all partied hard in the hours we had off. There was only one requirement: you had to be right to work the next day. Ninety-nine per cent of the time I was. But there were a couple of instances when I wasn’t. One such occasion happened after a full day of maintenance. I had finished off with some drinks at the shed. Then I got called in last minute to fill in a shift at the restaurant that night. And I rolled into work completely drunk.
‘I don’t think I’m right today,’ I said. ‘I’m pissed as a fart.’
‘Too bad,’ said the manager. ‘We need you.’
I lasted about an hour before I spilt a tray of drinks over a guest. The manager charged up to me.
‘I told you I wasn’t right to work,’ I said.
The manager was not impressed. Christ knows how I lasted as long as I did at that place. I was lucky to have befriended people like Shane, Jodie and Pete, my boss in the maintenance facility. Those guys had influence. But there was another time when not even my friends could save me.
It was the same old problem – boredom and booze. I’d go looking for ways to burn off energy and entertain myself. On the night in question, me and another bloke decided to play a prank on the staff. In the very early hours of the morning, after a night of serious drinking, we burst into every employee’s room and set the fire extinguishers on them. They were extinguishers designed to put out electrical fires, spraying a fine white powder rather than water. The mess took days to clean up. I was dragged before management and read the riot act. I didn’t get fired. But it was clear they didn’t want me around. I didn’t care. The time was right for me to move on. Working on a resort was doing my head in by then. There was only one question – what was I to do now?
There’s nothing worse than going out in life with nothing to fall back on. I had a solid work ethic and had proven that I could pick things up quickly. It’s true that I had a habit of getting into trouble. But buried deep inside was a thirst to succeed. The idea that my life would amount to nothing terrified me.
I thought about becoming a plumber for a while. The resort contracted a plumbing company to come in and do routine maintenance. I had spoken to one of the plumbers and he told me you could make decent money. He even offered to take me on. So I resigned from Kings Canyon and moved to nearby Alice Springs and started work as an apprentice.
It was horrible work. I was paired up with a guy twice my age. This bloke turned out to have a hot temper and a police record a mile long – I found out later that he had done time for armed robbery. He was also worried that I was going to take his job. It was the worst possible outcome. As an apprentice, you expect to be ordered around a bit. But this fella made it his mission to make my life hell.
We would go out on a job somewhere. When we’d arrive, he’d give me a pickaxe and send me off to the wrong place to dig for the pipe. The baked red earth around Alice Springs is harder than concrete. I’d be toiling away in the scorching heat, digging for a pipe that didn’t exist. The prick would come out hours later, scream at me that I was digging in the wrong place and then set me up in the right spot. I lasted a couple of weeks before I quit that job.
Plumbing wasn’t the right job for me anyway. I needed a job where I could channel my endless amounts of energy, something that involved the outdoors and the use of my hands. Ideally, it would be something I could turn into a career. But most of all, I was looking for an adventure. There were two jobs that came up. Both turned out to be exactly what I was after.
7
A Digger and a Drill Rigger
I applied for the army not long before leaving Kings Canyon. People had been suggesting I join up for years. They probably figured that a young man with bush and shooting skills, bucket loads of energy and who constantly got into fights would be a natural born soldier. Or maybe they thought the army would straighten me out. I only started seriously considering the idea when things started unravelling at the resort.
On the face of it, the army seemed like a good fit for me. I had applied for the air force and the army when I left school, but my grades weren’t there for the air force and the army told me to get some life skills and then come back. So there I was, coming back. I wasn’t nervous about the physical demands of being in the army or even the possibility of deployment. For someone hell-bent on proving himself the toughest, fittest and strongest bloke going around, landing in a warzone was an exciting prospect.
The army was also a place where I could forge a career. I could see myself climbing the chain of command, maybe even ending up as an officer. Sure, there were risks. Wearing a uniform and kowtowing to superior officers didn’t really appeal. But I figured that if things didn’t work out I could just apply for something else. Having served in the army looks good on your CV, too. What I didn’t know was that getting out of the army was easier said than done.
