Tim the Yowie Man on Cork Block Cavern

The Canberra Times

As fresh-faced cadets in 1958, these four men and their mates dug a secret tunnel beneath the Royal Military College. This month they returned to relive those heady days.

Transcript

00:00 Canberra, our nation's great capital. It's been called many things since being

00:05 founded back in 1913. The bush capital, the garden city, the city of circles and

00:11 more recently the secret city. For years we've heard rumours of secret bunkers

00:16 and hidden tunnels running beneath our national institutions. Unfortunately

00:21 apart from a couple of pedestrian walkways and a few cramped service

00:25 tunnels most of these subterranean byways are purely urban legend. But there

00:31 is one Canberra institution that does house a secret bunker beneath its floor

00:37 boards. Its purpose wasn't for hush-hush political deals nor for secret spy

00:43 business. No, it was all about

00:48 escaping watchful eyes.

00:52 [Music]

00:59 Today I'm visiting the Royal Military College in Canberra or as most people

01:04 call it Duntroon. Originally a sheep station Duntroon has been the home of

01:09 the Royal Military College since 1911. The site was chosen to be Duntroon for

01:14 the shelter provided by nearby Mount Pleasant as well as the fact it was

01:18 outside the reach of the growth of the city so cadets would be spared the

01:22 temptations that a city would bring. Walking around Duntroon today and you

01:27 can't help but feel the rich sense of history and tradition. Since its

01:32 inception graduates from the Royal Military College have served under the

01:35 Australian flag in every major conflict. And while the particulars of the

01:41 training that has gone on here over the last century has changed a little bit

01:45 the focus on producing credible and capable officers for the Australian Army

01:52 has remained paramount. Being one of Australia's oldest national institutions

01:59 the grounds of Duntroon also house a number of historically significant

02:04 buildings. Perhaps the most notable is Duntroon House which was built by the

02:08 Campbell family way back in 1833 and is still being used today as an officers

02:13 mess hall. Given its long history it's no surprise that a number of Duntroon's

02:17 features have become entrenched in folklore such as the haunted rooms of

02:21 Duntroon House and the infamous Seven Wonders of Duntroon. Oddities that

02:26 include the bell that never tolls, the mast without a ship and the steps that

02:31 lead nowhere. Not to mention a few other secret spots we don't have the

02:36 authority to disclose. But perhaps the most notorious of Duntroon's seven wonders

02:40 is also the hardest to find. That's because it's hidden here beneath Cork

02:46 Block one of the college's residences. It is so secret that during its

02:52 construction even the top brass here at Duntroon had no idea it existed. This is

02:59 room 92 of Cork Block home to one of Duntroon's best-kept secrets the Cork

03:05 Block cavern also known as the room within a room. This hidden hideaway was

03:12 excavated back in 1958 by a group of industrious college cadets and it's

03:17 still here today. Of course it's now off limits to the public but luckily for us

03:24 today we've been given special permission for a little look around. We

03:34 did reach out to some former cadets to see if they wanted to revisit their

03:37 beloved cavern but they declined and probably for good reason because it's

03:42 not exactly as it used to be down here. In fact it's a little bit creepy. So what

03:49 did inspire a group of 19 year old cadets to hack out this cavern beneath

03:54 their bunk? Was it to hide alcohol? Was it to create a secret rendezvous spot to

04:00 meet a girlfriend? Both of which were forbidden on campus. No nothing quite so

04:06 scandalous. The reason they built this was so that they could hide these. You

04:14 see back in the 50s much like today cadets had dedicated spaces to store

04:20 their gear. Each of these spaces was numbered 1 to 12 and everything needed

04:24 to be neatly displayed for inspection. Of course this meant everything had to be

04:29 meticulously folded and in perfect pristine condition at all times. So when

04:34 the cadets found themselves with a pair of muddy boots or other non-standard

04:38 issue junk on their hands they needed to get creative. They needed to create a

04:45 secret number 13 and that's exactly what the young men did in this room. One

04:52 Saturday afternoon in April 1958 while shirking his compulsory sports session a

04:58 young Ross Thomas heard a thumping sound coming from the room of his mate

05:03 Warwick. I went to investigate and found Warwick nailing a false back to his

05:12 wardrobe creating a number 13 and I thought I knew one of those. Ross then

05:18 came back to his room and started to create his own secret hideaway right

05:23 here under his bed. I might have been making a bit of noise because soon

05:29 enough Warwick came over to check it out. Over the coming weeks one thing led to

05:33 another and after showing our inner circle of mates we all agreed it would

05:38 be a bit of a challenge to make it a bit bigger and to create a bit of a retreat.

