Back in the ‘70s a teenager ducked out of a movie he wasn’t interested in, and he bought a book about underwater diving instead. Today, Norm Hayden runs a quietly remarkable water infrastructure operation with his wife Jenny and twin sons Nick and Nathan. ROADBOSS jumps in for the final day of a reservoir refurbishment in Mackay, before embarking on the home run to Townsville … with a surprise truck delivery along the way
Norm Hayden was thirteen when he walked into a Dymocks in downtown Sydney to buy a book on underwater diving. His cousins had dragged him out to see a movie, but he couldn’t think of anything worse than sitting in the dark for two hours, so he wandered off instead. By the time they filed back out of the cinema, Norm was enthralled with all things diving and had a pretty firm idea of how he wanted to spend his days.
“I read that book cover to cover before my cousins came out of the cinema,” he tells me, standing beside a 56-megalitre reservoir on a hill outside Mackay, his staunch staffy Woody by his side. “I was hooked, mate. Still am.”
Six months later he was scuba certified. At sixteen, he was teaching others to dive – the youngest instructor in Australia at the time. He also got his first bend at sixteen, badly enough that his mentor Bill Marden rushed him to the HMAS Penguin, a naval hospital in Sydney, to be re-pressured in their chamber.
“That’s the only way out of it and that was the only chamber around,” Norm says, casually, like it’s the kind of thing that happens to everyone.
“You’ve got to re-pressure. Either you get back in the chamber, or you jump back in the water and go back down. Otherwise, the bubble moves up to your brain and that’s the end of it.”
It didn’t put him off. By eighteen he was working offshore on oil rigs in the North Sea, Bass Strait and the Gulf of Mexico, and by his mid-twenties he’d dived just about everywhere worth diving. He poured concrete into the bottoms of village water wells in Indonesia. He used explosives to fracture coral in the Solomon Islands so locals could land their canoes on the shore. He spent six-and-a-half years dredging the Fly River in Papua New Guinea so the gold could keep coming out.
They always put the reservoirs on the best real estate. They’re upstream of the towns they supply, so they can gravity-feed down.
There isn’t much Norm hasn’t done, by diving standards, and he’s got plenty of scars to prove it.
These days, Norm owns and operates Southern Cross Reservoir Services Australia — SCRSA if you’re trying to fit it on a shirt, or a truck door — alongside his wife Jenny, and twin sons Nick and Nathan.
They clean, restore and reline the massive water tanks, reservoirs and dams that most of us never think about, but that we all rely on every time we turn on a tap. And the reason we’re here to see them — they run a fleet of trucks around the country doing it.
Just about everything about the operation, once you start poking at it, is quietly extraordinary. They’re the guys you’ve never heard of, and will likely never see, who make sure that when you turn the tap on, clean water comes out.
In the hole
The Mackay job is nearly done by the time we roll in. Three reservoirs on a hill, each holding 56 million litres of the city’s drinking water, all being stripped, cleaned and relined. It’s got to be the best vantage point of the sugarcane capital, with a panoramic view of the city.
“They always put the reservoirs on the best real estate,” Norm laughs, when I mention the view. “They’re upstream of the towns they supply, so they can gravity-feed down. Wait ‘til you’re on top of the tanks.”
Southern Cross Reservoir Services Australia clean, restore and reline the water tanks, reservoirs and dams that most of us never think about, but that we all rely on every time we turn on a tap. Images: Nathan Duff
Norm’s sons, Nick and Nathan, are inside one of the tanks finishing a ground-up refurbishment. It’s a process that effectively gives the tanks a second chance at life, or in this case another 50 years.
The restoration process is simultaneously simple and slightly mad. Blast the concrete clean with 5,000 psi of water from within, before painstakingly clearing the dirt and debris by hand. Then the tank is primed, before two coats of acid-resistant epoxy are sprayed across every square metre of floor, wall and column.
It isn’t like painting a house, Norm explains, because one tank alone will take 21 tonnes of acid-resistant epoxy to seal. There’s three of them here, to put the colossal job into perspective.
“Head up the stairs over there, then go down the ladder up the top,” Norm tells us, after a bit of chit chat. “The boys are expecting you.”
ROADBOSS photographer Nathan and I head up the stairs, exposing a view of Mackay that feels too good not to be public. There’s a little sheet metal box, with a fan blasting fresh air down a shaft. Inside, there’s a ladder that leads down into the tank itself – eerie, dark, and a nightmare if you don’t like confined spaces.
