This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.


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2006 Travels October 26

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.

Resize of 10-26-2006 P1000425 will be diner

Would be the diner/mess end of the long kitchen building

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!

Resize of 10-26-2006 Willy Willy

Willy willy

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.


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2006 Travels October 25

WEDNESDAY 25 OCTOBER     NORTH POINT CAMP

About 40 today.

John had an afternoon trip to Hedland.

One job I managed today was to bring the travel spreadsheet – where the men’s leave weeks are set out and co-ordinated – for both villages, up to date. One of the office girls in Alice Springs was supposed to be working with that, but did not seem to have much of a clue, so a copy had been sent to me to update. With so many working on the sites now, dove tailing the leave periods was becoming somewhat complex.

S was cleaning and setting up Pod 1 – and making a list of things missing that should have been supplied with the SPQ’s – and things broken! M and R came back from leave and M would start helping with that work.

Resize of 10-26-2006 04 Kitchen Mixer

King sized mixmaster!

Delivery of buildings continued – the arrival of something was pretty well a daily event. Today another SPQ came and a module that mystified me for a while until it was identified as a dry goods store for the kitchen. That did not appear on any of the plans I’d seen.


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2006 Travels October 24

TUESDAY 24 OCTOBER     NORTH POINT CAMP

A routine day.

I got caught up on all the serial numbers of buildings delivered whilst I was away. Hot work, out on site.

I had an email from boss lady in Alice Springs. She was trying to make sure the system for tracking leave was working properly. Last week, one of the men did not turn up at Darwin Airport, for his flight back. He’d thought it was the next day! Luckily, he acknowledged that it was all his fault, and that I had given him a print out of his travel arrangements, before he left, with the correct dates in it. It was a costly error for him because he had to pay for the new flights. Plural, because from Darwin he had to fly to Perth, then on to Hedland.

At the time when the phone call came through that he was a no show, I had a few anxious minutes, trying to think back about what information I’d given him – and hoping like hell that I had not gotten it wrong!

John had a trip to Hedland.

Rubbish was starting to really build up on the site here, increasing as things were unpacked for the buildings. Everything came with so much packing. It was a problem that was going to have to be solved – and soon. FMG was supposed to have gained permission to dig rubbish pits, but that had not happened – “heritage” concerns, apparently. In the meantime, rubbish was being piled in a rough, shallow pit up the back of the site.

Resize of 10-21-2006 P1000390

Aerial photographs were taken very early today, using the forklift.

Resize of 10-24-2006 P1000403 over pods

Camp really taking shape now

As well as the infrastructure that was now quickly going in, some extra buildings that were not part of our camp installation, were going in. These would house the administrations for some major companies that would be building the railway – engineering firms and the like. They had arranged for their own buildings, but apparently, we now had to help with the installation of some services to those buildings. More Variation Orders for me to worry about!

Resize of 10-24-2006 P1000402 water, gens, other office

One of the extra office buildings at side of site

At RV2, the excavation had been done for the swimming pool. I was quite looking forward to seeing what standard and size of pool would be installed at each of the Villages.