The 120 people expected to tour the Gunning Wind Farm on Saturday are in for an ''awesome'' experience, site electrician Graham Young says.
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Awesome is a word that comes up a lot when you talk to the former mine sparky about his place of work.
The 80-metre tall towers dominate the landscape for miles around and to stand underneath them is like nothing else, he says.
''My family [wife Terrie, eight-year-old Gus, five-year-old Austin, four-year-old Marlowe and two-year-old Sonny] got to see them up close for the first time this week and they were amazed,'' he said.
''Sonny was just looking up and saying 'dat's turbines, dat's turbines'. Gus just loved them, he really enjoyed it. They are just so huge.''
After two years working in daily proximity to the turbines Mr Young can't fathom why they are the subject of criticism in a climate of growing resource scarcity.
''The fossil fuels will run out,'' he said. ''Scientists are doing a good job coming up with things like this where we are harnessing the elements and working with nature, not against it. You can hear a 'whoosh, whoosh' when the wind blows into them on a windy day, but when there are only light winds there is no sound whatever.''
Mr Young, who compared the installation to a field of flowers, is pleased that up to 120 people will be visiting his ''office'' for Saturday's first national Australian Wind Farm Open day.
Two buses have been booked, one from Gunning and one from Goulburn and 70 registrations had already been received by Friday morning. For occupational health and safety reasons, members of the public can't just turn up at the site.
''This is good technology,'' Mr Young said. ''I really do encourage people to come out, take a look and see what the reality is. These are modern wonders [of the world]. I've been here for two years and I still stop and say to myself 'wow, look at that'.
Site manager Craig Simons said that if people had missed the boat this time around it was almost certain that more open days would be held in the future.
Wind farms at Macarthur in Victoria, Jervis Bay in South Australia, Ravenshoe in Queensland and Snowtown in South Australia are also open to the public.
