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!
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