It was only in the mid-40’s today! Positively cool…..
The three company men still here were working on the verandas on the new dongas.
I finished as much of the office pack up as I could do – leaving just the bare essentials for the office for the bit of time left. Sent a list of what was packed, to HO, for their information. The packed boxes would be going to Leonora.
I left written instructions for A, about recording Variation Order work, petty cash recording, ditto tip trips, signing of handovers of the new buildings, doing the Daily Reports for HO. That was the best I could do – it was up to them now. I did not hold out great hopes……
RV2 in more recent times, with one Pod mostly removed (Zoom)
We had packed up our rooms, mostly, yesterday. Finished doing that and left for RV1 in the bongo bus, getting there in time for tea.
We had two rooms allocated to us, near my favourite manager’s room. John always occupied “his” room when there – now I had one too. We sat outside with a beer or two and chatted with our mate R.
It seemed rather apt that our last night in the Pilbara was back here, where the saga had started, some five months ago.
The unrelenting heat – high 40’s – just went on and on.
The shingles rash had spread around half of John’s torso – which was, apparently, typical. He did not feel too good. He took the bus to Hedland to do some purchasing and send off the documents, files stored on thumb drives and other essential records, to HO. Then he met the midday plane and took some subbies to RV1 to work on the new dongas there. Then he came back here.
Two of our men set off AGAIN in the morning to install the Telstra hut at Hope Downs. This time they hoped to actually get there – but still without a spare tyre. This time, the venture went as planned.
K had intended to leave some time in the morning, to drive to Broome, to overnight there and catch his plane in the morning. But he could not leave until the Landcruiser got back from Hope Downs. By the time that happened, it would be too late when he got to Hedland, to get his spare tyres fixed. Of course, it had not occurred to him to send them in with John – either today or last week. Typical. So he would be driving to Broome with no spare, and mostly in the dark. Would serve him right if he got a flat!
John had to go to Hedland for purchasing. Whilst there, he went to Casualty at the hospital to get them to check him out as he really wasn’t feeling any better. As well as the pain in his ribs, he had developed a rash that he thought was from his braces, or just from the heat, and fairly constantly salty, sweat soaked shirts. Nup – the rash was from SHINGLES! The rash had developed into a nasty one. It was, unfortunately, too late for him to have the injection that would alleviate some of the symptoms, since this was the fourth day since the onset of symptoms. They gave him some strong pain killers.
It was fortunate that we were scheduled to go home this week.
Not far from the hospital, John was pulled over by a policeman for speeding. He was not having a good day! He told the policeman this, and that he was going too fast because he was “crapped off because I’ve just been told I have shingles”. The policeman let him off!
Back at the Village, John decided he might as well keep working, to take his mind off his ills. He safety taped the open electrical pits that the FMG man had been exercised about. The electricians’ company had to organize the covers – I wasn’t holding my breath.
After breakfast, three of the men had left to go to Hope Downs, to install a hut for Telstra. Some sort of reciprocal favour that BB had arranged. They took K’s company Landcruiser.
K worked on the punch list here. He was up and about again.
We all became concerned when someone phoned from Hope Downs because the men had not arrived. K thought they must have gotten lost – he thought they’d have been going down the BHP road south, but wasn’t sure. He couldn’t raise them on the sat phone, so we became even more worried. Turned out they did get somewhat lost. Missed a turn, or took a wrong one, and fetched up somewhere too far to the east. It was a real maze of tracks down there, as new mines were being developed all the time.
Then, in a true turn of bad luck, they got a flat tyre. There was no functional spare, because K had gotten two flats last week, and had not gotten around to organizing their repair. The sat phone they had with them was not working, either. It went flat last Sunday and had not been re-set by K, so it was not picking up the calls we were making to it. This was typical bloody poor management, that could have had tragic consequences.
Eventually, they phoned, from Newman, where they had been taken on a tilt tray truck, after someone came across them stranded out on the road. In Newman, they were lent a wheel that fitted, and got back here at 9pm.
That epic misadventure took all day – and they never got to Hope Downs.
There had been no fuel for our vehicles here, since last Wednesday. John called in a favour from one of the contracting companies – we had lent them gear – and they agreed to refuel our vehicles at their workshop. John drove the Acco across there, I took the bongo bus over.
K would be going on leave for a week from the 7th. A would be in charge – just as he was at the tail end of the RV1 build.
It was far too hot to venture out of the cool of the rooms, unless we had to. Every day now was into the high 40’s.
John thought he felt a bit better. Today’s rest should do him good.
There were some power outages through the day. Clearly the generation system here was having difficulty coping with the heat and the load placed upon it, just as at RV1.
Our men packed up at RV1 and came back here, where they went to work on the verandas of the new rooms.
Apparently Spotless at RV1 got totally fed up with the compressor problems of the freezer and the cool room, phoned a different company that worked on these things, in Hedland, and ordered them to the site on Monday to fix everything! They were not happy with the work of the Newman company. I silently wished them luck, because it was problems with that Hedland company that had caused me to use the one from Newman way back. Kind of a circular thing…..
I was the only company employee on deck at RV2. John spent the day in bed, off work, with the painful side. All the work he did yesterday had not helped it! He did go and see the on-site paramedic, who gave him some liniment for the supposedly torn muscle.
K was still sick, at RV1. The men there were finishing the new veranda roofs.
The cooling company came from Newman to RV1 with a new compressor, because the cool room one was not fixable.
Communique from RV1: the new deep fryer recently installed there was a single, and they wanted a double. I passed that on to HO to decide. Deep fryers joined compressors and smoke alarms on my list of most hated objects…..
