predator/barron.txt

File: barron.txt
Cont: Data on accessing the abandoned power station at Barron Falls, Kuranda
      (near Cairns, FNQ, Australia)
Date: 18 June 1999
By  : <predator>

This is a legendary Cave Clan epic. Following in the footsteps of Diode,
who had explored the area a decade before the Clan even existed, a lone
explorer motorbiked about 1700 miles to the far-flung northern Queensland
outpost of Kuranda in search of trespass, wicked hidden places and awesome
photographs of dodgy old infrastructure. The site was finally infiltrated
on May 24, when <predator> turned 28. 

This rant is the personal log of the <predator> on the Clan's most
northerly Australian conquest. 

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Cairns is about 2700km north of Sydney. Kuranda is a small town on the
mighty Barron River about 50km north of Cairns. Barron Falls is about 2km
out of Kuranda, and is part of Barron Falls National Park. It has its own
railway station with a line from Cairns, and this rail station, which
overlooks the falls, is where the journey down to the abandoned Barron
Falls power station begins. I originally climbed across the wier at the
top of the falls. This demands a risky trek along the railway cutting
(which has no extra clearance for people when the train comes around a
blind corner) then a scramble down a scree slope strewn with loose leaves
and railway metal. With some effort I made it up to the touristy region
built near the Skyrail tower. The cool earthy whiff of the forested river
is replaced by the esterified stink of toilet deodorant blocks and the
clank and squeak of motors and machinery which drive the cable car
station machinery. Who permitted this place to become a theme park for 
rubber-neckin' tourists who haven't the guts to brave the trees on foot?

On the Skyrail side of the Barron River wier is a concrete inlet tower,
at the base of which is a heavy metal debris screen, which used to take 
water into the penstock far below, but it is fairly well secured and 
probably pointless to get into anyway. 

The tourist displays at the Skyrail station say this:
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1) Water power. 

In 1885 the explorer Archibald Meston described the Barron Falls in flood 
where the raging waters `rush together like wild horses as they enter the 
straight in the dread finish of their last race ... (where) the currents 
of air created by the cataract waved the branches of the trees hundreds 
of feet overhead ... the rock shook like a mighty steamer tumbling with 
the vibrations of the screw.'

Decades later these waters were harnessed to generate Queensland's first
hydroelectric power. Two hundred metres below where you are standing an
underground power station was carved into the cliff face. Water was
delivered through pipes to drive the turbines, two 1200kW turbo-alternators. 

The substation, workshops and staff houses were built around the area now
forming the Skyrail station. Look out for the concrete engine mount blocks
and fence posts as you wander around.They are some of the more obvious
remains of the power station. 

Delivering equipment was complex. It first came by train to a rail siding,
was transferred over the falls and then lowered by tramway to the worksite
below. 


2) Power in the Rainforest
The idea to build a hydroelectric power station on the Barron River was
first suggested back in 1906. It was nearly 30 years before the dream was 
realised.

The site presented many challenges : precipitous cliffs, torrential rain,
and raging floods were foremost. Hauling equipment from Cairns was
relatively easy. There was no road in the early 1930s but there was the
railway on the opposite bank. Getting across the gorge was another matter.
The flying fox solved that problem. A fragile bridge built across the top
of the Barron Falls failed to withstand the floods. Plans to build an
outdoor station had to be abandoned. Earthworks proved too unstable. 

Going underground proved relatively easy. That is, once the tramway was
built down the nearly vertical clifface. 

By 1935 those years of frustration had been largely overcome. In November
the Governor of Queensland offically opened Queensland's first
hydroelectric power station. 

It was popular. Demand soon exceeded supply. In 1940 the two 1200kW turbo
alternators were supplemented by a 1400kW unit. Twenty years later the
present Barron Falls power station was commissioned. It generated 60
megawatts of power.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Naturally, in a country where heritage is thought best sent to the local
tree shredder or mashed into landfill by a D9 bulldozer, the sad addendum
to this amazing story of engineering is that the place was decommissioned
in the 1960s and subsequently, very thoroughly trashed - a metaphorical
precis of the history of our species, it seems. Nature has nevertheless
invaded the skeleton and the station is now home to bats and various other
organisms, which cloak it in the timeless decency deserving of such a
noble corpse. 

                                    **

Barron Falls is, visually, a mightily impressive gash in the forest and rock.

From the far upstream (Kuranda) end of the station, you can spot a white
seam of quartz in the rock at the bottom / distant downstream visible end
of the gorge. If you trace your eye along this you will spot a small dark
hole, which was the power station's wastewater outlet and which is about
10 feet tall. 

