Under Mt Lyell

Walking over the hills around Mt Lyell industrial site where I live and work, a denuded area of a few kilometres that is so barren that hardly a tree takes hold, I dodge eroded holes between the rocks, which suggest what lies deep below: the unstable ground, the continually flowing water, the damp, the dark, and the heat… down there at the face 16km straight down – where mining operations stopped quite recently because of precious lives lost.