On her majesty's secret service

G'Day.

At least I think it's still day... hard to keep track at the moment, lack of sleep does that to you.

I think I shall start the recount of events around the time we decided to try out a new fish and chip shop which we discovered not far from our house last night. It looks tidy and we figured it would be worth a shot. So, we pop round there and order 2 fish (battered red emperor), 2 hot dogs (Pluto pups over here), and $4 worth of chips which apparently is a suitable amount for two persons.

There was a good looking young sheila serving us, and I fully blame her for distracting us enough to not check our meal before we got home and attempted to consume it. I say attempted, because what we ended up with and what we ordered appeared to be two completely different things. Unless of course "battered fish" actually means "crumbed fish" and "2 x Pluto pups" actually means "6 chicken nuggets, 6 squid rings, 6 dim sims, and a deep fried sausage".

Because that is precisely what we had.

The funny thing is, we were the only customers in the shop, so unless they had a telephone order I believe it unlikely they could have mixed up orders... although it certainly appeared that way.

I just feel sorry for the other poor galah who expects to find his dim sims and squid rings and ends up with 2 battered fish and a couple of hotdogs.

Anyhow, that slight hiccup aside, we then decided to watch James Bond on television, as they are playing every Bond from start to finish, one a week, on a Saturday evening. It ran fairly late as it did not start until about 20:30, and then by the time it finished it was nearing one in the morning. I was fairly tired by then and falling asleep in my armchair (it must run in the family), so I was glad to get to bed.

I glanced across at the callout phone just as I was about to turn out the light, and thought to myself "that's good, so far this week we haven't had any callouts!" Famous last words, and I may have jinxed us, as not one minute later just as I turned off the light, the phone went off. "Urgent link fault, multiple sites off air, get it sorted ASAP".

Brilliant.

So, back out of bed, go and get Ryan out of bed as he happened to be the 2nd on call, and off to work to pick up the spare parts. Except neither of us have keys, and the supervisor wasn't answering his telephone...

So, after tossing a few ideas around, we decided to go and wake the supervisor up by knocking on his door. After calming his dog down and explaining the situation to him, he came down to work and let us in to get the parts we required for this job. The particular sites involved neither Ryan or I had been to, so we got the book which supposedly has all the site location instructions in it. Well, it might, but two things it didn't have was the instructions on how to get to either of the two sites we needed to go to. So, boot up the computers, get the info, print it out... etc etc.

After nearly setting the truck on fire with some dodgy wiring, we finally got on the road and on the way to the first site. Surprisingly, we managed to locate it without too much difficulty, other than a couple of stupidly designed gates. After encountering a good sized spider on our windscreen, we finally decided that the fault wasn't at this site and must be at the other end. So, back in the truck, and drove to the other site. Well... at least we would have had we known where it was.

We got close by, as we knew the general idea, but as it was still dark we could not see the tower. Luckily we had a GPS coordinate for it so I entered it into my "can do everything" phone and used the GPS to guide us to the site. We finally found the track leading up to the site and drove up it.
After logging in with the three different companies which we have to ring before going on site, we managed to get to the hut and start trying to work out what was wrong.

As I had never dealt with the equipment on this particular site, I was at the mercy of the Brisbane techs on the other end of the phone, and most of them were not much help. After a few hours of fruitless tests, and a few parts swapped out, we decided it must be another special part which we didn't have with us. By this time it was about 9:00 and we were well sick of the sight of this site, and ended up telling the supervisor we were calling it a day and going back to bed, as by then we had both been up for over 24 hours straight. He understood and tried to get another team together to replace us, but typical Australians, no one wanted to help. So the poor supervisor ended up going and doing it himself, usually I would have just carried on but I was missing obvious signs of faults and my capacity for logical thought patterns was rapidly diminishing.

So, as of now I have no idea what the status of that site is, for all I know he is still up there battling it. I let Ryan drive back to work, and I must have fallen asleep in the passenger seat of the Ute as somehow he managed to get some photographic evidence. He probably used a camera.

So by the time we got home and crashed for a few hours, that's pretty much the day written off. Spent the rest of the day getting the gear together for the trip to Injune tomorrow, as that's another early start.

Oh yes... I can't recall if I mentioned this previously but a while back our other Kiwi mate went back to NZ for the weekend, and when he got back he found a skeleton of a huntsman hanging from the roof of his car. Never found the spider but.
So, we have been driving this car around a couple of times since then, no sign, so we figured he must have run away. Well, when I got home today, I hopped out of the car, looked up, and... there was no doubt in my mind as to where that huntsman had got to. He was sitting on the roof right above my head. So, I strategically manoeuvred out of the way so that he wouldn't jump on my head as they tend to do, and attacked him with some fly spray, which I can quite confidently report he did not like. As Jonesy would say, "they don't like it up 'em!"

Flyspray 1, spider nill.

