Tour of the nuclear bomb sites today. The story was that Menzies gave the Maralinga aboriginal reserve away to the British for nuclear bomb testing supposedly in collaboration with us and the exchange of research. (We never got the research) The Brits actually had sovereignty over Maralinga for 13 years. They tested 7 major bombs here, then the nuclear treaty came into play, so no more atmospheric testing of nukes on mainland soil. So instead they tested over 200 smaller experiments such as trigger mechanisms for nukes, what would happen if a car exploded with plutonium on board etc. In the end the radiation at Maralinga was not from the 7 major bomb tests, but all the plutonium left over from the 200+ experiments they did. When the Brits left there was plutonium left lying on the ground literally. Robin the tour guide (he’s been involved with Maralinga for over 40 years) has so many stories, too many to tell here. It’s an amazing part of our history and I would highly recommend visiting before either Robin moves on or they stop the tour due to OH&S reasons!
At ground zero of the larges nuclear bomb dropped on Australian soil (26 kiloton)The burial pit where they buried the radioactive top soil, then buried the machinery that buried the topsoil. A sign for the local population (who’s land it was) telling them that meat is ok, camping is not. Trinitite (sand fused into glass) cause by the atmospheric explosion of ‘Breakaway’, a 22 kiloton atmospheric nuclear bomb at ground zero. Background radiation at ground zero for ‘Breakaway’Mish sunning herself on a radioactive material signMap of all of the bombs and other experiments Maralinga native land warning sign‘Breakaway’ ground zero. No trees in a circle of about 500meters even now, 60 years later The original Maralinga villageThe Maralinga airport. Because the land technically belonged to Britain, there was no customs on British flights in. The runway. This runway is so wide and long that it was designated as a backup landing runway for the space shuttle One of the reactor fuse cores used in one of the experiments. Found in the desert by Robin (our guide) 40 years after the British had leftStill mostly intact, which probably means it only partially detonated but still flew a couple of miles so the science team of the day never found itOne of the clean up vehicles used to clean up the site. They welded ship doors to standard land cruisers and worked inside a decontaminated environment Our guide Robin. He’s been involved for over 40 years with Maralinga, the forward area, and it’s local people.
Rob and Mish 