“We’re here now,” Nathan says, when I point at the ladder. “You first …”
These tanks have been here for 50 years. We’ll give them another 50. I’ve got a 50-year warranty on this work. I’m not here to screw the next generation.
In the hole we go. The ladder connects with scaffolding below, illuminated by floodlights within the tank. A staircase through the middle of the scaffolding takes us to ground zero.
We’re met by friendly faces, who wave us over to the far wall of the enormous tank. Norm’s sons, Nick and Nathan, alongside workers Riley and William, are spraying epoxy onto the tank’s inside walls, turning the dull, porous concrete into a clean white surface that’s fully sealed. “It’s a maximum of 72 hours between coats,” Nathan tells me, watching the spray crew work. “So, this is our final coat for this tank, before we test the surface to make sure it has adhered properly.”
Nathan talks me through the spray rig, the Epimax epoxy they’re using, all of it. He’s passionate, like Norm, and would prefer to show me the ins and outs of the SCRSA operation than make small talk. I respect that.
Nick walks over, as the crew has a quick break from spraying, and the brothers are definitely twins. You can tell them apart, but they speak the same way and share the same lively enthusiasm. The rest of the team comes over for a chat, but before we know it they’re back to spraying.
“These tanks have been here for 50 years,” Norm tells me, back at the surface, running a hand along the outside of one. “We’ll give them another 50. I’ve got a 50-year warranty on this work. I’m not here to screw the next generation, so we do it right even if it takes us a while.”
It’s a phrase that comes up a lot with Norm. The next generation.
The restoration process involves blasting concrete clean with water before the tank is primed and two coats of acid-resistant epoxy are sprayed across the floor, wall and column. Images: Nathan Duff
The iron
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though, because this is a ROADBOSS story and I’d be remiss to go any further without talking about Norm’s trucks.
The SCRSA fleet isn’t big, but every truck in it earns its keep. These trucks have to cart divers, compressors, cranes, earthmoving gear, shipping containers, boats and tonnes of epoxy to wherever in the country the next tank happens to be.
Norm’s history with trucks goes back a fair way. Three Macks came first, a Value-Liner, a Fleet-Liner, and a Super-Liner, the last of which was the crane truck for years. He speaks about them fondly, in the way one might about an old pet.
Then came the Kenworths. Two K200s, a T909 and soon, a couple of new K220 prime movers. He talks about the 909 more like you would an old girlfriend, though.
The beloved T909 was sold recently. Norm had parked it up when the hip started really giving him trouble, and when Brown and Hurley offered the right number for it – right kilometres, right timing – he let it go.
“Paid for itself,” he tells me. “Virtually paid for the new K220, too.”
[The recently sold Kenworth T909] paid for itself. Virtually paid for the new K220, too.
The new K220 will pull two- and three-trailer setups, which means AB-triples on the interstate runs to earn its keep. Boats, diggers, trucks, containers, cranes — anything SCRSA needs to transport for a major job will head south on the back of it.
A second K220, also on order and similarly specced, will be configured as a hook-loader crane truck with a twin-steer front end to keep it manoeuvrable on the rough off-road ground where the SCRSA crew often find themselves.
Backing the Kenworths up is a squad of faithful Hinos. There’s a 700 Series currently set up as a crane truck – the direct descendant of the old Mack Super-Liner – which will be converted to a day-cab prime mover once the twin-steer K220 lands, and a second 700 Series that acts as the company’s tilt tray.
The tilt tray primarily carts two little Hino 300 Series 4x4s around, which are kitted-out to get to and from remote projects. In some cases, the SCRSA crew are working on dams or reservoirs inaccessible by road, often needing to clear their own tracks in and out.
Beyond the working fleet, there’s Norm’s tricked-up LandCruiser 79 Series – the Woody-mobile as it’s known, because the placid pooch gets chauffeured around the country in it – and a Unimog.
There’s also a collection of off-road 4x4s the family has dragged through winch challenges and cross-country races over the years, including a Polaris RZR that’s completed the Finke Desert Race, and a few Daihatsu Hijets that make for a quirky alternative to UTVs on the family farm.
Southern Cross Reservoir Services Australia relies on a squad of faithful Hino trucks, including a 700 Series currently set up as a crane truck. Images: Nathan Duff
Norm isn’t particularly precious about any of it, but he is precious about what the trucks are used for.
