Take off.

Gidday.

It's been a while since the last update, I have been a little tied up away from the computer. Spent last week at Maura and then ended up working Saturday as well, so it's been a long week.

Well... where to start. So much to update... I think I'll attempt to start chronologically.

Monday. Was up at 4:30, left the house at 5:15 and dropped Ryan off at the airport as he was flying to Melbourne with the boss in his plane. Carried on to Maura, which is about 2.5 hours up the road. Usually. Until you get a little confused and take the wrong turn... I ended up in the town of Maura, which is not the mine. After phoning work and obtaining directions, I finally managed to find the mine, even if I was half an hour on the late side. Signed in, did my "OSPAT" test. OSPAT is basically a computer screen and a trackball, there is a target in the middle of the screen and a wee cross that jumps around all over the show. You have to use the trackball to try and keep the cross in the middle of the target, and the computer measures your reaction time and determins if you are high on drugs or asleep or fit to work.

Got to the Nixon office on site, and then the jobs started pouring in... for the next 5 days. I must of picked the busiest week possible for my first attempt at flying solo. However, I just kept adding jobs to the list and knocking them off one by one. Ended up doing a fair bit of overtime, which should help the pay packet.

Most of monday was a mission, getting lost, not knowing where anything was, and trying to not get run over by huge 797B dump trucks. Luckily the day went though without too much hassle.

Tuesday, again a fairly straight forward day as far as I can recall. It got hot on tuesday, over 40 degrees celcuis. Warmest I have ever been, I went through about 6 liters of water that afternoon alone. Just as I was finishing the last job for the day I was certainly starting to feel the effects of the heat exhaustion, so it was probably lucky that was about it for the day.

Wednesday, not too complicated for a start, a guy from Nixons came out to install some repeater gear to one of the repeater sites. We were up on the hill and a warning comes over the radio, lightning alert, we have had strikes within 15KM, supervisors make ready your lightning plans. So again probably luckily we were just about finished, so we tidyed up and got off the hill pretty smartly. We could see the bolts of lightning hitting the ground in the distance, it was quite spectacular to watch actually. You can kind of see the storm coming, this huge mass of dark grey clouds and lightning bolts. Very cool, unfortunatly I didn't think to get any photographs. Got off the hill, and the guy from Nixons went back to town, and I thought I may as well go back and do the next job. Got to the workshop and the guys informed me we had now gone code orange lightning alert, and we had to stay indoors and no one was allowed outside. So I went into my wee office and thought I may as well catch up on some paperwork. 20 minutes went by, and there was very little activity outside, I was thinking it was quite quiet. Then a guy comes bursting into my office saying "what are you still doing here, we went code red, and this workshop is in the blast area for the shot! We have to evacuate now!" I was like... gee, thanks for the warning guys.

Luckily it was three o clock, knock off time, so I signed out and gave up for the day. They get a bit panicky about anything in the 800m radius from the loaded shot in a lightning storm, as lightning bolts apparently are a good way to detonate the explosives.

Seeing as I had finished at a time which was early for me for a change, I decided to go into Maura town and help out a mate who wanted skype setup on his computer. I rang him up and got directions on how to find him, which, suprisingly, I managed to do so with little trouble.

The trouble came when I went to leave... as it was now dark and I had absolutly no recollection as to which direction I had came from. I thought: "Righto, you can go one of two directions here. Pick one and just keep on keeping on and surely we can work this out". So, I took the 50/50 gamble and drove off. In the completly wrong direction. I drove, and drove, and drove, and then ended up on some highway somewhere. I thought if I double back now I'll only get more lost, I'm better to keep going. So I did. For a few KM, then finally struck a sign saying "Maura, 12 KM --> that way. Which was the way which I was not going.
So, found a suitable turning spot, spun around, and stuck on the highway all the way back into Maura, where I managed to locate the camp where I was staying.

I think next time I might be better leaving a trail of bread crumbs.
Except, the cockatoos might eat them. There were about... 500. I took a photo but it doesn't do them justice, there was at least three times the amount I could fit in the lens.

Thursday, the lightning had also bought with it rain... and the mine was a giant slush pit of mud. 4WD was only just cutting it. Couldn't do much, did a few little jobs and caught up on some long overdue paperwork. Went out and changed an antenna coax run on a dump truck... was a mission getting there, most of the time sideways, and then a mission doing the job, getting soaked, then a mission getting back, again, mostly sideways.

Then... we had a power cut. Electric draglines, shovels, and conveyors do not work well without electricity. So, mad panic among the electricians to find the fault as it was halting a fair bit of production. Finally got the power up, but then the draglines wouldn't start properly so they had a mad rush of leckies going round to start all the draglines up. There were a couple left to go to the last dragline, but no vehicles. So seeing as I couldn't do much else I ended up taking them down to the dragline to get it started up. That was quite an interesting trip too, sliding sideways down the ramp into the pit where the dragline was working. Finally got the thing going and managed to crawl our way back up through the mud back to the workshop.

Side note, I'm having a devil of a job getting the mud out of my trousers...

Anyhow, that was pretty much Thursday over with. Friday... Got to work, not too many jobs on, thought to myself that it would be a nice easy day, leave reasonable hour, get home on time for a change, as I had the 2.5 hour drive back to Gladstone.

That plan went well, for all of... 20 minutes. Then the phone went off time and time again with more and more jobs coming in... so my nice quiet Friday turned into a run around fixing many things Friday. Didn't help when dispatch send me out to find dozers which don't exist... "Go down to DL5 and fix TD32, the two way keeps falling out". Righto, easy. Drive down to Dragline 5. Call him up. "Nixon's to DL5, have you got TD32 there?". "No". "Righto, dispatch think you have." "I haven't". "Righto."

Call up dispatch. "Nixon's to dispatch". "Dispatch". "Where was TD32 again?" "Down at dragline 5" "I'm there, and he hasn't seen it". "Well that's where it is" "Righto".

Call up DL5 again. "Nixon's to DL5" "Yea go" "Dispatch reckon you have got TD32, what have you got?" "I've got TD30 mate, no idea where TD32 is". "Righto".

Drive to top of a hill and get some cellphone reception, ring dispatch. "Oi, no sign of TD32, can you track him and tell me exactly where he is please" "Yes no worries mate, too easy... he's at the maintenance workshop" "So, not at DL5 then?" "Nah mate, no where near it". "Righto....."

That kind of thing happened a couple of times... you waste a lot of time chasing phantom vehicles. I didn't mind too much, as it was a good way for me to learn my way around the mine and about radio procedure etc.

Finally got away about 4:30, when I shoulda been away about 2:30. Got to Banana, and then managed to miss the sign saying "gladstone, turn right"... drove a few KM up the road and thought "hmm I don't remember this bit... "
Drove back to Banana and luckily spotted the sign this time... Could have been worse.. you can drive a long way in the wrong direction in Australia.

Finally made it home, unpacked the truck, and went to use the Internet. Slow as a wet week. Not useful. Checked email... "Bigpond here, you have exceeded your quota and have thus been reduced to dialup speeds". Checked usage... "You have used 70% of your cap!" uhhh what?

Rang bigpond... "Yes, your right, we have cocked up, it's completely our fault". Righto fine, fix it. "Sorry, we can't, we have to do it next week. There is nothing we can do." Grrr. "But I want my Internet which I am paying for, and I want to use it now, not on flaming Monday!" "Sorry, there is nothing I can do. Ring back on Monday. Goodbye".

Have I ever mentioned that I hate telstra with the passion of a thousand burning suns?

Right, that's probably enough for now.

TTFN.