ROADBOSS traces the incredibly complex – and interdependent – supply chain critical to the smooth operation of one of Australia’s busiest and most remote regional airports on Hamilton Island.
Like the flock of Currawongs patiently waiting to swoop into Hamilton Island’s Marina Tavern to steal diners left-over meals, ROADBOSS photographer Matt Williams and I are perched near the Shute Harbour barge ramp ready to capture the Emerald Carrying Co (ECC) fuel tanker as it traverses the hill leading down Shute Harbour Drive and along Whitsunday Drive to the harbour.
We’ve been here since the crack of dawn, grabbing an Uber from nearby Airlie Beach keen to capture the majestic sunrise over the pristine waters of Shute Bay and the first smattering of islands that make up the always-impressive Whitsundays – including South Mole and Long Island.
It’s just us, a couple of deckies prepping the two barges that service Hamilton and Hayman Islands most days, and (for a Monday morning) a surprising number of eager fishermen launching their tinnies for a day out trawling the waters off the coast.
Our contact – David Lesage, whose company Whitsunday Aviation Refuelling is the Hamilton Island site agent for Viva Energy Australia – insisted we needed to be at the harbour at 6:00am in readiness for the arrival of ECC driver Colin Keam between 6:15am-6:25am and departure of the barge at 6:30am sharp.
Time was of the essence he stressed – with the barge on an immovable schedule that would wait for no-one, let alone two shiny-arsed journalists/photographers from the big smoke! He’d even supplied a detailed map and instructions on where we needed to be (and shouldn’t be), and when, to ensure everything went smoothly.
In anticipation, Matt’s got the drone circling overhead waiting for first sight of the schmick-looking Kenworth T409 dolled up in the Emerald Carrying Co’s striking brown, maroon and gold livery as it rounds the final bend before making its descent down to the harbour.
The Emerald Carrying Co trucks have just an hour and 15 minutes to unload the fuel at the fuel depot and get the truck back for the return barge trip. Images: Matt Williams
While we’re waiting, we’re approached by a deck hand from the ‘Samson’, the barge that will be ferrying us across to Hamilton Island. Old mate is curious why we’re here and what we’re doing – not surprising considering we stand out like dogs balls amid the sea of high-vis’d-up barge crew and truck drivers busily loading trucks and pallets of essentials on to the boat ahead of departure.
Informed we’re waiting for the arrival of Colin and the ECC fuel tanker, old mate confidently tells us the truck won’t be coming for another half hour.
Naively taking him at his word, Matt pulls the drone out of the sky, aware of the need to preserve the flying camera’s battery life.
Then all of a sudden ‘The Jet Express’ appears in sight. “F*** f*** f*** f***,” Matt screams as he struggles to reconnect the drone and get it back up in the air. Too late! By the time the drone is back in the air the opportunity has been missed. As we both curse old mate, Colin’s parked the truck in the holding area and jumped out of the cab rapidly heading our way with a big smile on his face. He’s seen the drama unfold down below.
As we recount what’s gone on, he shakes his head and laughs, proudly declaring that he always arrives between 6:15am-6:25am on the dot – and has done ever since he started the gig seven years ago.
As hindsight will teach us, we should have listened to Dave!
After the 75-minute barge trip across to Hamilton Island, he greets us at our arrival point near the Hamilton Island Marina in his electric-powered golf cart – one of literally hundreds on the island necessary for both workers and visitors to traverse the island’s hilly terrain.
Driver Colin Keam does the Townsville-Hamilton Island run three days a week. The other two days are spent carting jet fuel and avgas to Mackay. Images: Matt Williams
It soon becomes very clear that Dave – a 30-plus-year Viva Energy veteran – runs his operation with military-like precision.
Not without reason. As he informs us on the trip through the village’s narrow streets, up along Marina Drive and onto Airport Drive to Hamilton Island Airport, we’ve got just an hour and 15 minutes to unload the fuel at the fuel depot and get the truck back for the return barge trip. No time for photo stops!
And this is not a pump and dump exercise. We’re talking aviation fuel – known as Jet A-1, a kerosene-based fuel for turbine engines which must meet strict international standards for quality and performance.
The fuel – imported from Singapore – is tested at every stage of the process in accordance with global aviation quality standards: before it’s loaded onto the trucks in Townsville, on the truck after loading, when it arrives at the depot, after pumping into the tanks, and again before it is pumped into the aircraft by one of the company’s two jet-dedicated aircraft refuelling trucks. Aviation fuel quality is a serious matter.
Fuel is tested for density (proportional to the amount of energy stored per unit mass), water content and other impurities.
It is also matched to the incoming batch paperwork to ensure it is the correct fuel and traceable to the original refinery batch all the way back to Singapore.
“Every step of the way it’s checking paperwork and testing fuel. And then we get audited every year to make sure the paperwork is all right,” Dave tells us above the hum of the pump transferring the 35,000 litres of jet fuel at rate of 1,100 litres per minute from the truck into one of four on-site tanks – three for jet fuel and the other for avgas used by propellor engines.
The full story appears in the Summer Issue of ROADBOSS Magazine, out now. To ensure you don’t miss another edition click here to subscribe.