“I will not transport other people’s equipment,” he tells me, and it’s the closest he gets to raising his voice in the entire time I’m with him. “My vehicles are set up and insured to move our gear. Jenny’s logistics business is what allows us to run interstate. We’ve helped family and friends out now and then, but we’re not chasing work from Woolworths.”
When I ask him about Jenny’s transport business, he explains that the only way they were able to float their gear around during the COVID-19 period was to set up a dedicated transport arm, which remains today.
Future proofing
Nick and Nathan run the sites now. Between the two of them, they hold 10 qualified trades. Five each. Commercial diving, carpentry, water-stop engineering, epoxy coating, fabrication and marine work.
Norm pulled them out of school in year 10, after it was clear it wasn’t for them.
“I said, ‘time for your apprenticeship, boys. You start Monday’,” he tells me, unrepentant. “They were getting into fights and all of that, so I decided it was time to pull them out. I’ve never looked back.”
They were getting into fights and all of that, so I decided it was time to pull them out. I’ve never looked back.
Jenny had her own reasons for pushing the trade-stacking. The short version is she wanted her boys employable so if they ever decided they’d had enough of the family business, they’d find work wherever they went.
On the Mackay site, Nick is running crew logistics and equipment and Nathan’s coordinating the epoxy spraying. Their young recruits, Riley and William, are learning the ropes and will eventually follow the same progression if they choose to stay – trucks, tools, then diving tickets.
Norm floats around the edges of the job, talking to the client, running admin, keeping a distant eye on the boys’ work.
This project has been a trial by fire, of sorts, and a trial Norm didn’t plan for.
Forty-seven days ago, he had his right hip replaced. When he finally went in for the surgery — years after Jenny started asking him to — the pre-op MRI found something sinister. One of his kidneys was engulfed in a cancerous growth.
“If he’d gone and got his hip sorted when I asked him to, they wouldn’t have found this,” Jenny tells me, shaking her head. “So, it’s a blessing, really.”
It’s Norm’s fourth Kenworth, but he admires it like it’s his first. When we drop into Brown and Hurley to pick up his new rig, he walks around it twice, slow, paying particular attention to the chrome. Images: Nathan Duff
Norm isn’t a bloke who shows a lot of emotion. He’s wired to get on with things, part of the tough-it-out generation. But when he talks about the past few months, it’s clear he’s been to hell and back.
“I was pissed off at first,” he says. “Annoyed for a while. But then I realised this is a second chance at life. And I’m bloody grateful for it.”
The doctors took the kidney out. Then they replaced the hip. Forty-seven days out from the chassis-up rebuild, he’s a new man. And, importantly, he’s completely cancer free.
“Deep diving off oil rigs and off bridges destroyed that hip,” he says, not keen to dwell on the big C any longer. “You’d cross your legs going down, and I never switched legs. Something had to give after years of that.”
While Norm was in hospital, the Mackay job had to go on. The boys kept running the site, kept spraying epoxy, and kept making sure the city had water. Nick took on the client calls. Nathan coordinated the crew. They handled everything Norm usually handles, and they handled it without him.
“They did an excellent job,” Norm tells me, smiling ear-to-ear with a sense of pride he isn’t trying to hide. “I knew they would, but this was the proof. Proof they’re ready to run the business.”
I was pissed off at first. Annoyed for a while. But then I realised this is a second chance at life. And I’m bloody grateful for it.
The last holiday Norm took was nine years ago. When I ask him whether there’s another one on the cards now that the boys have shown they can steer the ship, he reminds me he’s still all-in.
“I’ll probably step away in 10 years, I reckon,” he says, although I sense that timeline doesn’t change with each year that passes. “I’ll never completely step away, though.”
Into the dark
The diving side of SCRSA is where the company cut its teeth and they’re all quick to remind me it’s the core of what they do. Because the cities they service still want their drinking water, a lot of tanks can’t be drained for restoration. Which means someone has to go in wet.
“It’s pitch black,” Nathan tells me. “You can only see a foot in front of you. You’re working off the lights on the cameras.”
I’m curious as to just how dark it gets down here, and when I ask, Nick laughs and tells me it’s best if they just show me. He sends Riley up to the surface to turn off the lights.
I can’t see my hand in front of my face. It’s bloody freaky, because there’s absolutely no way I’d find my way out of here.
A lot of water tanks can’t be drained for restoration, which is where the Hayden family’s core scuba diving skills come into play. Images: Nathan Duff
“If you do lose lights when you’re down here, you’re best to sit still until someone gets the power back on,” Nathan tells me.
