Aussie Synchrotron

I landed at 2:30pm and didn’t waste any time. With only two nights in Melbourne, I was straight off to my first meeting. My most expensive Uber ride ever skirted the city which looked the same size as when I’d last seen it (2014) but twice as dense. Every skyscraper that looked familiar to me now seemed to have a twin. Eek! And, typical Melbourne, it was bloody freezing with a howling wind.

I chatted some with my Uber driver as we left the city behind and cruised down the highway. He was a happy chappy because it was the end of his day and my trip was taking him close to home. An hour later, we pulled into the Australian Synchrotron. My first thought? Looks a bit small.

At the security gate, my driver talked like a pro while the guy speaking through the box was a total drongo. Must be an industry standard because SLAC’s security team isn’t much better.

Inside the reception building I found no one. Not a soul could be found nor any evidence of recent human habitation. Was this place even open for business? I called a number posted at the front desk and was pretty certain I talked to the same drongo who was manning the gate entrance speaker box. He would let my host know I was there.

A few minutes later, Brad Mountford, Head of Engineering at the Aussie Synchrotron, waltzed in and shook my hand. We’d met back in 2019 during my junket to visit the synchrotron in Grenoble, France. Since I was passing through Melbourne, I thought it worthwhile to come see how synchrotrons are made in the home land and he was happy to have me.

We walked straight over to the main building and barely got through the front door before we ran into someone who’d spent time at SLAC. Part of Brad’s engineering team, he’d been at SSRL a few years before I got there. Synchrotron radiation is a small world.

Brad gave me a great tour of the facility and he seemed to be enjoying himself. A very reserved guy who I can’t imagine throwing his head back in laughter, he cracked a smile when he said, “This is great! I don’t have to explain what a synchrotron is!”

Instead, we talked about the similarities and differences and there was more of the former than the latter. I laughed at the same weird color teal paint they used to paint their experimental hutches – it matched the color of SSRL’s monochromators. When I mentioned the similarity thinking it was a radiation standard, he just said they went down to Bunnings and thought, “yep, that looks good!”

They electrical cabinets forming a rainbow on top of one of the hutches and I was wrong to think it was to celebrate Pride, Brad had simply asked the beam line engineer what color he wanted and when he said one of each, they went ahead and made their customer happy. Sounds like a great place to work. Shame it’s the only synchrotron in Australia – and it’s in Melbourne.

We walked up and over the ring, then into the accelerator tunnel. Since they were in the middle of a three week downtime we were able to walk the internal perimeter and though everything here looked shiny, colorful and well lit, the technology was a carbon copy of the 90s era synchrotron I’d walked the halls of for five years.

It didn’t take us long to walk the 16m diameter ring (as opposed to SSRL’s 50m), then we were off down a long underground beam path that lead to the “live” experimental hall. This was new territory for me – a place where they could expose animals and humans to synchrotron radiation. It was an impressive facility that they’d been very creative with. Inside the experimental hutch, they had a robot so big it would have looked at home at the Tesla factory and it was capable of holding a cow in the path of the x-rays.

On the other side of the hutch was the human “clinic”. Not operational yet thanks to the mountains of red tape still needing to be cut, it was made up to look like a doctor’s office – not a science experiment. Brad’s team thankfully doesn’t have to deal with the red tape. Instead, they just come up with creative ways to keep a female patient comfortable and still while their breast is compressed and positioned in the path of the beam.

I just couldn’t get over the space that they had, how tidy everything was kept and the pace at which everyone seemed to work. They did all of their maintenance and upgrades in three-week downs. SSRL couldn’t get their paperwork done in that time, need at least a three-month downtime each year and even then they struggle to get anything upgraded.

An enthusiastic beam line engineer talked me through their hi-tech personnel protection system and pointed out the experimental chamber he’d installed along with a 3-tonne precision block in the last couple of week. Incredulous, it was nice to be around people who can actually get shit done.

When Brad pointed out an image generated by x-rays in the animal lab, I asked how it was possible to achieve the different layers. He really made me smile then because he swept his hand over the top of his head to imply that he doesn’t understand the science, he just engineers shit to facilitate it. Just like me.

It was nearing 5pm and the end of Brad’s work day so the tour came to end and I was so glad I came. I feel like I’m a synchrotron enthusiast. Having worked at one and now visited three others, it’s just fascinating to walk the halls of a massive machine that you kinda understand but can never really grasp the full scope. It’s a nice feeling to know enough about it to appreciate the nuances and get stopped in your tracks when you see something impressive – like an experimental hutch for sheep.

I said goodbye to Brad and made sure he knew he was welcome at SSRL anytime he was near California, not that I’d be there to welcome him!

I walked across the road then and waited for my mate Derek. I figured that would be easier than trying to tackle the security at the main gate again. By the time he pulled up ten minutes later, I was wearing all my available warm clothes with the exception of my beanie – I saved that for when we got back to his place.

Predictably, Derek was driving a Holden Astra. I’d met Derek climbing but only after doing an anchors course with him I found out he worked at Holden. We never had much to do with each other at Holden but saw each other outside of it. His tenure there had lasted much longer than mine and it was super fun to be in California at the same time as him and his family when he worked for Apple while I was Tesla’ing.

We’d kept in touch and had only talked recently so it didn’t feel like we had a whole lot to catch up on but we still talked our way through the traffic back to his place. It wasn’t a short drive and I quickly understood why he much preferred his 17km bike commute to this shit show.

I knew Derek’s house before we pulled into the driveway. His pride and joy, he’d given me a video tour on more than one occasion and it really is a masterpiece. They’d bought the delapidated house for the block and knocked it down after living in it for a year. Then came the project. A home designed by Derek and his wife Kylie, it was stunning.

