Bmu Wednesday Ride 12/5/2010 Ansto

[BMBEN]

BMU WEDNESDAY RIDE
All welcome to join in

Meet :- Blaxland McDonalds, GWH, BLAXLAND, NSW for a 9.00am Start
Ride Leader/Photos :- Franz (BMBEN) Garde 0427 830 712
Ride Reports/Videos :- Eric (I will film it) Baldwin
Destination :-
Visit and tour
ANSTO - Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organisation
@ Lucas Heights - 12th May 2010
34° 2'51.71"S 150°59'18.90"E

The weather conditions that were forecast for to day were 21-23° C, fine conditions with wind forecast from the southwest 20 to 25 knots,

The ride we would be doing for to day was a trip to the ANSTO, Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organisation at Lucas Heights, that Franz Garde had gone to a lot of trouble to organize.





I left home at 8.00am and you could really feel the bite in the air this morning. There had been a little frost on the lawn when I left home so that was fairly chilly riding along the F4 to Blaxland, arriving there at approximately 8.20am and there were already a few riders waiting. Franz Garde would lead the ride followed by Les Welch, David Campbell, Allen Rochester, Malcolm Kerry, myself, Peter Morris, Tom Lathouwers, Alan Sanderson, and Richard Mason was tail end Charlie.

We left at 9:00am and headed down Lapstone Hill to Mulgoa Road where we turned right and headed out through Silverdale, down through Bents Basin, on the way down through bents basin we came down one of the small hills and as we were doing so Peter Morris in front of me pointed to a small wedge tailed eagle circling one of the dam's looking for its breakfast. It is really nice to see one in this area. I have seen a couple here before probably 12 months ago, they were a lot bigger than this particular one.

We continued on down through Rossmoor then onto the M5 were we then turned off to the left and headed along Heathcote Road arriving at Lucas Heights reactor at approximately 10.30am. The wind had picked up on the way and I reckon it was blowing about 20 to 25 knots from the south and it was cold, we had a quick morning tea as the tour was to commence at approximately 11:00am. It is a 2 hour tour, they do have lockers for you to put your gear in and they also supply a smaller locker with a lock on it you can put your mobile phones and cameras in there as you are not allowed to take any photographs of the site or the surrounds as it is a high security area. On our arrival there we were meet by Franz Gardes father and mother and another friend.

The guy that was to show us around the site was a man called Dave Ross, and if you wanted to mix words with him had an answer for everything and the first part of the tour was a lecture on atoms, protons and neutrons, unfortunately science was not one of my favourite subjects at school but I managed to understand quite a considerable amount of it. I think my dad was also a nuclear scientist because he always used to say to me of a morning, come on mate "up and atom", so I really never knew how cluey he was.

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After the lecture we then boarded a minibus and were driven down to the reactor that is really high security and at the gate the bus was bordered by a federal policeman who asked us if we had cameras, mobile phones or any weapons, it really was just light hearted as we must have looked fairly respectable but I don't think you needed to be to smart with him as he has a job to do. The tour through the reactor and the surrounding area was very informative and we did learn also about carbon dating and in one section they had a log cutting of a Huon Pine Tree, and looking at the rings the tree was 680 years old that I found very interesting.



The guide also explained that about the thirteen hundreds you could see that the rings were very dark coloured and this was due to the fact that it was really cold almost an ice age.

We finished the tour at approximately 1.30pm.



There is a restaurant, coffee shop, tables, chairs and toilets just a short walk from the car park but the majority of us opted to have our lunch in the sun in the car park, where we said our goodbyes and then we left the Lucas Heights site to head for home we came back through Rossmoor where some of us turned right along the northern road and headed home through the back of St Mary's, David Campbell, Les Welch and Allen Rochester would turn onto the M4 to head home.

I arrived home at approximately 4.30pm after having only done 200 kilometres for the day's ride but we had a great day and it was very very interesting. It was something that I would not only worry about doing but I am glad I have been there,

We would like to thank Franz for the trouble he took to organise this and really appreciate his effort "THANKS FRANZ"

Regards Eric Baldwin