Jones Bits

Final Post

2008-11-08T10:28:00.003+10:00

To wrap things up....

The Mekong flooding got worse, but pulled up *just* shy of inundating Vientiane. Other places were not so lucky, and much land, crop and houses were lost, and people killed as well.

I finished up at PBM and slunk offsite. Had a pretty good round of farewells - wish them all the best.

Got to Australia, and it all got fairly mental with the wedding. In the end, it was brilliant, awesome, and we were very happy. So good to have all our friends and family together in one place like that.

We headed off to Un Zud and had a fantastic and all too short honeymoon. But we did get some skiing in, and some sightseeing, some adventuring and a few thrillseeking Queenstown things.

Arrived in Vietnam and we set about looking for a house, scoring a beut after a couple of days. I headed off to the minesite for my first roster. Three days after arriving on site, we were hit by Typhoon Hagupit, which buried the site. Due to that, and other financial and regulator issues, the decision was made not to go ahead with the operation.

We completed the orepass raisebore, got both portals into ore, and killed it. It was over - before it began. What a shame.

Due to worldwide economic upset, we don't know where we will end up after this. It may be a case of returning to Australia, but there are still possibilities overseas, and Europe is looking like it may be the go. We'll see.

For now, this blog is at an end. I can't see the point, what with Facebook presenting a better means of keeping people posted, and a far better way of distributing photographs.

The photo you see here was the decoration at the top of our wedding cake, painstakingly prepared by Nicoles sister. It is, I'm sure you'll agree, pretty damn awesome.

Cheers,

Curtis Fucking Jones.

Flood

2008-08-12T23:19:00.003+10:00

Nic flew out out for Australia today at lunch. So I'm on my own both in town and on site, for a brief period before I head back to Australia on the 25th.

The Mekong is in flood. Rains have been continuous and unrelenting for the last couple of weeks, and rumor has it that the Chinese dams upstream have been releasing water recently to avoid overtopping - either by intervention or via spillway. The end result, well, the Mekong has gotten bigger and bigger and higher and higher. Last night we went into town for dinner, went to the Highlander - which is a covered bar right on the Mekong. The lower half of the bar was underwater, and the toilets too. The river had about two metres to go till it hit the top of the embankment there. We took some photo's, but Nic took the camera with her to Aussie - so it'll have to wait to pop them up here.

With typical Lao lassitude, the immenent flooding of the Mekong has only become newsworthy in the last two days. Up until then, nothing. Public authorities are now declaring they have been ready for months. Well - still no sandbags, and it overtopped some time this morning and has begun to flood the city proper. I tried to get to it after lunch, but the police are blocking all roads. Why? Because that's what police do in Lao - stop traffic and block roads. The skill-set doesnt go any further than that, not in the majority of cases. So I parked the bike and went on foot and yeah, sure enough, the river is now inside the city and a long way from over yet. Once past the police roadblocks, there are no other signs of government presence. The only activity was lot's and lot's of Lao (and a few sweaty and toey looking Falang) busy shifting furniture and goods up to higher levels of their buildings, and in some cases hauling stuff up onto the roofs. Other light trucks, tuktuk's and motorbikes are busy hauling gear away. The only people that look concerned and annoyed are the Falang. The Lao all think it's a big joke - as usual - and that's not neccessarily a bad frame of mind to be in when your house is going under water. Out where our house is is probably another two metres higher again, judging by the water level in the nearby canal, which is close to overtopping and is likely to be backed up by the elevated levels of the Mekong. Now, according to the Mekong River Comission website, the river is currently at a level it was predicted to reach tomorrow, and on the graphs it appears that it's got a long way to go yet. So I'd be expecting even the area we live in out here to dip it's feet, maybe by the time I have to go to work. Will have to arrange to be picked up at home, rather than at the office.

I've been reading that the embankments around the city were raised in the 70's, and since then have been cut into, eroded, in some cases removed. For the last eight years, many people have been saying that 'something should be done'. Nothing, of course, has been done.

