MONDAY 8 JANUARY     RV2

The day was overcast and humid and around 40 degrees. So much for me hoping that the worst of the hot weather was over.

The Spotless manager at RV1 sent through a list of defects they’d had surface, plus some items best classified as wish list! But an urgent problem was a SPQ with a major electrical fault, and this needed urgent attention. K emailed HO asking for instructions about this. I wondered if it was the one that had been faulty weeks ago, when first connected up – and that the electrician was supposed to have fixed.

There were a lot of defective door locks being found here – as there had been at RV1.

Late morning there was drama at the rubbish pit. Spotless put a lot of rubbish into it and left it – presumably thinking our men would burn it later, with our stuff. But there were embers from yesterday’s burn and they re-ignited. The flames headed off north into the spinifex and burned some of the bush. When someone eventually noticed the smoke, K raced off with some of the men to put it out. He was not happy with Spotless. I was not happy with Spotless either – had to prepare an Incident Report for HO. Two of our men then had to stand by and watch the Spotless rubbish burn right down – it took them 90 minutes! It was a big “oops”, but kind of not our fault.

The Shire Health Inspector came to do inspections. He passed the kitchen – good news, because we can continue being fed! He found there was not enough open wall space in the wet mess deck area, and that fans would have to be installed as a result. He would not inspect the pool, because the lighting around it had not been finished! He headed off to RV1 to inspect their pool. I hoped it fared better, because that camp was fully occupied – compared to only a handful of people here – and they really wanted to be able to use the pool.

I sent off a request to HO to replace a dart board (wet mess) that had been damaged in transit, plus supply two sets of pool cleaning gear. Some of the trivial items we were supposed to supply still had me amazed.

John had to do a Hedland trip; enough stuff was needed that he had to take the non-air-conditioned Acco truck. Part of the order was for three drums of hydrochloric acid – apparently the guy who laid the sports court had used drums belonging to Spotless. John also had to pick up one of our workers from the late plane. They overnighted at RV1.

There was a really strong wind storm at night, but no rain.