MONDAY 23 OCTOBER     NORTH POINT CAMP

Cloudy today and only into the high 30’s. “Only” – all things are relative!

While I was off yesterday, four more SPQ’s were delivered. FMG changed the location of the waste water plant and where the water treatment tanks would be – not sure why, but it would mean some adjustments needing to be made, to pipes and the like already laid.

Water for the camp would be coming from a bore,  dug several kms away and piped to the camp.

The bore area and generator for its pump

Pipe that would bring water from bore to camp

Work was continuing on the kitchen/diner roof, and its internal fit out.

Inside a kitchen module, as it was delivered

Large generator units – four of them – had recently been delivered to site, and now were placed into their proper positions. Clearly, this camp would need quite a bit of power to run it – not the least due to all those air conditioning units that would be running all night, every night, through the hotter months.

Generators being placed

Four generators to form a power plant

Materials for the fresh water tank were put in place, and the subby firm was working on that.

I had to phone the hire company about K going in from RV2 to get lights for the cementers to work at night there.

In the morning, R received a phone call to say that the truck that delivered two of the SPQ’s yesterday, had gone “legs up” – rolled over – on the way back to Perth. It happened during the night, south of Newman. Apparently the driver was lucky not to be badly hurt – he had the second trailer “up” on the first, and that saved the cab. He went over quite a high embankment. Said an oncoming 4WD had high up, really bright driving lights, ran him off the road and didn’t stop. Poor guy was a subbie to the transport company. The boss of the transport company was trying to persuade R to drive down there and assess the damage for him. R said no.

All the SPQ’s were now in place here. Two more were delivered today for RV2. The truck driver said he had passed the truck accident site, down past Newman, and the truck was a real mess.

Today, we had 8 company staff working on site, two others were on their leave break, and there were 8 subbies working on electrical, air con, plumbing and sewerage tasks. The essential infrastructure was rapidly taking shape.

Water tank being built

R decided that he wanted N and S to stay on here for a while. He wanted N to be a labourer/workman and S to work on cleaning inside all the SPQ’s – quite a big job. Hmmm – not sure she signed up for that!

John was sent into Hedland to buy lights needed for the kitchen/diner.

Late afternoon, there was a storm in the distance, with much lightning. Bushfire starting conditions.

SATURDAY 21 OCTOBER     NORTH POINT CAMP

Temperature in the high 30’s today. I was starting to wonder just how high it would go by, say, December.

Back in the office, S had obviously been sending notes and photos, from the office computer, to her friend in HO. She had gone so far as to install one of her personal photos as the screen saver.

Things seemed pretty much in order, though looking at the Daily Reports, it appeared that S did not yet seem aware that HO did not necessarily need to know every tiny detail – especially of things that went wrong! I suspected that R might soon set her straight!

Having been absent for a few days, the rapidity of progress here was so evident.

A firebreak had been cut, right around the perimeter of the site. Good move, I thought, but it would be yet another Contingency item, not having been thought about in the original planning.

The kitchen/diner  modules had all been placed in position – all 16 floors of same.

First kitchen floors being placed

All 23 floors in place for kitchen/mess – painting and tidying up needed now

Work had commenced on the verandas for the Pod 2 SPQ’s. Apparently the roofing on the long kitchen building had to be replaced and that work had commenced. Another couple of the men were working on the inside of that building.

Re-roofing the kitchen/mess building

Two more SPQ’s, destined for RV2 arrived by truck. These were steadily accumulating in our lay down area. I would have to catch up on the serial numbers of things delivered while I was away, plus get the delivery paperwork in order and sent to HO. S had not done any of that work.

One of the men cut his forearm when a piece of roof steel flipped up at him, in a sudden gust of wind.  First aid job for me, and another Incident Report to complete.

R and one of the authority types from FMG went off to inspect a proposed alternative access route to RV2, to try to get around the BHP blocking. I suspect it was probably the White Springs track they were looking at. Anyway, R reported back to the BB. It was no go, I thought he said.

John had to pick up a couple of subbies from the afternoon plane, so he was late back to tea.

WEDNESDAY 11 OCTOBER     NORTH POINT CAMP

On top of all the usual paper work and stuff constantly being forwarded to HO, I was this morning instructed by R on how to make up Client Handover Books. Something else I had never heard of. From R’s not very clear description, these seem to consist of every possible relevant piece of paper, plans, lists of all serial numbers of everything! It eventually dawned on me that putting this together  would be no easy task – think 280 accommodation rooms. Think bar fridge, TV, AC split system – inside and outside parts. Times 280. Each block of four had a hot water system. Then there were a lot of kitchen appliances, washing machines, driers, more hot water services and air-cons. Not to mention gym equipment and other miscellania. How would I create a list of such serial numbers? Why, by walking around, finding each one and recording same.

And here was I thinking that mapping the location of each building by its ID number was going to be a hot and sweaty task, away from my cooled office. Ha!

My office and the surrounds where the death adders hung out

I would have to get the two companies that were building the SPQ dongas, to certify the plans – somehow.

This would all take some arranging and collating. According to R, there would have to be two such books for the client and two for us. I presumed that meant one set for RV1 and another for RV2.

There was going to be one hell of a lot of photocopying being done.

N and S seemed to have decided that the company of the workers at meal time was not their ideal and tonight took their meals back to their camper.

TUESDAY 10 OCTOBER     NORTH POINT CAMP

Today the temperature reached 47.4 degrees and dropped to only 36.4 at night. Working conditions were becoming quite trying.

John was put up in the forklift to get some overview photos of work done to date.

Pods 1 and 2 and kitchen/mess foundations; two central laundries in place on Pod 1

I was tasked with trying to arrange for the phone systems at RV2 to be fixed up properly. Had thought the recurrent issues were due to K’s not knowing how to work them, but seemed now that there might be a real problem. The expert thought it might be done by Thursday. Hmmm – if it was anything like my office printer…….

H, who had been on a break, arrived back from his home down south,  complete with wife M, and caravan, which they set up to live in, as we do. She seemed a really nice person.

N and S arrived today and set up their camper trailer not far from H and M – both at the other end of the donga line from us, and closer to the bathrooms. They seemed nice enough to me, but S already irritated John, as a lot of females do! She seemed like she might be a bit refined for this place. They turned up to dinner with wine glasses and a bottle of wine – probably not a great idea, as the men did not drink away from their rooms. In our rather rough outdoor dining area, it seemed rather incongruous.

Fly Camp at dusk – home……..

Fly Camp at dusk