The jungle hasn't quite overtaken the little brown cement and corrugated
iron blockhouse on the opposite cliffside, but it's making progress. It
appears as a brown speck with a silver and black speck beneath it, in a
carpet of greenery. The black speck is where some of the sheet metal is
missing from the remains of the attempt to seal the place up with 
corrugated iron, which provides the silver speck. The brown speck has
writing on it but there's no way to resolve it at this range. To enter the
station, this is where you must go. 

The gorge is very, very steep. Getting down was going to be a nontrivial
exercise. 

On my first attempt at finding a way down I met nothing but cliffsides,
screeslopes and sheets of entangled thorny plant life. I eventually asked
a local chap named Greg Taylor about the place, and he came up with the
name of a guy who had a clue, who gave me a pretty close description of
how to find the track to get down. Greg had a wrenching lifestyle change
forced upon him years ago in a car accident, which compells him to get
around in a wheelchair, and hence I was unable to even consider badgering
him into coming down the cliffside with me for logistical reasons. The
cliffside has not yet been fully converted for wheelchair access (and holy
shit you'd need good brakes to deal with it if it did) - the rugged geography 
displays indiscriminate contempt for all who attempt to negotiate it, several 
rock climbers have met their messy gravity-related ends in this setting. 
The eventual journey, its photos and this text are unlikely to have ever 
been carried out without the local information he provided. So if you ever 
get this file, thanks for the info Greg dude. Oh, and thanks again for 
sending my towel back to Sydney, too. 

I had to look around for a long time to find the track which permits you
to descend to the bottom of the gorge. It has been deliberately hidden,
the signs which designated its existance have been uprooted but remain
lying in the nearby undergrowth. The access to the track is either by
squeezing past, or vaulting over, the black railing fence on the upstream
side of the large water tank. The first few metres of the track are very
degraded and crumbly, use *extreme* care getting through here - the
morbidly obese need not apply, and penalties for grip failure are severe. 
 
The rest of the track isn't particularly safe either. It narrows to 20cm
at some places, with significantly fatal sheer drops just past its edge.
The remains of handrails stick out of the ground, rusty bits of iron
attached to rotting bits of wood by siezed bolts and disintegrating
strapping. Some of the track is heavily overgrown by blackberry or lantana
and might require a machete or brushhook to penetrate. It is a long,
winding, steep trail, at the end of which is the next difficulty - the
riverbed. 

It is not a good idea to commence this trip when it is raining, and not
just because of storm flood waters (the weir mitigates this to an extent).
Rather, you need to cross the river, and the millennia of raging torrents
has slowly polished the rock to a high finish. When this is wet it is very
difficult to clamber around upon without a lot of defensive posturing and
experimentation to see if your next handhold or foothold will slip out of
your grasp when you really need to rely on it. Rain and falls-spray and an
unfavourable wind had lightly misted the rock surface, and it required all
my rock-climbing experience and caution to stop myself from sliding into
the swirling waters below. It was a relief to be off the rounded knolls
and buttresses, but even the horizontal surfaces are not to be trusted,
being lightly coated in living slime with particularly treacherous 
lubricating properties. 

I eventually reached the quartz vein at the bottom of the river, with a surge 
of excitement. I hadn't fallen, drowned, or become lost. I couldn't see the 
blockhouse from this vantage point because the jungle had enveloped it, but
there was no mistaking the outlet port. I had a quick look at it, slightly 
less than twice my height and about five feet wide. Rough hewn - no point 
laying pipe to get the wastewater out when you could cheaply just dump it 
back into the river. And - it was thoroughly sealed off by a mesh of 15mm 
diameter stainless steel rods, mounted in holes drilled into the rock. Hmmm... 
would the access facilitation tools I had in my pack be enough? Someone had 
obviously gone to considerable effort to seal the place up. 
 
I didn't dwell on it as I searched for the path up to the blockhouse. Sweaty, 
I clambered up through earth, moss and fern, using the occasional tree or 
length of abandoned pipe or cable as an anchor, until I reached a heavily 
overgrown and leaf-strewn staircase. Small plants were germinating in the leaf 
litter, which was quite deep in places. On the steel railing hung the rotting 
remains of tea towels and doormats... huh, what were they doing here? 

