00:00Hidden away on this hillside, about an hour's drive from Canberra, is a relic.
00:05A relic dating back to World War II, when fuel needed to be protected.
00:14We're standing in front of a bomb deflector to the entrance of one of the tanks,
00:19and there were four tanks of this kind, underground, so there's not a lot to be seen
00:23except for these monstrosities, but they had a purpose.
00:27And inside, it's the entrance to the gate valves and controls,
00:32so they could feed the fuel back to the pump house just below us here.
00:36Three tanks at 600,000 gallons, and one at 54,000 gallons,
00:41in litres of about just over 3 million litres.
00:44What's this strange torpedo-like feature above?
00:49I'm sure it's not a torpedo, is it an air vent, is it?
00:52It's a fume vent that should be standing erect and upright.
00:59So it's collapsed over the time?
01:00It's collapsed over time, but it would vent the air where you go into the tunnel,
01:06which is about three or four metres.
01:09The tanks are doughnut-shaped, they're round, so to walk into the wall of the tank,
01:14you go through a tunnel, and that would be to vent the tunnel when they're working underneath.
01:20Vegetation-type matting was on top of them.
01:23When you're looking down upon them this way, a lot larger than they might appear from a distance.
01:28Just to the left here is a hatch, which should be bolted just inside.
01:34There's a ladder that drops down to a lower level,
01:37and there was a hatch, again, to protect it from vermin and whatever else,
01:44and all those people perhaps entering.
01:46The big hatch would have been to bring the fuel in,
01:49pumped via diesel pumps, because there was no electricity connected to the site,
01:54by hose, I imagine, to get it up here, flexible hose.
01:58The fuel would go in, connected to that unit there that I'm pointing to,
02:03which should be inserted inside.
02:06So the tanks are actually filled by pump up the hill,
02:09and then released by gravity feed from the gate valves underneath.
02:15So, Colin, this could be converted into houses, is that right, little dwellings?
02:22Well, it has been done, Tim.
02:25It's been done down at Mildura, and the tanks have been opened up,
02:30and the sides came in, so this wasn't the main door.
02:34It cut a side in from what is close to the ground level,
02:39and in some cases, two-storey, but it's possible that it can be done.
02:44It's not only possible, but it has been done.
02:47And over the years, I've often talked about that as a marketing potential for this site,
02:52but as events have occurred in the last month or so,
02:57I've come around to my other way of thinking,
03:00which is it would be far preferable to have this site used for purposes it was built for,
03:05and that's to store emergency fuel.
03:10Well, in addition to the pumping,
03:13receiving the fuel and pumping it into the tanks,
03:17and then taking it back for reloading into, repacking into 44-gallon drums,
03:22there was a little side room, which I imagine was intended for the guards.
03:28There were a couple of American guards at the time,
03:30and this would have possibly been in their lunchroom,
03:33but I qualify it because when you do step in,
03:36it's pretty messy, as you can see, because the birds and time's taken its toll,
03:42but there are some plinths, so there may have been additional pumps
03:45for reasons we don't understand.
03:52So,
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