Right, I better go and do nothing for a while, then go back to bed.

TTFN!

And the band played waltzing matilda

G'Day.

Thought I better make the effort and construct another update. It's a bit cooler now, you notice the absence of extreme heat. All of about... 21 degrees today. Still wearing short sleeved shirts when allowed though. Certain sites you have to wear long sleeved clothing as sun protection or they won't let you on.

I'm back on call again this week, which usually makes for an interesting week. Got a call yesterday for a fault in St Lawrence, which is about 4.5 hours away from Gladstone. So, jumped in the truck, drove 4 hours to site and reset a device which had got confused. Tested it all OK, so jumped back in the truck and drove another 4 hours home again. Over 8 hours drive for a 10 minute fix... that's what being on call is all about. At least the overtime is good.

Spent most of Saturday in Rocky, mostly window shopping, but I did purchase a couple of N scale coal hoppers for the railway I'm slowly constructing. That took a while as I got talking to the guy behind the counter who also has a bit of a model railway, and another guy who was looking at setting one up. So I gave him some tips. He asked if I had much model railway stuff... I told him I had a small collection back home.

I did manage to purchase a cheap DIY desk to use as a work bench from a place called "the reject shop" which has a lot of cheap stuff. Amazingly all the parts were included and we managed to assemble it without too much trouble. That's now in what I have claimed as the train room, and with a soldering iron and power supply attached should make a good work station.

I'm supposed to be getting some gear ready for the trip west next week, but I keep getting sidetracked on other jobs, so I must make an effort to get that nailed before the week is completely gone and I get caught out.

Right I better carry on and get some housework done, it doesn't do itself unfortunately.

Here's a few more pictures, the cat belongs to my other Kiwi mate who also works for Nixons.

CIAO.

Classical Gas

G'Day.

Finally I have a few minutes spare(ish) to update the world again. Just got back from a bit of a road trip to check on a few cellphone towers, we drove over 1200 KM in the last 2 days. First headed up the coast to a place called Sarina, which is just below Mackay, performing checks as we went, and stayed there for the night. Then we carried on west to Emerald, and did some checks there, and then down to Blackwater, and then finally back to Gladstone. Pretty good chance for me to see a bit more of the country side.

There isn't much out west, mostly big open plains as far as you can see in all directions, and huge 3 trailered road trains. Most towns are about the size of Cave or Albury, usually with about one gas station doubling as a roadhouse to get meals.
You can see why most vehicles are fitted with long range or dual tanks out here.

There is a lot of mining around this area, the coal is coming out of the ground as fast as they can mine it. It is a huge industry without a doubt, and worth mega bucks. I was talking to a guy the other day who was telling me at one of the mines we work at, for every hour that a dumpstation is out of action (weather it be a shovel down, or a conveyor fault, etc) it costs them around $300,000 in lost revenue. That's a lot of dough in an hour! You can see why they run these mines around the clock. I think Christmas day is the only day which they shut them.

Around Blackwater we saw about 15 coal wagons all crumpled up on the side of the railway tracks, unfortunately I was driving and couldn't stop to take a photo. There was a train smash recently so putting two and two together I am deducting that the wagons were probably from that. Quite amazing to see the forces involved.

Work's pretty busy as usual, unfortunately I cannot be everywhere at once. Looks like I may be heading down south west in a week or so to do some checks for a pipeline company, should be about 6 hours drive down and then a week driving around doing tests then head home again. I'm looking forward to it, will be a good chance to see yet more of this intensely vast countryside.

Until you see it for yourself, it is pretty much impossible to describe. The movies don't really even come close to portraying sheer size of this place.

Right, I better go and get some dinner, here's some photos from the weeks efforts.

TTFN.

Son of a Gun

G'Day.

Now that's an abbreviated greeting. Finally back in Gladstone after a week at the mine.
Very interesting week actually, as most weeks out there are. Managed to get pinged for a few different things, mostly not my fault. The 2nd day I got kicked off site for an out of date fire extinguisher, so I had to walk back to the stores and book out a brand new one, luckily they had them in stock. Then I got told off twice for a insufficient flashing beacon, I managed to talk my way out of that one too. We have a replacement one back at work but like most things it didn't get done in time.

However... once we got through the slight issues the rest of the week went fairly smoothly, it was busy but not as bad as last time I was out there. Usual sort of faults, 2 way radios and am/fm radios to repair. Usually aerials wiped out by large rocks, as can happen from time to time.

The food seemed to go downhill a little bit this week, usually it's pretty good but this week they must have had a trainee chef or something. Nevermind, it was better than nothing, and for free, who am I to complain.

Well, unfortunately I haven't got time to write much more right at the moment as there are several things I ought to be doing, so I'll upload a few pics from the last week to keep you all entertained until I get a chance to write some more. There goes that voice in my head that reads stuff speaking Australian again... Chance is one of those typically Australian words.

