It started out as a poor mistake on my part. I was talking to a couple of other rides when apparently a vote was taken for Ride Leader, which I was later told I won, unanimously. So then, where to go? I had previously gone to the café to the south of Port Kembla and enjoyed a coffee out on the deck there so off we went. OPH, Mt Kiera Rd, 5 Islands Rd and only one small incident where a bike fell over at 1 kph. All good. Coffee and cakes enjoyed and rather than go straight home what about a visit to Hill 60 and the Sewerage Works? It may surprise many that not a lot of our rides includes a visit to a Sewerage Treatment Works (STW), but there’s much to be learnt from such a visit.
The STW caters for much of the greater Wollongong area processing 50 million litres PER DAY. 11,000 tonnes of biosolids are removed, for landfill mainly, each year. Recycled water is used for industrial purposes such as dust suppression at the Port Kembla Coal loading facility, the manufacture of steel at Bluescope and the Council uses 5 million litres of it to irrigate local sports fields and the Wollongong Golf Course. The rest goes out to a deep water outfall. See, you’ve learnt a lot already.
But to get to the STW you ride to the top of Hill 60. This sits about 75 mtrs above the rocky coastal shelf and was actually named after a WWI Belgian battlefield near Ypres where Australian troops fiercely fought, and mined. The Aust 1st Tunneling Company were significantly engaged in underground mine warfare. But so were the Germans!
At Gallipoli there was also another Hill 60. The story there wasn’t any better. ANZAC troops, mainly from the NZ Otago Mounted Rifles (OMR), were ordered by the British General Hamilton to take it with British support. Unfortunately that support failed leaving the ANZAC positions exposed and a retreat was undertaken. Less than a dozen OMR troopers were able to make it off Hill 60 under their own steam. Hamilton was sacked from his command a short time later.
During WW2 Hill 60 at Port Kembla was fortified with gun emplacements, tunnels and bunkers dug, accommodations underground were built, all to protect Port Kembla.
During those excavations evidence was found of Aboriginal occupation of the hill going back thousands of years with shell middens, implements and actual burials exposed. The local Wadi Wadi people have a strong cultural claim on Hill 60 even in more modern times with proof of fishing from Red Point in the 18 and 1900’s. They were forcibly removed and resettled in the 1940’s.
So did you learn anything from out trip to the Sewerage works? Sydney Water tells me there’s a really good one at Goulburn. You interested now?
Rob T (Tunnels – always able to tell a story full of sh.t)
