Blowing stuff up.

The Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) had a large and active engineering branch for making stuff… as well as breaking stuff…

Most overseers, as well as some foresters, were trained in the use of explosives to “blow stuff up” such as removing stumps and rocks from roads. Districts usually had a small powder magazine tucked away in the bush for storage of gelignite and detonators.

However, the legendary FCV demolitions expert, Jock Paxton, was on-hand for large or more complex works like road construction and quarry blasts.

In January 1977, a minor demolition project was arranged to remove the silt from a small fire dam on Clematis Creek in Sherbrooke Forest, which just happened to be adjacent to the main Belgrave-Kallista Tourist Road.

In his thick Scottish accent Jock directed proceedings from the roadside, while the difficult and dirty work of wading through the mud, digging holes and loading the charges fell to a couple of forestry school students, Geoff Pike and Megan Varty, working over their summer vacation.

Blast holes, about 3 inches in diameter and about 3 feet deep, were dug on a grid pattern into the gooey mud. The holes were filled with granular ammonium nitrate mixed with diesel, which is an ideal “lifting charge”. Half sticks of gelignite and detonators were then inserted into the blast holes.

The charges were electrically wired with micro delay fuses. The sequence of ignitions was set to direct the blast upstream of the small dam and away from the wall.

Local staff were on hand to observe the blast including Ranger – John Lloyd, Overseer – Max Seamer and Assistant Forester – Phil Evans

All was set to go, and the forestry students were given the honour of detonating their hard work. They hid behind a nearby tree and Megan flicked the blasting switch.

KABOOM !!! … mud went flying everywhere…

Maybe there had been a miscalculation, but the effect was mud mayhem.  Tree ferns were also laid flat in concentric circles around the dam.

The blast certainly cleared the dam as intended but also spread an inch-thick layer of mud across the adjoining Belgrave-Kallista Road.

Luckily it was a quiet day with not too many tourists around. There was no traffic management in place other than Jock standing on lookout. But one car came down the road from Kallista and slid on the gooey mess into an embankment.

The shire grader happened to be passing from Upwey and scraped the road clean of mud while the Olinda tanker came down to give it a wash down.

Megan and Geoff spent the remainder of their afternoon propping up flattened tree ferns.

But Jock’s valiant utility had been parked on the roadside, and forgetfully he had left the passenger-side window down, so the entire inside, including the seat, steering wheel and dashboard became smothered with thick mud and debris. The tray of Jock’s work ute also received a pasting.  Staff tried hard not to laugh.

Everything was cleaned up and life resumed to normal, but the sorry tale of the layers of sticky mud inside Jock’s car became the stuff of local legend. But sadly, there is no photographic evidence of the embarrassing escapade.

Blasting by departmental staff and crews continued until about 2008 when there was a serious accident at a quarry near Marysville. All blasting is now done by qualified contractors.

https://www.victoriasforestryheritage.org.au/fire-sidebar/memories/211-evans-bernie-gelignite.html