Something about one of our own – On the mines with Kate Williams

As a consultant with SMS Management and Technology, I was prepared to go into govt business and implement change, however, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would be donning corporate dress of high visibility shirt, jeans and steel capped boots of an open cut gold mine. This made getting ready in the morning very simplistic, but, with the very high summer temperatures on the mine, long sleeves and heavy boots can be a little arduous.

The Cowal Gold mine is owned by the Toronto based company Barrick Gold and located in Central New South Wales. The mine is about forty five minutes from West Wyalong and my now, instead of traffic lights and the endless Canberra circles the commute is endless country roads with beautiful sunset and sunrises… so peaceful!

What made it a unique experience for me was the interesting people I met while at the mine, people from Canada, Africa, South America and PNG, all converged to give the mine a wonderful sense of community. I learnt so much from all these people and will maintain these friendships long after the dust of the mine has settled.

Entertainment is very different from what you would get in the city…people tend to develop interests instead of going to the movies. While there, I leant to fly an Ultra lite plane, I got back in the horse’s saddle again, and found mutual interest with other mine staff in gardening and chook-raising.

One terrific experience I had was the hitch ride of the dump truck. One tyre is twice the height of a 4wd…. There was also the very sound and rule, if moving around the mine site, that if it is bigger than you give way to it. On seeing the size of the haul truck wheels compared to a four wheel drive vehicle it made a lot of sense.

Mining is an involved operation but with a very simple overarching rule of “safety first”. There is a continuing training program carried out for staff education and staff conducting job hazard analyses and field level risk assessments for new jobs undertaken. Also, being on site also provided a different set of workplace challenges. For one thing, environmental care and monitoring was a high priority.

One thing I was not prepared for was the dust storms, which would blow in from the drought ridden Riverina. Electrical storms were a regular occurrence also and so power down at site was not that unusual. An event that was not a challenge but an unusual workplace activity was the regular snake handling training as snakes would take refuge around the mill. Some days it was so hot, the birds would seek the shade of the veranda, among the mine workers.

All in all, Cowal was one of the best experiences of my professional career because of the satisfying nature of the project and the amazing chance to work with such a diverse but incredible bunch of people.