Alf: trapped in a sinkhole!
CAN THE BAY FAVOURITE SURVIVE THIS LATEST CATASTROPHE?
Disaster strikes in Summer Bay this week, after a massive explosion rips through town – causing a sinkhole to open up right below the high school!
The blast is triggered when Justin drives his car into a team of gas workers while trying to evade angry Ash. Lives are in peril as the fire races along the gas mains – but it’s Bay stalwart Alf who bears the brunt of it, after he ends up in the deadly pit…
“Alf just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” reveals Ray Meagher, who plays the long-suffering local. “There’s an explosion at the school and he finishes up at the bottom of this sinkhole. He’s got a huge lump of concrete across his chest, and there’s no help in sight.
I’m a bit worried about him, to be honest!”
Alf’s perilous plight comes about as his grandson Ryder gets into trouble at school with best pal Raffy. Alf is called in to deal with the situation, along with Raffy’s guardians John and Marilyn – but after the naughty teens do a runner, the adults are forced to split up and search for them. And that’s when the blast tears the school apart! So how serious is Alf’s condition as he languishes in the dark depths of the sinkhole?
“It’s not easy for him – have you ever been at the bottom of one of those things?” grins Ray. “At this point, he’s not sure if he’s going to get out – it could well be curtains for poor Alf. One way or another, this is set to be a huge story for him.”
As our pictures show, Alf is thrown a lifeline when he realises that there’s actually someone else at the bottom of the sinkhole with him: his daughter Roo! We’ll have to wait and see whether she’ll be able to help get her dad out of this dangerous situation alive and well – but Ray reckons filming the scenes was like a white-knuckle ride in itself.
“The set was amazing – it felt like we were at the bottom of a mineshaft or something,” he enthuses. “The crew built a set in the Home and Away studio, and it was pretty eerie. We filmed all the scenes in one day, so I was down there for a lengthy period of time. Let’s just say I was very glad to get out of there by the end!”
“The set was amazing – like the bottom of a mineshaft”