Exit - yet again

2008-08-02T01:51:00.002+10:00

Events unfurled as they do, and I find myself once again resigning from a job. Not, however, with any trace of unhappiness this time. Odd that, there should be a smidge of unhappyness, and I'd gone most of the way to convincing myself that I would be saddened to be leaving my Lao guys. But on reflection, I'm not. And it's a good thing. The guys have done well, are doing well, and will do extremely well under the tutalage of Paul, and whomever he instates as his Superintendant. It's all good.

So I've two rosters left to go here, which, what with InControl now embedded and seeing high usage, will revolve mainly around handover and wrapping up ICMC compliance loose ends. And the odd piss up as well.

I'm watching Ben Hur. Been a long while. What an epic movie. Someone needs to make a movie this long again, just for the hell of being able to shuffle together lovely long edits. Pace aside, it's a great bit of film.

Vietnam it is, a nickel / copper mine, all underground, with an excellently high mongrel quotient. Hey, howabout that, at one hour fourty one minutes Charlton Heston channels Laurence of Arabia. Biazzare. Anyway, Vietnam, here we come, Hanoi city. All this, and getting married somewhere in between. Gotta be the busiest time of my life so far, and it's been running at the mid-hectic pace for a lotta years. Gotta be the happiest too :-)

HSE Superintendant at this place. Bit of a stretch, to put an understatement out there on the record.

Really looking forward to our wedding on a lot of levels. AWESOME!

I should be asleep. I was asleep. But my head has been bogged with a rotten cold for the last four days, and I woke up fidgeting unable to get back to sleep. So to the blog we go, and blog we shall. That is the fakest beard I've ever seen on that old geezer in the desert there.

I'm going to turn it all off right here and try the fart sack again, see how we go this time. It's hard sleeping on your own, when you've just gotten used to not, again.

Heroism in it's ordinary form

2008-07-26T00:21:00.006+10:00

I came across a story on the web today that will probably dissapear before long. It struck me as a profound example of heroism in it's simplest ordinary form, which is often more remarkable than the shiny popular examples of heroism we tend to pay attention to. I'll let the below text, and the amazing photo, speak for itself.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A man is dead after the car he was driving crashed into the waters of Sydney's Botany Bay today.

The death occurred despite a remarkable rescue attempt by local police officer Bruce Jarvis, who commandeered a mask, flippers and oxygen tank from a local dive shop on his way to the scene, arriving at the location of the accident before the police diving crew.

He said other police officers and some witnesses had already tried to swim out to the car, but the water was too deep for anyone to reach the vehicle without diving equipment.

Without donning a wetsuit he dove 10 metres underwater to reach the car and struggled through the debris to free the driver who was trapped by his seatbelt.

“The current was running and also I was trying not to get myself tangled up with the vehicle on the bottom of the water," he told Sydney radio station 2GB.

Sgt Jarvis managed to free the 40-year-old from the submerged vehicle. The man was taken to St George Hospital in a critical condition but was declared dead shortly after his arrival.

Sargeant Jarvis said he had hoped to save the man because conditions were so cold and that had been known to keep people alive underwater longer.

"(I was) just hoping that we could get a good outcome of helping this gentleman, bearing in mind that it was pretty cold, and you do hear stories of people recovering from when they have been in the cold without oxygen for a while," he said

Sergeant Jarvis said he was underwater for up to ten minutes before finally freeing the man.

He said the water was dark and murky, forcing him to feel his way until he found the driver still strapped in the ute by his seatbelt.

"It was very cold. It was enough to take your breath away."

Initial reports suggested there was a second person in the vehicle, but police later ruled that out.

Sgt Jervis offered his condolences to the man's family.

"Unfortunately it was the only thing we could really do."

One unnamed witness said the driver tried in vain to escape the sinking vehicle.

"He couldn't get out," the woman told Macquarie Radio.

"He was trying to get out, yelling to people.

"There was a man that went to swim to try and help him get him, but by the time he got to him the car had sunk because it had filled up with water."

The utility was reportedly submerged for up to 40 minutes.

The car, which was towing a boat, swerved across three lanes of traffic on General Holmes Drive before plunging down an embankment into the Cooks River at Kyeemagh about 1.15pm, police said.

The ute then became detached from the boat and drifted out into the river where it became submerged in 10-15 metres of water.