Does it get boring? The guys don’t seem to think so.
“We only spend three hours at a time on the bottom,” Nick says. “You do the usual stuff to stay entertained, make up songs in your head, that sort of thing.”
Every so often, he says, they’ll find sunglasses or a wallet.
“People break in and dive some of the smaller tanks around the country,” Nick says. “Which is obviously extremely stupid. You find a pair of shorts or a wallet and you think, ‘I hope there isn’t a body down here’.”
The worst dive job on the horizon, the brothers tell me, is a pipe replacement in a river a couple of hours south of Townsville. Zero visibility and a resident saltwater crocodile …
People break in and dive some of the smaller tanks around the country. You find a pair of shorts or a wallet and you think, ‘I hope there isn’t a body down here’.
“I’m not looking forward to that one,” Nathan laughs, which is the understatement of the year. “We basically have a spotter on the bank with a rifle, and we just get on with it.”
It occurs to me, standing at the edge of the reservoir, that this family has built a career out of doing jobs nobody else particularly wants, and they’re magnificently unfussed about all of it.
Home run
After we left on the first day, the crew kept spraying into the night to finish the final coat of epoxy. They finished late, but it’s now 6:30am the next day and the trucks are packed up and ready to head home to Norm’s property in Townsville, which doubles as a depot for his expansive array of equipment (the trucks aren’t even the half of it).
The convoy pulls out and there’s enthusiasm all round – likely because the fellas are coming off an 11-day stint and will get to spend a few well-earned days off with family.
Nathan’s in the Hino 700 Series crane truck, Nick’s in one of the two Hino 300 Series 4x4s, and Norm rolls alongside them in his tricked-up LandCruiser 79 Series with Woody (who we’ve come to love) riding shotgun.
It’s fair to say the run north out of Mackay is one of the better drives up this way – particularly with the sun still low. Sugarcane running right up to the shoulder of the highway, mountains smudged blue in the distance, the golden light breaking through the clouds.
Twin brothers Nick and Nathan hold 10 qualified trades between them –commercial diving, carpentry, water-stop engineering, epoxy coating, fabrication and marine work. Images: Nathan Duff
The plan is to stop at Bowen for fuel, which is around the half-way mark. As the big mango appears, indicators flash and we catch up with the guys to discuss a possible detour. Norm waves me over as Woody cocks a leg in a paddock behind the servo.
“So, I’m thinking we go via Brown and Hurley in Townsville,” he tells me. “That first K220 is ready, so I’ll get it home and we can run gear up with it. How’s that sound?”
A truck handover isn’t our usual thing, but Norm’s itching to get his hands on the new Kenworth and there’s no way I’m going to get in the way of that. Plus, he’s talked about the build throughout our time together so I’m keen to see the new branding he’s settled on.
As Norm and I chat about his plans for the Kenworth, he explains that while much of the transport industry runs on tight deadlines, his operation isn’t too rigid. He’d rather get to site fresh and the same goes for his crew.
“I’d rather have my trucks and my drivers off the road at night,” he tells me. “I don’t want to be killing animals for starters, but I don’t want the guys having those micro-naps. I don’t want to be telling any of these guys’ families that dad isn’t coming home.”
As we roll into Brown and Hurley’s Townsville dealership, salesman Al Dillon and branch manager James Meakin pull the K220 around, finished in a menacing black hue against a backdrop of white DAF and Kenworth trucks parked in the lot.
If you do lose lights when you’re down here, you’re best to sit still until someone gets the power back on.
It’s literally just been finished, but Norm isn’t the sort of bloke who lets a new truck sit in a dealer’s yard any longer than it has to.
It’s his fourth Kenworth, but he admires it like it’s his first. He walks around it twice, slow, paying particular attention to the chrome.
“For the Sydney jobs we’ll run an AB-triple down using this one,” Norm tells me. “Boats, diggers, trucks, containers, cranes. That’s what this Kenworth is for, basically – the big stuff.”
Nick has been standing off to the side, checking out the new K220. I ask him when he’ll get a go behind the wheel.
He shakes his head.
“Nah, mate. That’s Dad’s truck. I didn’t drive his 909. I won’t drive this one either. I’d love to – don’t get me wrong – but it’s his.”
