Day to Day happenings in my life

My town

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/QuirkyTown Written for

Journalistic Intentions  (18+) This is for the journal keeping types that come to PLAY! New round starts July 1! #2213121 by Elisa: Stik or Treat

My town could be called quirky if only for the fact of it being sliced in two by a major Highway. Little Mundaring in the hills of Perth Western Australia has an interesting history.

The Great Eastern Highway is the main Highway linking the West to the East of Australia. Everything that come in by road makes its way eventually through our town. People ask “which side do you live on?” Obviously I always answer, “The best side, of course!”

Mundaring wasn’t founded until 1903 when the Mundaring pipe line project was completed. It was built to take water from Mundaring to the goldfields in Kalgoorlie, 700 kilometres away.
The man who came up with this idea was a brilliant engineer name CY O’Connor. His was an amazing but sad story.

This project was deemed impossible at the time and the engineer was subject to prolonged criticism, such as this article from the Western Australian newspaper at the time.

And apart from any distinct charge of corruption this man has exhibited such gross blundering or something worse, in his management of great public works it is no exaggeration to say that he has robbed the taxpayer of this state of many millions of money ... This crocodile imposter has been backed up in all his reckless extravagant juggling with public funds, in all his nefarious machinations behind the scenes by the kindred-souled editor of The West Australian. —(Evans 2001:219)

CY O’Connor rode his horse to the ocean and shot himself in the head just before the water project was proved to be a success, which it was when the first gush of water entered the Goldfields.

His suicide note reads: I feel that my brain is suffering and I am in great fear of what effect all this worry may have upon me — I have lost control of my thoughts."

Robert Drew’s novel, The Drowner, provides a fictional account of this man and the building of the pipeline.