A couple of corporals interviewed me in Alice Springs. I thought it was all going to be a formality – that they would simply tick a couple of boxes and I would be in. But the army took an age to respond to my application. In the intervening period, I found employment in an unlikely industry. I was going to be a driller.
The idea first popped into my head when I saw those big road-train convoys loaded up with drill rigs and other machinery rolling through Alice Springs. There was something enticing about driving off the map and setting up a rig for weeks on end. I started asking around, bailing up drillers in pubs and asking about life on a rig. I immediately liked what I was hearing.
The job offered good wages and there was also the potential for career advancement. The blokes I spoke to warned me that I would be working to tight schedules in the extreme heat. There was also extensive training involved. I’d have to learn how to drive heavy freight and operate a front-end loader, not to mention getting my driller’s ticket.
But they didn’t tell me everything. I had to work out for myself that some drillers are different characters. It’s pretty obvious when you think about it. A job that involves working in remote, inhospitable places for weeks on end is going to draw some colourful characters. Not that I was worried. It was becoming more obvious to me that I wasn’t suited to a normal life. The idea of holding down a nine-to-five job in the city held no appeal. I needed adventure.
So I applied for work with a whole lot of drilling companies. I snagged a government job with the Northern Territory’s Department of Land Resource Management. Sure enough, I got the drilling job the same day the army told me that I’d been accepted as a recruit. I rang up the army, told them my predicament. They suggested I enlist in the Army Reserves.
‘You still have to complete a three-month training course,’ I was told. ‘From there you’ll be required to serve a certain number of days each year.’
They told me it was good that I’d landed a government job. Private companies are less scrupulous when it comes to approving leave for reservists. There is usually better oversight in the public service. But I decided to hold off my training in the army. I figured that my new employer wouldn’t be pleased if I took off on day one for three months of training. I told the army of my decision and went drilling.
* * *
Bore water is one Australia’s great natural resources. At 1.7 million square kilometres in size, Australia’s Great Artesian Basin is the largest confined aquifer in the world, holding an estimated 65 000 cubic kilometres of ground water. It sits below
some of the most remote country on the planet. That meant driving a bloody long way into unexplored places. The job description was to discover and define groundwater resources across the Territory through water bore drilling. If deemed viable, the ground water would be used for irrigation.
We were headquartered in Darwin, the only state capital in the world allowing ‘quads’ – a road train comprising a prime mover towing four trailers – to within a kilometre of the central business district. I’d generally be operating a quad or a triple, which had the same configuration as a quad minus a trailer. Our operating window was throughout the dry season, before the rains turned the roads into lakes. We’d work in four-man teams, working full throttle for months on end. We drilled the length and breadth of the Northern Territory. One job might be right down near the South Australian border, the next could be a 1700-kilometre, two-day drive to the eastern edge of Arnhem Land.
Some people hated the driving, whereas that was the part I loved the most. There was something liberating about rolling across dirt roads, casting an eye on country that very few people get to see, country music blasting in the cab. As a 19-year-old, it was a powerful feeling. But there were a few nervous moments on those drives. One particular incident stands out above the rest.
It happened on the return trip from a 13-week job on the northwestern tip of the Territory, near Murganella. The job itself had been good. I had volunteered as camp custodian. The camp custodian remains on site to maintain the camp and grease the machine while the other boys return home. Being alone in the outback without human contact for weeks on end can send some people mad. Not me, though. I’d just gone through a nasty break-up. Time on my own was just what I needed.
The maintenance of the machines only took me about an hour each day. Then I’d be off fishing, chasing crocs down in the shallows, shooting wild pigs, cooking up my food on a campfire. It was the ultimate freedom. My only contact with civilisation was the daily call I was supposed to make on an old high-frequency radio that turned out to be faulty. I was radioing in, but they couldn’t hear me. I only found that out when a ranger from Kakadu turned up to tell me that police had me listed as missing.