Friday

G'day.

Sunday already, who would have guessed. Yet another week under the belt... I know I say it a lot, but I am convinced time travels faster in Australia.

Well, another interesting week at the mine, that makes for four out of the last five weeks I have been out there now. I shouldn't really complain, I don't mind it that much, and it's good for the income. And it could be worse, there is another fella who has been out there for around 7 weeks straight I think, so I'm sure he is popular with his wife.

After the fun we had with vehicles last week, this week was realitivly uneventful in comparison. If you don't count the glow plugs not functioning, the handbrake not working, and the radio intermittently losing power, that is. Not having glow plugs is interesting first thing in the morning, firstly it makes it rather difficult to start, and secondly, a cold non glowed diesel doesn't develop much power, and I had to use low range just to get out of our slightly sloped driveway.

However, at least the wheels didn't fall off. You may think I am joking, but it has happened in the past.

Some warm days out there this week, 37 on Wednesday, and 39 on Friday. Interestingly enough, I was cooking like a baked potato on Wed, but I thought Friday was quite acceptable. Strange how the human body works at times. Everyone I talk to keeps trying to tell me that this summer is going to be a warm one, so coming back to NZ around Christmas time might be a wise move. I suspect I am going to freeze, from what I hear.

This update is coming to you from a slightly different means this week, I finally crumbled to the pressure and purchased myself a new computer, to enable me to start to edit some of this HD video footage I have been slowly filming around the place. It is a little nicer to work on than my poor old laptop, far more screen area which is nice for a change. Not quite as big as the 42 I used to have in my room in NZ, but better than the laptop all the same.

Had some pretty long days this week, we are short staffed at the moment so everyone is running around trying to keep on top of the work streaming in. I pretty much ended up doing two days work in one day to try and get the job complete, and ended up missing the meal at the camp where I was staying. I went to town and nothing was open, so I ended up driving around 20 km to the next town to get some dinner. Luckily they still had some chips available, so that was the answer to the hunger problem.

We have a couple of guys lined up to take the pressure off a bit, one is starting to do the mine stuff as of next week I believe, and the other will come online at some point with a bit of luck. It might give me a chance to get some of the day to day stuff done that I have been unable to get any time to do.

To top it off, one of the jobs last week was to program some radios for a company, and it turned out my computers programming port decided to randomly stop working right at the same time as I needed it most. So I went for a plan B, which didn't work either, and in the end by about plan G I managed to get the radios programmed successfully. So that will be my first job come Monday... get my laptop working again.

Nothing else too major to report really, that I can think of off the top of my head anyhow. I'll attach a photo of a bird and a mirror... this bird's mother obviously hadn't taught him about mirrors, and he was constantly flying into it trying to play with his reflection. Every time I walked past this mirror over a period of three days, he was there. After the third day, he either gave up, or got eaten by a snake or a large grasshopper, but either way he was gone. I couldn't believe the amount of time he was there, every time I walked past and saw him it became more and more hilarious.

Right, I better go and carry on setting up this new calculator...

TTFN

D.A.N.C.E

G'day.

It appears that I may have missed an update last weekend, not entirely sure how that happened but it was probably something to do with me forgetting and/or not getting around to it. However, as the baboon said... "it's in the past!".

Yet another busy week at the mine this week, being a man or two short at the moment is certainly keeping the rest of us on our toes. I'm doing the contracted work at the mine, and then doing installs etc after that as overtime, just so we can try and knock some of the extra work off.

Originally the plan was to take the dual cab navara as usual, but it turned out it had a cracked bearing and the universals were shot. So that went in for a service, and it was decided that I should take the 70 series landcruiser instead. Which I didn't mind much, although I would never admit it to Tom, I have a certain appreciation for 70 series cruisers. So I proceeded to use my weekend getting it up to as close to mine standard as possible, fitting reversing buzzers, fixing tail lights, replacing wiperblades etc. Come Monday morning I jumped in and got a few KM up the road when the slight odd sound in the drive train turned into a loud persistent very odd sound in the drive train. So I pulled over and did some fault finding, and began to suspect something somewhere in the transfer case. I decided it wasn't wise to carry on for a week on the mine wearing that out, so I rang the boss. Which was good fun as this was about 5:30 in the morning and he was well asleep.