I crawled along below the weeds and finally made it to the doorway. The little 
place was only about a metre wide, two metres high. A rusted fan was 
vertically mounted in the top of the roof slightly offset from one wall, I 
couldn't tell if it was meant to suck air in or blow air out. I peered out 
the window and back at the wall above : there partly obscured by foliage, in 
the style of metropolitan building text everywhere in the 1930s were the 
words in half-inch cement relief.


                                  BARRON
                                  FALLS
                                  POWER
                                  STATION


The entry blockhouse was littered with rotting junk. Old propane cannisters,
camping gear, mosquito netting, toothbrushes, clothing, a yellow biohazard 
disposal container, disintegrating pulp Western novels. All the hallmarks of
makeshift human habitation long abandoned. But whom, and why? The psychedelic
multicolour artwork sprayed on the walls provided a clue, but nothing 
definite.

One walks along a short corridor and, just past a rotting makeshift wooden
bench, is faced by another of the heavy welded stainless steel rod mesh
installations which block entry to the wastewater outlet. Fortunately some
kind person has chopped out a segment of this mesh in the bottom right
corner, which saved me hours of farting around with a car jack and hacksaw 
and I wriggled through into the coming darkness. I put on my head torch, 
checked my spares, descended some stairs and took a flash shot with my 
camera, aimed at the impenetrable gloom in front.

Immediately about a hundred bats detached themselves from the roof and
stormed the doorway which framed me. Demonstrating astonishing aerobatics
they'd be pinned momentarily in the beam of my head torch and then bank
sharply before powering past my head towards the dim light of blockhouse. 
When I'd remembered to breathe again I swept my torchbeam in front of me
to reveal a sheer drop and a large space behind it. Evidently whatever had
functioned as stairs or flooring here had gone. A significantly unreliable
looking ladder beckoned but I knew better than to use it in such a place -
if I injured myself seriously, any rescuers would have a hell of a time 
coming to look for me.

I uncoiled my rope and put on my harness. The unkind individuals who
installed the anti-fun barrier had inadertantly provided me with a
super-secure anchor from which to belay myself down into the unknown. With
my heart beating fast, I knotted the ends and payed out the coils into the
black volume, clipped in, leaned back and started the descent. 
 
It didn't last very long, my feet hitting the ancient concrete within
about five metres. I didn't know how reliable the stuff was, so I stayed
clipped into my rope while I sussed the place out. The place was a grim
picture of total devastation. As my eyes adapted to the dark, I could
start to parse outlines and generate a map in my head of what I was
exploring. What were these strange shapes around me?

I was on the generator floor. Below it was a sub-level with large cast
iron pipe sections, which had been unbolted and moved out of position. The
drop to the bottom was about three metres below the floor I stood on. The
irregular trickling of running water matched the visual chaos. 

The whole building was encased, the cavity having been dug and the 
building growing up, roof and all, inside it. 

On my right was a rotting double mattress, plus more abandoned clothes,
empty prescription pharma cannisters (circa 1997), a cheap bulk-carrier
plastic bag with more rotting junk in it. The walls sported more examples of
Giger-esque spraycan artwork. Above me was a very corroded, arched,
corrugated-iron roof, covered in condensation, and immediately under it
was a large 8.25 ton rail-mounted crane on heavy iron beams. Sigh. These
metals were smelted before the days when the atmosphere was contaminated
with radioactive fallout, making them intrinsically special, products from
a less polluted era - no transuranics in these members here. 
 
I later learned, upon discussions with people who knew about the controversial 
construction of the Skyrail, that during construction a population of ferals 
were using the disused power station as a base from which to launch their 
protest activities. It fitted what I told them about what I found in the 
station. I was amazed that anyone could actually live here for any period, 
in such an inaccessible, damp, dark and hazardous place - but simultaneously 
amazed at the dedication to forest preservation it demonstrated. And before 
we go slagging the ferals at their lack of clean-up, it needs to be remembered 
that the station was left as a proxy garbage dump when the power utility 
gutted it. Ferals and suits presumably left the mess for similar reasons - 
the effort of getting the junk back up the cliff. 

On the generator floor itself were strewn the guts of the trio of 
alternators. Huge, heavy six-pole rotors, bits of armature, and various metal
shapes whose function I had no clue about lay stripped of their valuable
copper windings and scattered about as if only contempt and gravity cared. 

The green and black cowlings of the hydroelectric generators hadn't moved
from their regimented layout, presumably by virtue of their mass and
having been embedded in the concrete floor. The covers were off, their
exposed blades retained their original ordered configuration, showing the 
fine precision workmanship of their long dead manufacturers. 

