It’s no saucepan and spoon to get this job done, but instead a 15-tonne grader, a roller, water truck, and a ute full of tools.
The G-Team follow a schedule from north to south of the shire, and back again. They also head way out west, as far as 50 kilometres past Nerrigundah.
Bus routes and busy roads are graded twice a year which means an average of 530 kilometres of dirt road is graded each year.
Head chef of the G-Team is John “Johno” Dudley. He has been with us for 25 years.
He talks us through the recipe for grading a dirt road:
“We rock up to the section of road ready for maintenance and put our signs out before getting to work clearing drains of any litter or debris.
“We rip into gnarly parts of the road, dragging the teeth of the grader 100- 200mm deep.
“To get the road’s formation back, the grader and the roller work together to reshape and recompact.
“We also make sure the tail-outs are doing their job. These are the dead-end-looking side roads which are necessary to drain water off the road.” Johnno said it’s like baking a cake.
“It’s important to add water to bind it all together.” A water truck keeps the road moist and the dust down.
“Water keeps everything intact, so the road doesn’t crumble over the next couple of days.”
The G-Team keeps an eye on the weather because too much rain will turn their cake into slop and too little rain means they’ll need double the water to get the job done.
As well as grading, the team also re-sheets sections when required. The average cost of gravel per one-kilometre of road is $30,000.
- This story was first published in Council’s quarterly newsletter for residents, Living in Eurobodalla. A printed edition is delivered to the shire’s 26,000 households.
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