Second Trip - Feb 24, 2012

This time around I had a better idea of what to expect and what I would need to do. The dam was still loaded up with water but the weather was better. In order to make the most of things, I had to prepare properly. So - 4 litres of water for fluid, thermos of coffee, fruit, lunch, sunscreen, mosquito repellent, hat - oh yeah, and the tools including face mask, gloves and glasses !

Having looked over the area previous I felt that there was probably a bit still buried underneath, how far down I really did not know. What I did feel strongly was that this approach had to be done carefully and delicately - ie no thumping around with backhoes, excavators etc. Remember this stuff has been in the ground since around 1945, and given the proximity to the Murray River, there is a lot of salt in the earth, so the corrosion factor would be massive, and anything remaining would need to be removed with caution.

And so my regular routine began - awake at 3am (sometimes 2.30am, more like 4am in the winter), get the items ready and get into the car and off I go !

I have always enjoyed driving and moving thru the streets of Melbourne and onto the interstate highways at that late time of night. You get to hear all sorts of things on the radio, and my favourite was BBC World News - learnt a massive amount !  But the signals dropped out heading into Shepparton so I would switch to music.

For those that may be interested my music tastes are very diverse and listened to a lot of things including dozens of Blue Note Jazz Remasters, Bargrooves Deep House compilations, bands such as The Strokes, Faith No More, Underworld and more that I cannot recall.  Some of those tracks I will forever remember with certain things happening on the road trip up or back...more of that some other time.

Anyway,I arrived and entered thru the fence and set up on the far side of the dam - that was where the least amount of water was. There were plenty of frogs carrying on, but aside from that, it was silent, and that was a great way to get started.

I noticed a piece of metal sticking up about a third of the way up the back of the dam wall, and when I went to pull it out it would not budge. So I got out my trusty garden trowel, one of the most useful things I worked with. I could feel the metal curving away deep in the pile, so I got to work. The key was to keep sticking my gloved hand underneath the metal and feel what lay ahead in the ground as it was obviously a decent size.....

Four hours later, I am extremely knackered, out of breath (unfit indeed) but holding the below item

 It's a canopy from a CAC Boomerang. It's not complete but more complete and in much better condition than other ones I have seen. I was amazed that this had been missed - it was upside down in the ground though!

 Here it is just out of the car after I returned home later in the day. It's now looking even better these days as I have been working on it getting it all cleaned and polished - still a way to go though !

 Now even though I was exhausted I still managed to uncover a couple of other parts as well. They are above. I found a faint number beginning with 32P on it and recognised that at once as a Consolidated B24 Liberator Bomber part. The question was, what?  When I returned home I emailed a picture to the B24 Restoration Group to see if they recognised it. It even caught them off guard !! So the following week I ambled down to see them and we went over the parts list and sure enough it turns out to be a shroud cover that wraps around the supercharger near the engine - 32P being Powerplant. What was different was the bubble (I assume its an air intake or similar) was not present on the shrouds on the restored B24 that they were restoring. Mine is from an earlier model.

And it was at this point I met my first and only snake - well, it wasn't really interested in hanging around anyway and shot off in another direction. Big though, reckon close to 6ft long. I reckon it's knock off time.

So, completely worn out and aching all over - digging at an angle for more than four hours really hurts if you haven't done it before -  time to pull up stumps and head home. I stop on the way and take a few pics of the wonderful hangars at the back of the airport. There are only two left now, both used as storage. The sheer size of them is amazing. Have a look at the sheep in the shade in the pics and you get the idea (click for bigger images)

I spent the trip home listening to more music and talking to a number of people about the finds. In addition to these things I found more Meteor parts, and a load of parts that have not been identified to this day. I will put a section up on mystery objects later on.

But before I got in the bath and enjoyed a well deserved cold beer, I took some more shots of the canopy so I could let a couple of friends see what I had found.

A great day

More in a bit !