Here's a dozer and a dragline and some other bits and pieces.

CIAO.

Crazy Frog

Gidday.

Well, almost another week over, time is really flying by. I had a theory that because I am now closer to the equator I must therefore be moving faster than I was in NZ, as the circumference of the earth is greater up here, thus there is further distance to travel in a day. With some tied up effect where it makes everything feel faster. Which it may or may not, I am yet to determine.

Anyhow.

Our slight hiccup at Harvey Norman may have set of a series of more idiotic Australians... Last weekend we decided to go and get some pizza for dinner. We have done this in the past with reasonable success, so we were not expecting much to go wrong. We ordered our respective pizzas, and waited the prescribed 15 minutes, after which we observed pizzas resembling what we had both ordered emerging from the oven.

Luckily or otherwise, mine was first to be called, which I duly collected and paid for. Ryan however was not so luckily. As we had witnessed both being cooked together, we figured his wouldn't be far behind mine. We were wrong of course, as a further 8 minutes went by and then he enquired as to the whereabouts of his meal. All the peasants behind the counter scurried around like mad ants for a while, and then came to the conclusion that his pizza had disappeared and would have to be remade.

So, back to the 15 minute waiting time, all the while me hanging onto my dinner hoping it wouldn't get too cold. I needn't have worried, we are in Australia after all. 15 minutes later, Ryan's pizza emerged and we made sure to not take our eyes off it until it was safely in his possession. We made our way home, and opened the pizza boxes, only to find....

Both boxes contained Ryan's pizza. Well, a version of. Mine had version one, his had the later cooked version two. I said "well at least that explains where the first one got to!"

At that point I was too hungry to worry about changing it, so I consumed version one and he consumed version two. I still to this day have no idea where my actual pizza went, which is a shame as it had a special base which cost me an extra dollar. So not only did I get a pizza I didn't order, I also paid a $1 more than Ryan did for the exact same thing. Curses.

Next time I shall be more observant... I guess it's kinda like watching the egg under the cups.

Apart from that, no major encounters this week, just work as usual. Still plenty of jobs on. I'm back out at the mine next week, so I'll hopefully have some more stories and/or pictures after that. It sounds like there is a fair bit going on out there currently so it could be an interesting week.

Right, I'll add a few misc pictures if I can find anything interesting, and I better go and cook some tea. Ryan had a go last night, and attempted to poison us with uncooked chicken, so I think I'll have to banish him from the kitchen for a week or two.

TTFN

Like a stone

Gidday.

Another three day weekend, did I mention Australians like time off? Labour day this time. Fairly interesting week so far, even if it has only been four days. Ended up installing yet another data projector in a school yesterday, it was quite a complicated arrangement and we got thrown in at the last minute as the guy who had organised it was diverted to another job. We installed the video cable all neatly up through the ceiling, down the wall, through some nice conduit, and had it all nice and neat and ready to go. Powered up the laptop, tested it... and the picture was purple. Lovely. After a little troubleshooting we managed to narrow it down to the cable. Which was a shame, as it was the most complicated part to replace of course. So, that took another hour to take all the ceiling tiles out and re run the new cable... I was not best pleased.

The other day Ryan and I went for a look at a place out the back of nowhere where there is a bit of old mining equipment. We come though this small settlement and up over a bit of a hill and then see this big hole in the ground, what appeared to be an abandoned mineshaft. I say to Ryan: "I wonder how deep it is". He replies: "I don't know, but we are going to find out".

He walks over and picks up this rock, and tosses it down the shaft. We both listen out for a thud... but hear nothing. We look around for something a bit bigger to make a louder sound, and see this old railway sleeper lying there. We pick up the sleeper, and throw it down the hole and wait for the thud.
Instead, there was this crashing sound in the bush behind us and this flaming goat comes charging out towards us. I dive to one side, Ryan to the other, and this ruddy goat shoots between us and jumps down the mine shaft.

I pick myself up, and look at Ryan, trying to work out what on earth had just happened. Then we see this guy up on the hill, and he walks down and asks us if we had seen a goat. We tell him, yes, we had seen a goat, and that he had come charging out of the bush, big horns, wild as, and jumped down the mine shaft. Old mate looks visibly relieved, and says: "Oh that's OK then, it won't be my goat. Mine was friendly and tame, and tied to a railway sleeper".

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As much as I would like to, unfortunately I cannot take responsibility for that joke. I heard it from a fellow called "King Billy Cokebottle" who is a hilarious Australian comedian. I thought I better share it however, and make up for the lame kangaroo/giraffe joke from last weekend.

Anyhow, not much else to report at this point, the lawns are still growing out of control so I better go and sort them out. I am still battling with this rat in the roof also... I resorted to poison but all it seemed to do was give the rat more energy, as ever since I attempted to poison him he seems to be far more active and runs around more. I may have to locate a tame carpet snake...

TTFN