FMG head man from Hedland visited. He was quite terse. He wanted the electrical and other faults fixed, pronto. The pits were to be lidded, sports court holes fixed (at RV 2 when someone drilled holes for nets in the wrong place!) , a fence built across the current access track – so all vehicles would be forced to use the new one, which fed into the car park area more. I did not like his attitude – if it was not for FMG’s ordering the new dongas, our men would have been free to do these things, before now. He wanted to know the EXACT date everything would be finished. I didn’t have a clue – hey I’m just the office flunky – so passed that on to HO.
John arrived back from RV1, with the bus. He complained of bad pains in his side and back. Possibly from doing a lot of lifting? Or, he thought, he may have pulled a muscle when he was cleaning the bus, yesterday. Nonetheless, he forged on.
Loaded the Acco with stuff for RV1 – there was no one here to help, of course. Except me! I did assist, a bit. But it was so bloody hot out in the open, to the point of being hard to do physical stuff.
He took that load to RV1, unloaded it – again with little help. Then it was on to Hedland – purchasing. He also collected a load of gravel, which he took to RV1 and unloaded. He brought a load of the missing beds, an ice machine and some other stuff back here. It had been a hard day’s work for him and it was 8pm when he finished.
John reported that the Acco brakes were not working at all well. I wondered if we would be able to get it through the final days of the project, without having to get the mechanics out to it?
John had news that K was sick – flu? He was still trying to direct the work on the new buildings at RV1. Fortunately, the two men there were sensible enough not to need his direction – in fact, they would probably do better without it!
John had an airport run first thing as the four workers at RV1 were going out on break. That only left K and John on today’s worker list there. In the afternoon John went back to the airport to collect the two men coming back from break. In between time, he cleaned and detailed the bongo bus – on specific instruction from BB, who had not been happy with its condition, the last time he saw it.
Salt marks on John’s saturated shirt– from sweating so much!
The concreting was finished at RV1.
I just continued with my paperwork collation, serial number organizing, Building Registers and the like. A really huge job overall. The Spotless comms were still out, so they were in and out of my office all day.
Communication came from HO that we were to fly home next Thursday. That made sense, as there was not much more to be done here – apart from the installation of the extra SPQ’s. I would be quite pleased to go – but having K working here without someone to keep tabs on him and (gently) prod him in necessary directions, might not be the smartest move by the high-ups!
That would make five weeks of being here. Enough of the heat, dust, remoteness and not having wheels to go anywhere. But it would have added about another $30,000 to our coffers, which kind of balanced the scales!
Electrician left today. No sparkies left on site now.
Our camp power was on and off all day – eight or nine times in all. But that main camp was not our responsibility, thankfully. The longest outage was 45 minutes. Very bad for all sorts of machinery and technology. It put Spotless comms out, so they were now coming in to use my phone and fax. A pest. Shades of the old days! With my site office not wired up to the camp power but on its own genset, the power stayed on to my systems.
It was amazing how quickly the bedrooms heated up when there was no air con.
There was definitely a gastro bug in camp!
The concrete delivery place that K had found was not very reliable. They were late getting the stuff to RV1 again, today. The heat was causing cracking problems in the concrete.
John arrived back from RV1. He did the pool work – put in the depth markers, fixed the Krawly hose, did the bunds around the pool chemicals. He’d already done that for the pool at RV1. He loaded up some materials that K wanted, into the bus, then drove back to RV1 with that, and overnighted there again.
There were storms in the afternoon. About 4pm there was strong wind, thunder and lightning, rain. The electrical storm continued on after dark and was quite spectacular.
Storm light…PENTAX Image
My existence in my bedroom “cell” here is quite monastic. Don’t think I would like the FIFO life on a long term basis.
John went off with the Acco, with the bobcat on the back – needed at RV1. He then did a tip run to Hedland and collected the pools signage/markers from the afternoon plane, before overnighting at RV1.
So, down to just electrician B and me, here.
Breakfast area – including industrial toaster, at right
K had managed to locate someone to bring concrete out to RV1, so today they were pouring the veranda spurs for the new buildings. The cement delivery was very late, though.
There was a big storm at RV1 last night, that left large pools of water everywhere and showed up drainage problems over much of the camp. K would work on some sort of attempt to rectify this.
New message from HO – the company plates were now to stay on the sale buildings! Good thing John had not started shifting them, yesterday.
About 3pm there was a strong willy wind, that scattered loose stuff around again.
Yesterday’s fire to the NW was still going, so there was a discernable smoke smell about. We had been able to see the glow clearly last night, and again tonight. I idly wondered what I would do if the camp had to be evacuated?
One electrician, John and I were the only project people at RV2.
The electrician reported that a number of the SPQ dongas were really badly wired. I passed that comment through to HO – up to BB whether he took up that comment with the builders.
John had a sticky job – literally – out in the heat. He had to go around all the Pod 1 and 3 buildings, putting sticky company labels on every donga. These were the ones that would be taken away again, once the railway was built, with the central Pod 2 remaining here to be the rail maintenance camp.
After that, he worked on his coffee table tops.
Still no concrete at RV1. Apparently K went into Hedland to try to source some. He might have been better to have just sat and used the phone. – certainly quicker. But it got him off site again.
Instructions came from HO, to take all the metal ID plates off the Pod 2 dongas that would be sold to FMG, and relocate those onto any of the leased dongas in Pods 1 and 3, that did not already have plates. Job for John, but I was to keep a record of the changes.
There was a very large bushfire visible in the distance, all afternoon.
PENTAX Image
The pool Krawly hose at RV2 was not long enough. John was to get more, next time he was in Hedland.
There was a shower of rain in the late afternoon, then a wind/dust storm about 8pm.
This Adventurous Age 