Long story short, we had no other vehicles other than his own one, so he told me to drive back to his place and he would give me that for the week. So I limped back into town, took all his gear out of his truck, and put all my gear in. Luckily it goes alright, so I took it out and finally got the mine, albeit a little on the late side.

The first few days were pretty busy, catching up on all the work that the fellow the week before hadn't completed, and also fixing any new stuff that came in. This was made more interesting by the fact there were no 2 ways, no am/fm radios, and no microphones in the mine stores whatsoever.

I rapidly used up my own spares which I had tucked away, and then basically had no other way to repair any swapout faults. I even ended up losing my workshop radio to a truck that urgently needed one. Luckily by the end of the week, some AM/FM radios appeared and I could carry on and tidy up the AM/FM jobs. Which involved two installs into drill rigs... which took a while. At least it was a good feeling wiping that job off the "to be done" list.

After hours I had to deinstall and reinstall a radio from a vehicle that had been hit by a roo. I'll attach a photo... you would think bullbars would stand up to a roo, but not so. Bent the bar completely and wiped out the front corner of the truck.

Speaking of roos, I was parked up at a repeater site having a bite to eat, when I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and saw this large kangaroo staring back at me through the passengers window. I immediately reached for my camera, but he started to bound away. I got a couple of photos as he hopped away, I was hoping to get one of him right at the truck but it wasn't to be. I also encountered this strange flying creature which was bright metallic green, again I'll attach a photo but it's a bit small.

One other job I had to do was program some radios in some road trains which another employee had managed to get wrong. These things are long... real long. I saw one guy backing one, although admittedly only in a straight line. I imagine it would get real interesting going backwards.

So, aside from working and getting ripped off by the NZ government and customs, not much else has been happening. If you ever import "scale replicas" into NZ... be aware. They charge you an importation surcharge, a biosecurity levy, and GST on the item, including on the freight, even if you have already paid GST in the country of origin. And, they only have an 0800 number listed, so you can't ring them internationally to abuse them. This time I just paid up, but if they try it again I'll be complaining. How they get away with charging GST on an item not purchased in NZ, and even more so, on the freight to get it there, beggers belief.

Anyhow, enough from me, I'm intending to attempt to get some more done on my train layout, as the poor thing is getting neglected with me being away from home so much at the moment. I'm back out at the mine next week too, although hopefully that will be it for a week or so. We have a new guy starting the mine run shortly so that will take some pressure off.

TTFN

Long Run

G'day.

Hard to believe another week down. Looks like I finally get a week back here in town for a change, only a week mind, the following week I am back out at Moura. I may as well just move out there the way things are going, we have so much work on it isn't funny.

And our friendly south african is leaving us... so we are a man down too. Anyone know of any radio tech's after a job in Australia? Send them my way. I'm serious, we need more staff.

Well, an interesting week, as most mine weeks tend to be. I was cruising around on my own this week, so didn't have any major driving encounters this week, luckily.
First job on tuesday was a good one, I had to go and change a solar panel out for one of the environmental blast monitors. So I collared a spare apprentice to lend a hand, and collected an enviro to show us where it was, and we went for a drive. I almost ran over a 1.5 foot long lizard just as we left the carpark, if it wasn't for the screams of the enviro I probably wouldn't have seen the blasted thing... so that was a good start. If a lizard wants to camouflage himself as road, then proceed to sleep in the middle of one, it's hardly my fault for not seeing him.

After doing my best to placate the visibly shaken enviro, we carried on our way and finally made it to the property where the blast monitor was housed. The enviro wouldn't let us drive any faster than 20km/h incase we stirred up too much dust. We got a large gate, behind which was an equally large bull. The enviro panicked and started to call the farmer to open the gate. I said to her to stop worrying, and that it would take more than a gate and a bull to stop a determined kiwi. So I went and opened the gate, and we drove through. The bull gave us a strange look and carried on chewing grass. When we got to the monitor, we found that the mount we thought was going to be there and the mount that was there were two completely different things. So we took some measurements, battled the gate again, and drove back to make up a better bracket. I dropped the enviro off and told her I would let her know once we had it going again.

My first problem was finding a suitable material to fabricate the bracket out of. I was intending to use alloy, but finding alloy on the mine is about as easy as finding a donkey tree on the moon. So I abandoned that plan, and located some steel instead. There is a lot more steel available than alloy. So after drilling the appropriate holes and bending the appropriate bends, I managed to book some paint out of the stores and gave it the once over. We had to give it about 1/2 hour to dry of course, then we loaded it up and drove back to the monitor.