Norm’s property in Townsville houses multiple sheds full of earthmoving gear, dive rigs, cranes, a Unimog, and a heap of other off-road toys. Images: Nathan Duff
I let it sit for a second, then I ask him why.
He shrugs. “He’s earned it. That’s just how it is.”
As it turns out, the second K220 on order will be Nick’s, and it’s specced identically aside from the twin-steer front end.
Like so many transport companies, the SCRSA fleet consists of trucks assigned to drivers. Each Hino 300 Series 4×4 belongs to one of the boys, and the same goes for the prime movers. The tilt tray and crane truck are a little more relaxed, but they’re just as well kept.
“We’ve always done it that way,” Norm tells me. “If it’s your truck, you look after it. You wash it, you don’t put your feet up on the dash and treat it like someone else’s. The boys know that my truck is mine, but I also won’t go near their trucks.”
A better way
Jenny joins us back at the family property outside Townsville, once the convoy is home and the trucks are parked up. She has a quiet confidence and reassuring warmth, probably the result of holding down the fort for so many years.
The worst dive job on the horizon … is a pipe replacement in a river a couple of hours south of Townsville. Zero visibility and a resident saltwater crocodile.
For the fifteen years before Norm started SCRSA in 2002, he was working offshore on four-weeks-on, four-weeks-off rotations. The money was good, the distance less so. Two years after the twin boys were born, Norm and Jenny had twin daughters. So, four children in two-and-a-half years, and no family nearby to help.
“He was a great provider,” Jenny tells me, not sugar-coating it. “As a father, though, he wasn’t there for long stretches. He wasn’t there for Christmas, birthdays, half the stuff. He’d fly in, he’d be Dad for four weeks, then he’d fly out again. But, that’s what we had to do and when he was here, he was all-in.”
She kept the home strict, Norm tells me, speaking with a sense of adulation. He adores Jenny, and I get the sense he couldn’t have done any of it without her. He knows it, too, and praises her endlessly when I ask about how on earth she cared for four children under the age of three.
“It was never ‘wait til your father gets home’, she’d discipline the boys so that when I got home I wasn’t getting stuck into them about something they did weeks ago,” he says. “When I got back I was dad, I wasn’t at the pub with mates. I was at home, with the kids, for every waking minute of it. I hate when blokes these days carry on about parenting being the woman’s job … I wanted to do all of it when I was home.”
It was hard leaving, Norm tells me, which is why he doesn’t want his sons away from their children – his grandchildren – for long.
“I had to pull away a bit a few days before I’d leave, or it would be too unbearable for me and them,” he explains. “I don’t want my sons away that much. It isn’t fair on the wives, the children, or them. That’s why we have the 11-day roster and sometimes it’s less than that.”
Norm Hayden runs a quietly remarkable water infrastructure operation with his wife Jenny and twin sons Nick and Nathan. Images: Nathan Duff
For all the time he spent away, though, he now spends virtually every waking moment with his sons. It’s the biggest perk of the business, he tells me.
“I’ve got the best of both worlds, really,” he says. “I work every day with my sons, who are some of the best tradespeople in the country, and then I see my grandchildren when I’m back at home – all eight of them.”
He even thinks a couple of the grandchildren could one day end up working in the business, which is something that clearly excites him.
“I reckon one of the girls and one of the boys are going to end up at SCRSA,” he tells me. “The same way my sons showed an interest, I think they’ll end up here but being that next generation, the job will probably look different for them – more social media and promotion, maybe.”
Bugger off
Wandering around Norm’s property as he starts hooking the new K220 up to a low-loader he’s got in the back paddock, the sheds – plural, because this operation needs multiple – are full of earthmoving gear, dive rigs, cranes, a Unimog, and a heap of other off-road toys.
I ask him about the after-work ritual, as he and the crew stand around chatting. After an 11-day stint on site and a long run home there’s surely a carton of beers at the end to debrief? A team barbecue?
Boats, diggers, trucks, containers, cranes. That’s what this Kenworth is for, basically – the big stuff.
He laughs. “No way, mate. I tell the boys to bugger off. They need to go and spend time with their families. I do the same here with Jenny.”
Before I leave, I ask Norm what he’s most looking forward to now the kidney’s gone and the hip’s all healed. He doesn’t hesitate.
“Picking up my grandkids,” he says. “For the first time, I can actually pick them up. The oldest is 11 and I couldn’t pick her up until recently.”
His face does something that I haven’t seen it do all week. It lights up.
Not even the new K220 had that effect.
