Kings Park

 It is the largest inner city park in the world. Here is the view on CHOGM day when the war memorials and alot of the park were closed off for security! But still a lush view out over South Perth and my house.

I'm getting old

So I have decided im getting old, whether I like it or not as based purely on the fact that on a bank holiday (due to CHOGM and the Queen) I went to the DIY store and bought some plants.

The plants in questions for those horticulturists among you are an Agave Attenuata (below) for my room and on my bedroom balcony are Jalapeño and Serrano (pictured earlier) Chilli plants. (Que welcomed tips from a Camborne School teacher and an ex Trewirgie School teacher.)   

Part 2 preview...I'm getting old

$10 dollars to who can tell me what plant it is?

Another couple of weeks have past, and I have now been down under for over a month. Part 1: The Goldrush

So as the title say’s I have been down under in Australia for over a month now, and since my last blogging, I have spent 2 weeks in the Tanami Desert at Dead Bullock Soak Mine. After arriving on a Fokker 50 (Grandpa, just for you) and having 4 days of inductions including my LV (Light Vehicle) induction I was allowed to venture out into the mine for the first time properly. With that, I was sent underground with a Nipper (Top Left Photo at the lowest part of the mine) who takes drill bits, mesh, rock bolts etc. to the jumbo’s and does loads of other jobs like setting up headings and throwing bolts for the jumbo operators.  I was quite relieved come 5 O’clock when I was told there wouldn’t be space in our LV for me as the Nipper has to take the jumbo ops. Back to surface at the end of the shift, which meant I could catch a lift in the back of one of the CAT AD55 dump trucks (Top Right) to surface at ~8 kmph, a relaxing end to an exhausting and hot day albeit fun day underground, all I wanted was my bed.

The following day, was the beginning of learning my job from my supervisor as after this swing I would be on my own as the only geotechnical engineer on site.  And what a first day of learning it turned out to be, with us being sent to investigate some rock-noise which could be heard. As it turns out it was a relatively major with a rock fall event inside a stope causing a truck tip to be lost which we had just finished setting up so we could put waste rock into the stope instead of taking it to the surface. Fortunately nobody was hurt or in the area at the time, and the following investigation took up most of my time for the rest of my swing as my senior geotechnical engineer flew off site for the end of his swing the following day, leaving me to deal with the investigation into the causes. So on top of my normal day to day jobs, I now have some experience into a rock fall investigation which is pretty cool, albeit a little stressful at the time when you have information overload from learning all these new things.

Yes that’s right; my uni degree taught me nowt!   Most of the learning starts on the job.

So after your 12 hour shifts, you come back to camp, which is a “short” bus ride away from the mine and if you’re not too tired, you can use the extra facilities, other than the dry mess (canteen) and picking up your laundry. The camp has wet mess (bar) and social area with a table tennis table, pool tables, and darts boards. There is also a gym, and above ground swimming pool (which drunkards keep breaking to the tune of about $30,000 by throwing deck chairs into).

So far other than the bar, which sells cheap beer, I have not had a chance to use the extras yet, but I did do my gym induction. Now you’re thinking, same old lazy me! Which is true, but you normally just want your bed. But a couple of nights after work, a few of us have  got together and had a beer or 2 (and no more as you have to blow 0000’s the next morning, numbers and it’s a window seat).With the Saturday night BBQ being a nice chilled out evening.  

My donga (room/hut in the desert Top Right, just by the telegraph pylon just left of centre) is basically a large sea container or that sort of size split into 3. It’s nice, I have a good view and am lucky to be on the edge of camp where it’s quiet (the walls are so thin, I can hear the guy next door on the phone and that’s the persons voice on the other end of the phone, just kidding, but they are thin) . It’s air conditioned and an en-suite, and had all one would need to sleep in, but its basic, I actually quite like it. Get home with my can of beer, have a shower, and get into bed and read my book on my kindle, while listening out for the dingo’s wandering about the camp.  

After flying back through a thunderstorm, in the little Fokker 50 sat next to a fat chap who gave me no space in my little window seat and proceeded to sleep for the whole 4.5 hour flight, I’m now back in Perth for 6 days of R&R with CHOGM and the Queen being in town causing chaos that only my gran (or the Queen) would know how to do. Just kidding Gran!

So another week comes to an end, and another eventful week it’s been. The work is now starting to pile up. The highlights of the week have been going on a 4WD gravel defensive driving course, which included time on the skid pan. Carolanne, Tom, Henry and myself (and Fraser, when he arrives from the UK) have moved into our new house/ mansion, of which has taken up most of our time while we haven’t been at work. 

The house we moved into was owned by a rich Indonesian business woman who was using it as a holiday home for herself and friends and has been taking a while to clean as it was needing a little TLC. Fortunately this is mostly surfaces wiping etc, and hovering, which in this house due to its size has taken a while. But all is good, and it’s starting to become home except my belongings in shipping haven’t yet left the UK which is uber frustrating.

