THURSDAY 26 OCTOBER    NORTH POINT CAMP

Two new workers for the company started today. John did their inductions. One of them thought it was ok to work in shorts. John had to buy him some long trousers – and a belt – in Hedland, on his trip in there today. Until then, the guy could not actually start work.

That made 18 people altogether working on this site- only 6 of whom were subbies. Fly Camp accommodation very tight.

R’s laptop had acquired a virus and was not working – probably via some stuff his wife emailed him. Not good – all his project management stuff was on there. He went off to RV2 in the afternoon, to check on progress down there.

Four more SPQ’s for RV2 were delivered here. They were really being churned out in Perth.

Kitchen verandas were being put on. The ice room building was being set up. Yes – there was a dedicated room where machines would make ice. Who would have thought? Work on the kitchen fit out and cleaning the Pods continued.

There were phone problems in the afternoon. S was trying to send a huge photo file to her friend the boss, and the machine stuck! I turned it off at 6.15 and left, hoping it would fire up alright tomorrow. I wished that S would just stick to doing the work she was assigned, instead of pursuing her social life.

Two subbies who were driving up from Leonora, arrived. Two FMG men came to look around.

Seemed that the FMG boss had said that trucks were to be sent down the BHP road to RV2. I was asked to advise the Perth office if that was ok. As far as I knew, it wasn’t, but I handed that one off to the FMG guy in Hedland to deal with. Definitely outside my job description!

John took the last of the cementing crew to the afternoon plane – for the time being. Apparently they would later be back for some more work.

When R got back he said that two of the bar fridges from SPQ’s here, were to be taken down to South Point, to go in a couple of the men’s rooms there – to keep their drink cold.

Over tea, I chatted with the two men who had come up from Leonora. I was interested in finding out about the route they took, which cut up from Wiluna intersecting the highway south of Kumarina Roadhouse. It might be a way we could eventually use, when we were going home. They said this Neds Creek track was a good dirt road. Interesting – could cut off quite a few kms.