WEDNESDAY 4 OCTOBER     NORTH POINT CAMP

There was a lot of the usual paperwork and tidying up of loose ends. As more people were working on site, there was much more detail of the work being done. It really was amazing how fast things were progressing. There seemed to be new company employees and various subbies arriving on a daily basis. At times, it took some effort for me to sort out who was who and what they were here to do, not to mention whether they were supposed to appear on my paysheets.

Put in the weekly pay sheets. John had worked 77 hours, I’d worked 73. This meant that, in a week, we had earned nearly as much as one of us did in a whole season in our previous casual jobs!

R asked me to phone Darwin and chase up progress on some bar fridges he’d asked be sent down. These were destined for some of the men’s rooms, so they could keep their after-work drinks cold at Fly Camp as there was no refrigeration provided for such things.

The company semi/road train would be coming on a run from Darwin soon, with some buildings. An issue had arisen over this, because of differing rules between WA and NT. The truck would be a few cms outside WA regulations on length or height – in amongst R’s furious diatribe about it, I didn’t quite catch which one! That meant one trailer would have to be left at the NT/WA border, the front one brought all the way down here, the prime mover would then have to go back to the border for the second trailer. That meant an extra 3,500kms or so of fuel used and extra days of driver time. All for the sake of a few cms. However, they had managed to wrest one concession from the authorities – the second trailer could be brought into WA as far as Kununurra and left there, rather than beside the road at the border! Our federal system of governance often does not make sense.

Amongst the stuff John had to buy on his Hedland trip today were four bottles of Bundaberg rum! A BB order – think he is working very hard to keep the men happy.