Story 17. Christmas, a time to be careful.

In the late to early 1980's we were still paying employees fortnightly with envelopes containing cash, this was arranged through a bank in Woomera about thirty kilometers away, two of the women from the administration office were usually tasked with the job of driving in and picking up the money, if the amounts were extra large a security escort was included in a second car. It was how business was conducted and the system worked well.  

Within two kilometers of the Cattle Grid Mine were a number of bores, each had a pump that lifted the water from about 60 meters below the parched surface and pumped it back to site via long continuous lengths of 100mm welded polly pipe.

A number of the bores were being shut down and in my spare moments I was going out with a saw cutting the disused pipe into several 100mtrs lengths tying four or five of them to the back of my vehicle and dragged them back to the storage area near the mine site. When crossing the main access road I would stop and check for traffic before crossing the road with the long lengths of pipe which would take a minute or so for me to drag them clear of the road. 

The last day before the mine shut down for Christmas, I was clearing the last of these long lengths of pipe and as usual I stopped at the edge of the road to check for traffic. I could hear a vehicle approaching so waited for them to appear.

Around the bend the security vehicle appeared, driving close behind it were the women carrying the Christmas pay, Not wanting to hold up this important delivery I held off crossing.

One hundred meters away the security vehicle suddenly stopped and pulled up on a slight diagonal across the road the doors on either side quickly opened and two heads took up positions on either side behind the open doors.

I waited, they waited, we were too far away to shout to each other, all the vehicles had come to a stop, now I thought what next as I watched the two heads watching me from just above the door windows?
I waited some more, no one moved, just the sound of flies and occasional crow broke the silence.

With no other option, I moved my vehicle slowly forward and mounted the side of road, I could see the heads moving side to side, ready, armed and waiting for my next move, the lengths of polly pipe followed as I continued across the road and down the other side, four 300mtr lengths of pipe following as I moved off and disappeared into the scrub on the other side.
It would be another full minute or more before the pipe finally cleared the road.


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