Saturday, Mar 10, 2007 at 14:32
Justin I was the Senior Maintenance Engineer at Koolan for 4 years and used to travel up and down there for about 3 years prior to that, visiting Cockatoo and Koolan. I worked for BHP for 15 years before leaving. You are right, Twin Otters and the Britton Norman Islander used to land there all the time. Also at one time BHP had their own aircraft based in
Derby which was a twin engine Scottish Pioneer called "Yampi Pioneer" and it was wrecked by a cyclone in 1960 and it's remains are still on Koolan today on the North side of the
airstrip in a gully. We had an army Caribou? land at Koolan once and they are specially designed for short take off and landing so they can access remote airstrips. They are commonly called an "Ugly Duckling" because of their upswept fuselage and huge tail. They virtually just start rolling along and then leave the ground at a speed an observer on the ground would swear is not fast enough to fly. You are right about the
airstrip being a difficult one as was Koolan to the inexperienced and uninitiated. The main problem in the 'wet' is cross winds and in the 'dry' the updraughts and downdraught's caused by the hot air rising of the land especially over the hot Murphy Gully waterbore area and the Paradise equipment salvage area. Another difficulty was the Workshop and Main Store buildings and the large flat area of hot waste dump material. Those airstrips if built today or if for regular public transport, as opposed to private use, probably would fail to comply with safety regulations. Regarding your trip, I too spent some time there in 1973 as part of my honeymoon and that is what made me all the more determined to go back and live there which I did some 6 years later. I thought the holiday side of things at Cockatoo was still operational even though there is mining activity at the
mine. Maybe you should look up Google etc...... and see what you can find. After the
mine closed in 1984 Alan Bond had some holiday accommodation business running in the converted BHP accommodation including the 'White House' and I know it has changed hands a number of times and I have spoken to people who have stayed there and commented on hearing blasting activities. What the situation is today though I am unclear. Did you ever get to Crocodile Creek while you were there? A good friend and respected work colleague of
mine, Ron Lind, who has sadly passed away, was the Maintenance Supervisor on Cockatoo for 34 years. He wrote a 375 page book called "The Very Last Load" which has a lot of history about Cockatoo in it and includes the names of school teachers and the children's names who attended the school when BHP finished mining. If you haven't seen it I am sure you would be interested to read it but I don't think it was ever sold in book shops although it should have been. You could get a copy from an old Cockatoo-ite as I am pretty sure he only sold it, or knowing Ron probably gave most of them away, by word of mouth. Good Luck.
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