05:42 And so began the great excavation of Cork Block Cavern. Between May and August

05:50 1958 Ross and his mate spent every spare moment usually during a study period on

05:56 Sunday afternoons or after lights out furiously digging away. They would take

06:01 turns filling kit bags with dirt before hauling them up through the trapdoor

06:05 through Ross's room out the window across the veranda before finally emptying

06:11 them out under this then young gum tree. Legend has it that on one particularly

06:16 industrious Sunday afternoon over 40 kit bags worth of dirt was hauled here.

06:24 Must have been good soil. Apart from being hard work the excavation was

06:31 risky business for the young cadets. Discovery of their extracurricular

06:35 activities would have led to severe disciplinary action including possibly

06:40 being turfed out of the college altogether. After a few months of

06:49 diligent digging the cadets had removed two brick pillars and carved out a space

06:54 roughly three meters by three meters. Once the excavation was complete it was

06:59 time to decorate. We tried to make it as homely as possible. Warwick installed a

07:03 switchboard so we could have electricity. We borrowed some curtains from the

07:06 officers mess at Fairbarn and some concrete from a nearby magazine artillery

07:11 for the floor. Further refinements included a stove for hot food and a

07:15 cabinet for borrowed crockery and cutlery. Everything a group of young

07:20 cadets would need to enjoy a little bit of time away from the piercing gaze of

07:25 their superiors.

07:28 [Music]

07:36 It was cozy. We could fit about 15 people down there.

07:42 [Music]

07:49 The cadets had even installed a hidden switch under the desk in the room above

07:53 so if the company commander suddenly decided to pop in the lights could be

07:58 turned off and everyone below knew to keep quiet. Despite the extraordinary

08:03 effort to construct and deck out the mother of all number 13s Ross and his

08:09 mates only got to use Cork Block Cavern a handful of times. In September 1958

08:14 only a month after the bunker was complete Ross fell ill and had a lengthy

08:19 stay in hospital. It wasn't until after the Christmas break when he could return

08:23 to the bunker but by then all the cadets were reassigned to different companies

08:28 in different blocks on the campus. Ironically it was the bunkers disuse

08:34 that led to it being discovered in early 1959. You see one Sunday afternoon Ross

08:40 went back to Cork Block to retrieve something he'd left in the cavern. That

08:44 same day in what proved to be a rather unfortunate coincidence another cadet

08:49 had some money stolen from his room. The police were called and Ross was

08:53 questioned. Naturally the authorities wanted to know why the young cadet was

08:57 hanging around a residence block he was no longer assigned to. You're in big

09:01 trouble young man. You know why you're here? I don't know sir, something to do with the

09:06 secret bunker. A secret bunker? You expect me to believe that cadet? Yes sir. So the

09:13 jig was up with the caverns cover blown it's days as a number 13 were done. The

09:19 garrison engineer ordered the electrics taken out, the furnishings were removed,

09:23 the missing pillars were replaced and Cork Block cavern was shut down forever.

09:30 Strangely the commanding officers never officially acknowledged the discovery of

09:35 the secret bunker. Even more perplexing was the fact that Ross and his

09:39 accomplices were never punished for their unauthorized excavation. No one

09:44 really knows why. Maybe the commanders were secretly impressed with the cadets

09:48 gumption. Maybe they were too embarrassed to acknowledge that such a covert

09:53 operation had been carried out under their noses. Or maybe simply there just

09:59 wasn't anything in the standing orders that dealt with construction of a hidden

10:03 room. Either way Ross and his mates got off scot-free.

10:09 Thankfully Cork Block cavern wasn't filled in and although it's not

10:14 accessible to the public nor to cadets it's nice to know that it still stands

10:19 as a monument of ingenuity, teamwork and daring. The very attributes the Royal

10:26 Military College would like every cadet to embrace. I'm Tim the Yowie Man and as

10:33 always thanks for watching.

10:37 [Music]

11:06 [Music]

11:08 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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