The former Maralinga nuclear test site was off limits for more than half a century and only returned to traditional owners in 2009. The name Maralinga is of the Pitjantjatjara people, meaning ‘field of thunder’.

At the old hospital, where Maralinga site manager Robin Matthews lives, are photos of atomic tests that took place in 1956 and ’57. The crater is the result of the sole ground level detonation at the Marcoo site.

Stars shimmer above the swimming pool at Maralinga village, which was the centre of activity in the 1950s when temperatures reached scorching levels during summer.

Robin Matthews, the master of Maralinga, maintains the village and leads the tours to the bomb sites. Here, he walks past the shell of a non-operational atomic bomb.

“She plenty, mate.” Markings can still be seen on a time-worn water tank at Maralinga village.

An orange sun sets over the road heading toward Maralinga from the south, looking west across the Nullarbor Plain. 

The swimming pool at Maralinga village, which was used as a rubbish dump by the British during the first clean-up in the late 1960s.

The Breakaway site was used to test the ability of the bombs to withstand heat and other explosions. This resulted in sand being melted into thick clumps of glass. 

Australian Radiation Laboratory (ARL), the predecessor of Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, monitors the site for radiation.

Robin Matthews gazes at a derelict generator from the window of his car.

The swimming pool was turned into a rubbish pit during the first British clean-up, its outline and the steps leading up to it can still be found on a small rise at the southern edge of the site. 

A camel blocks the dusty road leading to Emu Field, the site of Operation Totem – two nuclear tests on 15 October 1953.

Signs point to Maralinga, which is now attracting more and more curious visitors. They make the trek along the dirt roads from the south, turning off the Eyre Highway on the Nullarbor Plain, just west of Nundroo.

Some areas of Maralinga are still prohibited to the public. A 2008 report noted that within the most heavily contaminated 120sq.km area, currently closed off from public access, the dose could be up to 13 times greater than that from X-raying a broken bone.