Welcome to Garys’ Web Page    (Updated  May 2025)

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Smith Domain Incorporated

Water is so important for a cattle station.

This year became a very interesting period in Grace and my life. We went to see a friend on a cattle station in Northern Territory and we ended staying there about 2 or 3 weeks, in that time, there was a bore that was 84 metres deep that had stopped bring water to the surface which filled the tanks and was used to water the cattle. We didn’t know at the time what was wrong with the bore but the rotating shaft running down the middle of the bore pipe had worn a hole in the pipe about half way down and so the water being pumped up, escaped through the hole and went back down the bore. We all started to lift the bore pipes and the internal shaft that goes down the middle of the 2 inch (50 mm) galvanized pipe, we had pulled it up about half way close to the rusted hole in the pipe and then the whole lot broke and fell back down the hole, well, how do we get the lost equipment out, if we left it and re drilled the bore, it would cost about $30,000 to $50,000. After much thought, I made a device that I reckoned we could lower down the hole and snatch (or grab) the 50 mm pipe at one of the collar joiners. I got a piece of pipe about 75 mm in diameter and shaped it like a bazooka or blunderbuss with a detent spring. We all went to site and lowered this newly made device down the hole and felt it touch the bore pipe. We raised it up about 3 metres and dropped it down and to our delight, it had slipped over the bore pipe and clipped over one of the outer pipe joiners. We recover all the gear lost down the hole and replaced, fixed and then lowered it all back down the bore and it all worked a treat. We all were very happy with our days work…..