The Making of "The Nepean" - Day 3
First Shown: 8 November 2018 on YouTube
Our main objective today was to visit the Douglas Park weir and while there to locate Mike Williams, a man who was involved in protests against longwall coal mining under Douglas Park. Mike is one of a few people who knows where to find methane gas bubbling in the Nepean. I hoped he might tell us where to see these bubbles. While mapping our route we noticed it was necessary to cross a bridge over the Nepean River on the Hume Highway in Menangle. So, the bridge became our first location to video the river. On the way home, I planned to visit a location that had two features. The Nepean River Reserve in Menangle contains a bridge and a weir on the Nepean.
With a 10am start and coffee in hand we drove 47kms to the bridge on the Hume Highway. I do not recommend you try stopping on a highway let alone start walking around. It is very dangerous, especially here as there is no footpath. Vehicles on the highway, here, are travelling at 100kms per hour and even slowing down can be hazardous. We aimed to stop on the far side of the bridge and made sure there were no vehicles behind us before we attempted to stop. I'm here writing this so we made it. After putting on our fluro vests we walked to the center of the bridge and recorded our video.
Next job was to find Mike Williams in Douglas Park. I telephoned ahead of time and while I did not speak to Mike I found a guy who knew him and he suggested that Mike had a tinny (aluminium boat) and might agree to take me up river to have a look. He also suggested Mike lived on Dredge Avenue off Douglass Park Road in a brick house that faces the road. That wasn't much to go on but we reached Dredge Avenue without any problem but none of the brick houses we visited housed Mike Williams. Lucky for me, I spoke with the local church minister and he directed us to the correct house.
Mike was eager to tell me about the nearby Cataract River drying up and the problems he's had with land subsidence. He also showed us cracks in the walls of his house. Here is an explanation of the longwall mining technique:
"Longwall coal mining involves the extraction of coal by tunnelling then allowing the cavity created to collapse when finished. This method is cheaper than backfilling, but creates instability, and often subsidence above the collapsed area. Illawarra Coal commenced extraction of Longwall 901 in January, 2016 and completed extraction in September, 2017."
On the subject of methane gas bubbling, Mike was willing to take us up river from the weir and find the bubbles, but at a later date. A day the following week was agreed upon and we headed off to visit the Douglas Park Weir.
This weir is different to weirs we've visited so far, its under a low-level road bridge. I did my daily intro here even though it was not our first location today. The reasons were, there was too much vehicle noise on the highway bridge and I didn't want to linger there. After leaving the weir we went looking for a lunch spot and Douglas Park shops were nearby. The ladies at Lucy's Cafe were very helpful, since it was 3pm, and a good meat was still obtained.
Our final location for the day was the Nepean River Reserve in Menangle with its bridge and weir. Both were interesting. Although there was a footpath across the bridge we still wore our fluro vests just to be safe. Once our video was obtained we went in search of the weir. A well trodden path led us to the weir and it was amazing. You can see just how amazing it is when you watch this video. Day 4 is next.
