This cache is located near to the main electricity generating
station for Darwin.
This station commenced its career as a replacement of the older
Stokes Hill Power Station - now removed - near Stokes Hill
wharf.
During the devastation caused by Cyclone Tracey, extensive
damage was done to old power station in its very exposed location
beside the harbour, fully exposed to the cyclonic winds and the
wind borne salt spray. As a result it was a quite a number of days
before any sort of power could be restored to Darwin.
The government decided that a somewhat less exposed location was
required.
After a widespread selection process, the site eventually chosen
was on the island previously used during World War II for the
secret training of Z Force allied commandos used on the various
raids against Japanese held territory such as the successful
'Jaywick' raid on Singapore Harbour and the later, not successful,
'Rimau' raid, also on Singapore Harbour where all of the commandos
were either killed or captured and executed by the Japanese.
The original plan for the station was to construct a coal fired
power station like the older Stokes Hill Station and so there
needed to be a clear deep water access for heavily laden ships to
be able to be able to unload especially considering the wide tidal
range of Darwin Harbour.
Around this time natural gas, was discovered in Central
Australia at Palm Valley near Alice Springs. A further discovery at
Meerinie some hundreds of kilometres further to the west ensured an
adequate supply of gas for all power production in the NT for over
20 years.
A 1500km long pipeline was constructed and several compressor
stations were built to deliver the gas to Darwin and all of the
other towns along the route.
Over time this supply has been gradually depleted and a new
field - "Blacktip" - offshore in the Bonaparte gulf near the border
with Western Australia - has been developed and is progressively
brought onto line taking over from the Meerinie field to supply gas
into the pipeline. In the near future this gas will be delivered
back down to pipeline to Alice Springs.
The Channel Island power station was redesigned to use Gas
Turbines (GT). Three GTs were built as open cycle peaking units and
two GTs form combined cycle units. The heat from their exhaust is
used in the boiler for a steam turbine (ST). In this way additional
energy from the gas is extracted giving giving a much higher
overall thermal efficiency. The carbon footprint on the environment
of this station is somewhat lower than most coal fired
stations.
The cache is not too close to the station as the security people
expressed some concern in having people snooping around but have
readily agreed to the cache's present location.
The area is child friendly, but the location is near a road so
care should be taken.
The cache is a small black painted clipse tin and contains a log
and cache notes on waterproof paper, a pencil and room for very
small swaps. Bring your own pen/pencil just in case.
While the cache is located adjacent to a public access road,
care will need to taken as there are often lots of muggles around
over the weekend.
Do not forget to track down the other caches in the series and
learn a little about what keeps the lights and power available here
in Darwin, and those others along the route to this one.