WEDNESDAY 15 NOVEMBER     RV1

I ate my breakfast as usual in the van, but John made the trek to the mess and reported that breakfast there was quite a lavish spread, with lots of choice.  I just appreciated that, without the drive between camps, I could sleep a bit longer.

However, I did have to call into the mess on my trek to the office, to make up a lunch crib – from a surprisingly extensive array of options set out in the area to one side of the main serving area. Plenty of fillings for those who wanted to make themselves sandwiches. For this salad eater, some luxurious ingredients, like artichoke hearts! Who would have thought?

The temperature gauge in the van today registered a high of 49.4! Through all of this I had been impressed that the 12volt Vitrifrigo fridge had kept functioning beautifully. Every few weeks I had needed to defrost it, but that was normal. An amazing unit, really.

Brickie took a load to the tip. He and John refuelled the sewer pump and the bore genset. John went to Hedland to take H and M and N and S to the plane to go out for their breaks. He bought back the subbie doing the TV and internet installations and two toilet pans!

I was notified today that the pool would arrive on 17th – change of date. I phoned the crane company and changed their booking to suit.

Now the bain marie in the kitchen had stopped working!

An engineer I’d contacted yesterday, got back to me. The only solution to the ice machine problem that he could come up with was to try to cool down the incoming water by running it through water bubbler machines first. Urgent order went to HO to source bubbler machines for us. More power points would be needed in the ice room.

The wet mess was being set up (i.e camp word for pub!) The gym was being cleaned and set up, holes were being dug along side the paths for lights, the TV co-axial cabling was being done in Pod 1.

Three more decks for the six deck wet mess arrived.