Day 5 of The Razorback Dam Project. Razorback Mountain. 1 hr south of Sydney
The final 4 tonnes of Bentonite gets worked into the leaking dam wall. Previous parts:
Days 3-4
Day 2
Day 1 and overview
On Day 4, the weather wasn’t kind to us, so today was slippery and sticky.
We had been 2 days ahead of schedule, but the rain reduced progress by about 75%. This resulted in Day 5 of this Dam Project starting at 7am – and finishing at 1.15am.
Working a single machine at night with a single source of light is not my favorite thing.
That’s because you enter a surreal 2D world without colour, and have a very narrow field of view that is about 4 metres wide and 5 metres deep.
And there’s complete black on either side and in front. Plus, reversing cameras don’t work at night because the dust flying off the tracks at the back of the machine into in the rear facing machine lights make the reverse camera look like trying to peer through a windscreen during a torrential downpour.
It’s just thousands of fire-fly like specks flying past the camera screen.
If you’re working near edges with substantial drop-off – it certainly makes sure you’re on your game.
But, in the end, what had to get done, got done