- Agriculture
- Object :: Bush repaired Scoop
- Object :: Tumbling Tommy
- Interview :: Murray Smith
- Interview :: Peter Darley
- Windmills, pumps, steam power and engines
- Interview :: Max Jones
- Chaff Cutting
- Object :: Water Barrel
- Object :: Furphy Water Cart
- Ophir
- Object :: Gold Washing Cradle
- Object :: Picks and Mining Pan
- Object :: Chinese Scroll
- Object :: Chinese Shoulder Yoke
- Lucknow
- Historic Cadia
- Water at Cadia Valley Operations
- Interview :: John Ford
- Interview :: Joel Fossilo
- Object :: Testing Apparatus
Max Jones
Max Jones has been running the family owned business Watermin Drillers in Orange for more than 40 years. Using practical experience and hydro-geological information gathered over the years, he has overseen the drilling of thousands of bores in the Orange district.
"I've got thousands of memories of bringing wealth and happiness to people who were desperate and we were able to find water for them. Sometimes the people were living for generations without any water. To see the expressions in their faces: all the time there was water there."
I moved to Orange in 1962 and started constructing water bores here. The land here is all volcanic rock, mainly basalts and andesite. A bore could be anything from 25 to 125 metres around Orange.
On city blocks [having a bore] is a good idea. It's been supported by many councils as a means of saving the ratepayers a lot money through having to use treated town water.
The domestic bores have not depleted, and will not deplete the ground water supply. In some places, the whole town entirely relies on water bores. Towns like Gilgandra, Dubbo and Parkes have rivers flowing through them but they rely entirely on bore water because the river water is too unreliable.
The amount of water taken out by bores for domestic use is not terribly great in comparison with the amount of water taken out by cotton and rice irrigators. As well, the recharge on the water in the hard rock areas does not rely on local rainfall at all. If it never rained in Orange again it wouldn’t affect the bore water.
I've got thousands of memories of bringing wealth and happiness to people who were desperate and we were able to find water for them. Sometimes the people were living for generations without any water. To see the expressions in their faces: all the time there was water there.