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