Here is a picture or a pelican taken down on the pier, with Tom and Henry in the foreground, and the Perth CBD from the pedestrian flyover just down from our house.

On Friday night after work, Tom, Henry and Myself went into town, where we met Carolanne, Andy, and George for an awesome Burger and Belgian beer. Where to order a certain beer, I cant remember which you have to trade your shoe in so you don’t run off with the glass which is mildly amusing. Later in the evening George showed us a trendy cocktail / whisky bar where we saw Jenny Rumble’s (ex Truro School) and we directed Anna too. This whisky bar would allow you to buy the bottle and they would store it for you, which was a rather tempting proposition till you saw the price tags ($170+ for not even a rare or elusive bottle). On the note of bottles on alcohol, anyone coming to visit should be a good visitor and bring their duty free allowance, as spirits are rather expensive here (£30-40+ for a bottle of Bombay Sapphire in a liquor store for example).

On Sunday night, after the disappointment of the Bok’s losing an epic game against the Aussie’s (which I have been getting stick for today, never mind the French beating the English), Henry masterminded our first roast dinner. The roast pork was almost like a hog roast, Henry cooked it to perfection, it was amazing!

So this week started with me applying for my WA driving license (£75 for 5 years!) and helping the open pit team so far today and into tomorrow with some stats they need doing. Then 99% sure im off to the Tamami Desert on Wednesday to do some site coverage for Newmont’s Tanami operations for 2 weeks. After that I go onto what is known as a FIFO (fly in, fly out) 9/5 roster consisting of 9 days on and 5 days off for 3 months, which more than likely means I’ll be working over most of Christmas which im not too bothered about as its more expensive to go away during that period.

The mine is called Dead Bullock Soak Mine, (co-ordinates -20.526330947 and 129.933914184) and is one of the most remote mines in Australia. Link to the map below: http://www.geodata.us/australia_names_maps/aumaps.php?fid=121550&f=121&name=Dead%20Bullock%20Soak%20Mine

I hope you are all well, and do drop me an email or facebook message if you are reading this, it’s good to hear what everyone is upto. Especially as I can see from the page statistics that people have viewed my page from interesting places in the world making me wonder who is reading my blog from Lithuania, Indonesia, UAE, Germany and Georgia? Would love to hear from you all.

J

Melville Mansion

Just moved into our new house well more of a mansion really, its amazing. Walked into what is now my bedroom which overlooks the river and saw a dolphin, straight up no lying (good spot Carolanne).

Pictures to come soon, just some shopping and buying house'y stuff first!

So week 1 of work “proper” is done and what a hectic week it’s been.

Monday morning started with meeting my team leader Vadim for the first time, and that meeting outline the “plans” for the coming months. Within two minutes of the “meeting”  finishing I received an email from the office principle saying was going to be needed to provide some site coverage for 3 months on a mine up in the Tanami Desert, which just goes to show how fast things change in the mining industry as I am likely to be starting that on Tuesday.

The rest of the week proved to be just as fluid as on Wednesday arvo Kim told me to go talk to one of the metallurgy team as she wasn’t able to go on a conference the following two days as she had to finish a report. So Thursday and Friday I attended a conference in Backfill techniques. All of this while trying to get sort out houses, drivers licenses, PPE etc. But on the houses front we found out on Friday we have been accepted on “Melville Mansion” in Como, which is really exciting and we move in on Wednesday provisionally, so hopefully everything will be sorted out by the time I get back from my swing. 

"Melville Mansion"

So rolling onto the weekend, having spent the morning at the Frampton’s while my washing was on We watched the Australia v Russia game and then the AFL grand final, which I am becoming  hooked on pretty quickly (unfortunately like the beginnings of my Australian accent).

 Saturday was Henry’s birthday so as one would do, we headed out for the night, where standing  in a bar on Murray Street, a young lady walked in who I said to the boy’s; “I recognise her.” To which they replied; “don’t be so bloody silly you muppet,” So off to the bar I toddled and tapped her on the shoulder and said; “Sarah?” who turned around and with a dropped jaw said after a pause; “Anna is a blithering idiot,” or words to that effect as Anna had told her I was coming to Perth but hadn’t said I had arrived yet so was understandably shocked to see me! So that was certainly a surprise for the night.

So with the plan to go out and do some exploring, on Sunday morning we sort of with the plan to go to the John Forrest National Park and inland to the town of York (where Henry is from in the UK). So into the JFNP we went to find some Roo’s and have some lunch. With the mission accomplished of finding some Roo’s and 2 different types of Parrot we headed to York.

Photos from today, the road bridge taken from the suspension bridge in York with the storm gathering behind.

Where we had nice wonder around “The first inland town in Australia” which was nicely in bloom after all the rain we have had. Some of the places we wondered around and past in York were the Motor Museum, the suspension bridge built by the convicts, the sock factory and the Old Mill Market. So all in all a nice relaxing Sunday before the week begins again tomorrow.