Manguri Experience

The following is the story of my time in Coober Pedy and the building of the Manguri Railway Station. I had sent an email to a lady in the Coober Pedy Historical society, enquiring about an old friend I used to kick around with while mining opal there. She came back with the sad news he had died in November last year. She said she would be interested in knowing about my experience working on building the Manguri railway station in 1977-78.  She informed me Manguri has disappeared; cactus and concrete foundations are about all that remains. I sent her the following photos of my time at Manguri. She replied asking if they could use them on the Coober Pedy historical Society website, and could I provide reminiscences of my experience at Manguri.  

My life at Manguri.

My mate Bill Haining and I were nursing cold beers at the Coober Pedy pub when the Adelaide building contractor showed up. Bill, a weathered bricklayer who’d spent decades slapping mortar in Sydney and wherever else paid, had landed himself work at the new Manguri Railway station project. He’d tapped me to be his labourer, and now we sat waiting, condensation running down our glasses in the desert heat.

Albert Sarics, the builder who’d hired Bill, needed someone to unload the railway wagons full of construction materials before we could start laying bricks. I volunteered both of us for the job. “You’re mad,” Bill grumbled, but I talked him into it. We drove out to Manguri at dawn and spent the day unloading building supplies. By four o’clock, with just a few crates left, Bill wiped his forehead and suggested we finish tomorrow. “Bugger that,” I said, pointing at the remaining cargo. “We’re almost done. Let’s knock it out now.” And so we did.

Albert caught wind of our conversation. Later, he pulled me aside with a nod of approval. “You’ve got the right attitude for this job,” he said, offering me a permanent position as the site’s building labourer. With my wallet thinner than a lizard’s eyelid, I jumped at the chance. Bill shot me a few dark looks at first, but eventually the arrangement served us both well.

Since I’d be living at the Manguri compound, I handed in the keys to my dugout, flogged my old Falcon for a decent price, and dragged my gear into one of the site caravans. The pay packet was thick, and with a roof over my head and three squares a day on the company, I watched my savings grow week by week. Every Friday, Albert even covered our run into Coober Pedy where we’d restock supplies, grab whatever mail had found its way to that dusty outpost, and wash the week’s grime down with a cold one or two at the pub. They were the best employers I have ever had in my 55+ years of working.

The attached photos indicate what the work was. Typical building site work, without all the Health and Safety bullshit you have now. No one had any injuries or accidents in the time I was there.

The first time I encountered a snake was while poking around the scrub beyond the cattle yards. Since I come from New Zealand, where such creatures do not exist, I was unprepared to see that sinuous, scaly body slithering through the scrub. My legs carried me back to camp at a speed I didn’t know I possessed, heart hammering like a jackhammer the entire way.

Our Friday visits to town offered the only actual break in our routine. I still remember one evening at the pub when an Aboriginal woman stumbled through the front door, her dark hair matted with sweat against her weathered forehead, eyes glazed and unfocused. She was totally pissed. The pub’s yellow lights cast harsh shadows across her face as she swayed, mumbling words that dissolved into the smoky air. Mid-sentence, she hitched up her faded cotton dress and began relieving herself, urine pooling on the floor between her bare, dust-caked feet. The bartender—a burly bloke with forearms like fence posts—launched himself over the counter in one fluid motion, his calloused hands gripping the bar edge and propelling his body forward. He seized her by the midriff, his knuckles white against her thin frame, and hustled her back through the doorway into the night. Then he was back, wiping his palms against his stained apron, face impassive as stone. I’ve witnessed no one move with such purpose and speed—the whole incident lasted mere seconds, leaving nothing but a damp patch on the floor and the lingering scent of ammonia mixing with beer.

My time in the opal fields couldn’t last forever. On one of Albert’s last visits to Adelaide, I tagged along and booked a flight back to New Zealand. My pockets were heavy with Manguri money—enough to fund what we Kiwis call the “OE,” the overseas experience that’s practically a rite of passage. I’d plotted an ambitious route: first home to see the family, then onward across continents. The Trans-Siberian Express beckoned. I traced my finger across the map: Auckland to Sydney, Sydney to Singapore, threading through Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan, before boarding a vessel bound for Nakhodka on Russia’s eastern edge.

None of this would have been possible without those sun-scorched months at Manguri, where my callused hands earned every dollar that funded my travels. Even now, decades later, I find myself drawn back to the red earth of Coober Pedy in my dreams—the opal-riddled ground, the underground dwellings carved from sandstone, the vast emptiness of the Outback stretching to the horizon. I’ve promised myself I’ll return before my body gives out completely, perhaps aboard the legendary Ghan railway as it cuts through the continent’s heart. I got a taste of such luxury in 2018 when I rode the Indian Pacific, from Perth to Sydney, watching the landscape transform from my window while sipping cold beer in air-conditioned comfort—a far cry from those sweltering days unloading railway wagons.