Australia's Nuclear History

Alex Tabarrok's commentary on US Nuclear weapons here and here reminds me of two things.

Firstly, when I was in the geniune Finlay's Fish BBQ in Kalbarri, Western Australia, near to the collection of condiments (nothing pretentious here: tubs of margerine and dunny roll), there was a display cabinet featuring nuclear memorobilia. It contained the detonator of a nuclear bomb! The UKs first testing occured just off Montebello Island, in 1952, and secrecy still clouds the details of the testing.

Also, in his book "Down Under", Bill Bryson claims that Aum Shinrikyo, the group that caused the Tokyo gas attacks, set off an atom bomb in the Australian outback. This claim stems from a guy called Harry Mason, and his evidence is far from conclusive. Still, when a typical house is over 4 hours drive from the road, there's lots we don't know....