Once we got there, I discovered that the "alloy" brackets which I had thought where in place, where actually galvanised steel. And that where I thought I could bend it, I could not. So, out came the hacksaw and plenty of elbow grease, and we made some minor modifications. Which took a long time, as hacksawing thick steel a foot above your head isn't terribly straightforward.

I then had to drill the steel mount to fit my predrilled brackets I had made up. Where I could use the drill press for my brackets, out here in the middle of nowhere all I had was my trusty dewalt. So, starting with a small pilot hole and working my way up, over about an hour I managed to get 3 holes drilled. The fourth one gave me considerable grief, and cost me three drill bits... but we made it in the end. As it turns out I would have been better just to weld it, but I didn't realise that at the time. So, bolted the new panel and mounts up, and it worked perfectly, first time. Wired it all up, checked the monitor was working, and it had about 100 alarms up for "excessive noise"... I guess all that hacksawing was a bit much for it's microphone. We cleared the alarms, and all was well in blast monitor land again. Not bad for an entire day's work really.

The next few days were more of the usual, fixing an antenna here, and a microphone there. Dodging large trucks, and trying to keep out of the sun... 36 degrees it got up to at one point. Summer is going to be a killer.

I spent another day mounting four solar panels to a portable networking trailer too, that was another good way to kill a day. Over all, quite a productive week for the nixon fabrication department.

I was staying at a different camp this time around, for many reasons which are far to laborious and not interesting enough to warrant me recounting them here. But the food was much improved over the usual camp.

Righto, I better go and attempt to repair my cellphone... I lost my one button which locks and unlocks the phone, and finally my spare arrived from Hong Kong. Now I just have to find out how to pull it apart without damaging it beyond repair...

Here's some photos from the week.

Ciao.

I remember

G'Day.

I realise that this might be a day or two later than usual, but never mind, we made it in the end.

What a week.

It seems a while ago now, but it was just last week that I was out here at Moura chasing lighting plants around a giant mud bath. I had the intention of attaching some photos, but they are now on my other computer, which I don't happen to have with me. So that can wait till this weekend if I get a chance.

It made a change having someone else with me for a week on the mine, the week seems to go by faster when you have someone to talk to and share the driving with. Even if they do get the 4WD to both ends of it's limits... Getting stuck, and also sliding out of control. I would like to think that during the course of the week we have managed to make a better 4WDer out of him :)

Now that I have mentally moved into this week I can't really remember much from last week, not specifics worth writing about anyhow. I did get a lot of video footage, which as I get the chance to trawl through I may upload some to youtube and supply the links. Some interesting footage of some big toys anyhow.

Our workshop supervisor has gone away on holiday for a month, so it will be interesting to see how well the place runs without him. This is the first week away, so it's probably a good thing I'm out here again. Except it's pay week... hopefully whoever is doing the pays gets it right...

The vehicle was yet again falling apart around our ears, I suspect the ECU or wiring might be playing up. Strange things like no glow plug output, and the oil pressure light showing up when you turn the ignition off and remove the key. It's due to go back in for further work once I am finished with it this week, so fingers crossed it makes it through. If not I might be better to push it into a pit and drive over it with a D11 a few times, that would probably sort it out once and for all.

The weekend was good. Brief, but worthwhile. I ended up getting involved in a poker game with some guys from work, we started around 6:30 saturday evening and I didn't get home until around 5 the following morning. Good fun indeed. We were down to two people left, another fellow and myself, and ended up deciding it was only going back and forth and we may as well call it a night... err, morning. So we did, and I spent most of Sunday asleep, ready to get up at 4:30 on monday and drive back out here to the mine. No rest for the wicked... but it is good fun.

Work is still flat out busy as, we have a heck of a lot of work coming in which is good. Keeps one on their toes anyhow. The trick is keeping the paperwork up to date... it can be easy to get the jobs done and keep eveyone happy, but if you don't get the paperwork done there and then it generally gets forgotten about I have discovered. However, we live and learn.

Right, I think that's about it for now, I shall endeavor to construct more next weekend if I remember, and I may even try to find some good mine photos.

TTFN