Even better was the kids running through it when we walked through the door. I don’t want to sound like the old Auntie, but wow had these kids grown up. Emma was still chucking tantrums and saying “Cream Cheese!” to the camera for photos the last time I’d seen her and Oliver was barely making sense. Now, they were little adults. Their neighborhood friend Emily was also running amok so they paused their craziness for a minute to introduce me.

Kylie had dinner ready for us so we settled in around the table that formed the centerpiece of the huge living space and caught up.

The kids did their reading at the top of the stairs until it was bed time and us grownups stayed up chatting until it was our bed time.

Mud on my Shirt

In the morning, we did Kylie’s usual commute – the walk around the corner to school. Just as I’d done in Brissie, this is the stuff I looked forward to, just melding with the daily routine. The kids hopped along with their backpacks, obviously keen for the day ahead. We became part of a slow-moving mob as we neared the school and other kids dressed in blue with matching hats merged on the same point. Mum got a hug at the gate but I barely got a wave. There was an exciting school day ahead! Bye!

Back home, Derek was pretty much ready to ride. He’d taken three bikes off the rack, pumped the tires up and lubed the chains. Once he loaded them onto their Subaru, we were off. This would be Derek and Kylie’s first time riding together in a while and my first time riding with either of them in a very long while. 

It wasn’t far to Plenty Gorge and despite the main carpark being closed due to road grading, Derek made up a park and we were soon riding off towards single track. It was fucking cold (obviously) so the fast ride down the road didn’t help. I was still fighting off the remnants of this cold/pink eye thing too so my lungs were hurting from the outset.

Derek, as ever, lead the way and took us on some great narrow single track. It was flowing and fast in some sections with the surprising roots to catch you out in others. My memories of riding with Derek usually involved seeing the back of him for a minute or so at the start of the trail, then seeing him again at the end of it. I was happy to be keeping pace with him a bit better now, despite my coughing lungs.

There was a lot of talk about the Goat Track of Doom which earned the goat track part of its name, but not the doom part. It was a super fun section where you had to be slow and accurate or risk a slide down the mountain. The real Goat Track of Doom was further along the trail without an ominous name but the up-and-down whoops made me suck my breath in as I went over them.

I rode Derek’s Giant Trance with dual suspension then switched over to Derek’s hard tail – a Nukeproof whatever brand that is. What a contrast! I hadn’t been on a hard tail since moving to the US and it was an interesting change. I wouldn’t say it was a good one, but it’s good to just feel the bumps once in a while.

We stopped at the lake for a look, ditching the bikes and walking the steps down to water level to take in the scenery. This was Aussie bush at its best and it was nice to see. Derek made a lot of noise about swimming but he’d have been crazy. The sun had come out, yes, but the wind still carried a serious chill.

The climb out from the lake got to both me and Kylie. Kylie’s legs were giving up and my lungs had had it. Too much movement and not enough breath coming in. It was past lunch time too which meant I’d already starting thinking about a meat pie.

Back at the car, we were all happy to have had the ride together and my pie idea was taking hold. We stopped in at a bakery near to home and had a few munches before finishing them off at the house. Kylie took up what seemed like her usual spot siting on the floor with her back against the sun-baked floor-to-ceiling windows.

I got an expected call from Matt then, Dan’s brother. The SVT had broken down, along with every other car in his possession. I talked him through possibilities as best I could and hoped he’d get himself home, with the car or without it.

Kylie and I picked up the kids from school then we all spent the afternoon down at the footy field kicking a soccer ball around. When Oliver lost interest, he started clambering up the goal posts to see how high he could get. When Kylie turned back to the house to get dinner started, Derek, Emma and I kept on with our soccer. Emma had been inspired by the recent form of the Matildas, Australia’s women’s soccer team, and she’d be attending her first soccer training session tomorrow.

At home, the grown-ups had lasagne leftovers for dinner while the kids ate their veggies. It wasn’t long after that that Kylie was off to her neighborhood tennis group in which she was a fill-in, but a reliable one at that! That left me, Derek and the kids and after a bit of coaxing, Derek convinced them to take me on a wombat walk. I wasn’t sure if he was serious but he was! Armed with a few headlamps and torches, we took to the bush.

We walked only a couple of blocks and were on a nature path that crossed over a small creek and into some bushland. We heard a lot of wombats and I managed to catch the back end of one as he shuffled off into the darkness, but we also spotted a tawny frogmouth and lots of bats. While the kids were brave at the start, their fear did catch up with them a bit and Derek was forced to provide piggy-back rides. No one was interested in riding on my shoulders despite my offers.

Back home, I was feeling pretty chuffed at being taken on an Aussie animal walk and the kids were ready for bed. I said goodnight and goodbye to Derek soon after. My cold catching up with me, I wasn’t feeling the best so was eager for a big rest.

Cya Friends

Derek was gone by the time I woke up but the kids were midway through their morning routine. I joined in and they told me what they were expecting today. Something about a “planning day” which meant normal classes were not on the agenda.

Another cold morning, the walk to school felt almost familiar doing it a second time. I didn’t get any more love than I had the day before, both kids too excited for their day! Back at home, Kylie had a workday to get to and my flight was mid-morning so we piled into her car and she gave me a ride.

We were so busy talking that we missed an exit or two and found ourselves following the wrong airport signs (Melbourne has two airports) and thankfully didn’t hit too much traffic righting ourselves. The airport was busy so we did a quick drop off and I said I’d see her whenever and wherever our paths crossed again!

Once in position at my gate, I was thrilled to see a message come through from Kevin. It was a link to the video of the wedding dance. I must have looked a right idiot to anyone walking past the smile on my face was so big.

5 – 7 Sep, 2023.