The green machinery and heavy plumbing was to enable the flow of water to
be controlled smoothly. If the station had been running at full capacity
and suddenly the valves closed off, the pipe with the massive, internally
stored inertia of several hundred tonnes of fast moving water would tend
to rip straight off its mountings and pile up, mangled, in the bottom of
the penstock tunnel, with the additional bonus of flooding the basement of
tht station. So the system presumably had to be brought up to speed, and
also choked back to a stop, over a period of several minutes. This was all
manually done - no PLCs in this place. Hence, huge levers and handles and
gear-wheels sprout from the generators. I could imagine 1940's men with their
vests and caps throwing the switches, the throb and hum of the alternators
as they spun, the swooshing roar of the waste water as it splattered and
bubbled down the outlet tunnels. Did they have pride in the place? I can't
imagine that they didn't. 

The station's long black power systems control panel had been stripped of
every switch, meter and indicator, the switchgear fittings and racking
rusted or slumped according to their constitution, what couldn't be
pilfered and wasn't indestructable was damaged or destroyed. Even a small
stepdown transformer sits forlornly rusting along one wall, with its lid
ripped off and windings gone. It was all a bit sad, the place has been well 
ruined since its heyday. 

Wandering around brought me to each of three short tunnels which took 
tonnes of spent water from each generator and dumped it into the outlet 
port. They've been relagated to the task of disposing of the seepage from 
the penstock tunnel and from the rock cavity in which the station exists.

Another door brought me to the penstock, the large-diameter pipe which
took the speeding waters from the weir and fed them into the turbines. 
The penstock tunnel promised much - logically it'd go all the way up to
the weir, which not only looked like an interesting place to go, but
which, if it provided an exit, would save me clambering across the river
and fighting my way back up the cliffside in the rain. It is rumoured to
have an opening half-way along it, which surfaces at the sheer cliffside
with a spectacular and rarely-seen view of the railway side of the falls. 
I was sorely tempted, but stuck to the rules which had kept me alive so
far and declined to explore this confined and structurally unknown quantity 
on my own. Aw, drrrrAT.

The biggest hole in the floor drops straight down to the sub-basement 
floor, which is unadorned local rock submerged in a half a metre of 
ludicrously clear water. Was this a large, once-covered access hole, or 
was it left for future installation of another generator? I don't know.
 
I used a lot of film and flash battery capturing the place on camera, and 
then realised I had to get out if I was going to make it back to the 
railway before dark. I definately wanted to avoid the dark for the ascent 
up the tricky track via which I'd arrived. So I prussiked out, coiled my 
rope, packed and silently thanked the place for having me, before crawling 
out and compost-surfing back down to the exposed rock of the riverbed.

The sun shone feebly over the lip of the falls, and I knew I'd have time
to get out in the remaining light, so I commenced the climb. I didn't much
care about getting wet now, so I waded through some wide, shallow sections to
cross the river, and clambered up some of the blockier outcrops to the
track I'd come down a few hours before. The effort of ascent warmed me 
and dried my clothes, and by the time I arrived at the Kuranda station 
platform and climbed over the fence (in front of some tourists obviously 
distressed by my dishevelment) I was thoroughly knackered. I guzzled 
rainwater from the tank behind the information displays on the station and 
raided my wet, heavy pack for the last of my munchies. I sat and looked at 
the place for a few minutes before I gathered my strength and walked back to 
the carpark. I was glad I didn't have to kick start the motorbike! I rode 
back to Greg's place at Koah Road, sweating relief and smelling of moist 
earth, swollen with happiness that I'd finally done the Barron. Stuffed if 
I was going to carry my climbing gear back to Sydney in my backpack - I 
mailed it back the next day. 
 
I had the photos developed in Lismore and was amazed anew - yes, I'd
really been in there. My bum ached after nearly 2000km of southward
motorbiking, and reminded me that yes, I had indeed done the travel after
all. 

So there it lies, awaiting the next explorer. It's an excellent place, 
and I hope you're enjoyed the story, even if it's a little long-winded.
It's a sad tale of deliberate neglect of yet another landmark chunk of 
Australia'a early struggle to become a self-sustaining nation. We neglect 
these relics at our peril, for doing so permits us to forget the struggle 
which permitted us modern folks to have such comparatively easy, 
electrically powered, computer-driven, air-conditioned lives - or should 
I merely say - existances? Have we already forgotten? Perhaps in some senses 
we already have. Time will tell us eventually. 

<p r e d a t o r>