SATURDAY 4 NOVEMBER     NORTH POINT CAMP

The putting together of the camp office building was done.

Earlier on, I’d been surprised to see a separate gym building on the plans. Thinking about it, I supposed that the camp residents, confined to such a place for several weeks on end, might need some diversions apart from work, eat, drink. So the recreation facilities that were starting to take shape, made some sense. Today, two “floors” for that building arrived and were unloaded from the truck.

Eight more modules were moved south to RV2.

N left in BB’s Landcruiser to drive to Leonora, to pick up BB and boss lady. Occasionally, over the past weeks, I’d heard references made to Leonora – which I couldn’t figure out. To me, it was a small town with some historic interest, in the arid country north of Kalgoorlie, so I could not see any relevance to what we were doing here. Turned out that the company had acquired a property there and was turning it into a short stay accommodation facility, to cater for the recent upturn in mining activity in the region. Smart idea.

I guessed that BB and wife had flown in to Kalgoorlie, and someone from Leonora had collected them so they could inspect work there. Today it was our turn. Hoped N liked driving – it was over 1000kms from these parts to Leonora and then he had to come back again.

It was very quiet in the office today. I got the Document Register up to date.

I went out and did the serial number checking on the SPQ’s in Pod 2 – the first 20 buildings. That took me over two hours and was very sweaty work. Inside each room, had to get down on my knees to find the serial number of each fridge, then that for the inside part of the air con. The room key number was listed too, then it was around the back of the building to get the serials for the outside part of the air con, and the donga’s hot water service. Seventeen serial numbers per SPQ donga! Times 20. That was 80 times prostrated down on my knees in front of a fridge. I was exceedingly grateful that M and S had done this work for Pod 1 when they were cleaning and setting it up.

John had a quick trip to Hedland to fetch the repaired axle for the bobcat excavator. He then set off with another load of rubbish in the truck, but came back after going about 10kms because the stuff was blowing off, all over the road. None of the men was very willing to help load rubbish on to the truck, even though it was as essential as anything else. John managed to get the load secured and took the load to the tip.

The word was about that the 13th was to see the completion of Stage 1, as far as FMG and the Spotless people were concerned. That would mean that Spotless would be able to move in and start setting the place up for residents. I suspected that may have been the original deadline, before the delay in starting the project, but I found it hard to see that – essentially – all the main building work would be completed by then.

The main switchboard was delivered about 8pm last night.

John filled all the power generators, using the 200 litre drum and filling it at Fly Camp. According to the meter there, the drum took 528 litres!

Tonight’s meal was a little better – chops, potatoes, vegies. Why did we not get salads any more?