Forensic examiners are on the scene.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sargent Bruce Jarvis strikes me as something of a laconic master of the understatement. I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that this is not how he is expected to respond to emergency situations. You wouldnt find it in his Position Description. Looking around on the web I find that he is a trained St Johns Ambulance diver with an extensive diving background, so he's obviously no neophyte, but still.

Take a look at that picture. Quick thinking guy, grabbing that gear. Cool as a cucumber, by the looks, getting dressed and heading straight in.

He makes it sound pretty easy, but a murky river, ten metres down, cold as fuck, in a hard current, with snags and wreckage - that's a long way from some leisurely finning around a reef up on the Great Barrier. Not to mention, cool or not in the above article, likely to have been under a fair degree of tension and stress while he was doing it.

I'm sure that Sgt Jarvis won't be buying any beers after work for a while, and I've a good feeling that he'll find himself up for a gong or two in the next twelve months. But I think an example of heroism such as this is such an important lesson, it should be taught in schools for the next ten years, and not left to be remembered only by those directly involved and affected.

I'm no fan of the Police Force, most people who know me understand that. But I'm a great and huge fan of Police who do their jobs the way an officer should do their job - and this guy has clearly got whatever the right stuff is, by bucket load after bucket load. Well done Sargent, well done indeed.

Credit to The Daily Telegraph, AAP and journalists Carrie Berdon & Adam Bennet for the above plagarism of their reports.

Something changed

2008-07-20T02:02:00.003+10:00

The new Risk Manager has arrived on site, Mr Paul Thompson. He's a decent man, the perfect person for the role. PBM is really lucky to have him onboard, really lucky, and I hope he sticks it out. Early impressions, but I'd say he's got stickability.

Vietnam, not sure whats happening there. Pie in the sky?

Other things happening around other parts of the world, so there's plenty to look towards.

Boring now being on site on my own. Booooooring. But I'm working through all them episodes of 'Lost'. One thing begins to come clear - there *is* no answer! I could happily kick the doc Jack character in the face, morally uprighteous turd burgler.

InControl has become a large part of my life. Hell of a database. Shithouse implementation. What we're doing now is working, the INX consultant on site is resourceful and helpfull, but the data migration work that was done before was shithouse and has caused more problems than would have been created by hand coding the whole lot in to start with. Really fucking me off, and the consulatant is looking ragged. She also had her money knocked off out of her room at the other camp, which is a real fucker. I would be ropeable.

Other shit, well, the wedding looms ever closer, but other shit is at a standstill. One of them funny little hiatus periods that life chucks at you. Aint it a fucker?

Nic is bored and shitted off with the current situation. Guess we had it too good while on site, being apart is worse than burnt cork. It's worse than a singed beard. It's worse than tomato sauce down the front of a fresh shirt. It's worse than a borrowed mower that just won't fucking start. It's worse than a stubbed toe. It's worse than mouldy cheese, when all you want right now is a bloody toasted cheese sandwich. It's worse than sand in the paint. It's worse than most of the things out there that really bugger your day. And it doesnt stop.

Theres that Doctor Jack character again, panting, bug eyed, bleating about some bloody injustice. The man needs a fork thrust into an eyeball, that would really give him something to carry on about. "Argh, my fucking eye!". I'm just getting towards the end of Season One, maybe he toughens the fuck up later on and grows a pair of swingers.

Hoo hoo, enough from me. See you fuckers later.

I give you a photo from Vietnam. It's a brickworks. In Lao, everything is made from cement - because they got all the limestone under the sun. In Vietnam, it's all brick, because they got all the clay that ever existed.

An update - onward and upward with the original titles

2008-07-07T23:50:00.002+10:00

Since my bout of anti-gallic spleen (sorry Roussard, you at least don't deserve it), a few things have been going on. We spent a couple of breaks after my return from Oz just hanging around town, not doing a whole heap. I had a strange thing happening with my noggin there for a while and went to AEK Udon for an MRI. Funny thing being inserted into those things. All negative, and things went back to normal anyway - so no idea but I'm taking it as all good.

We did a trip to Phuket and bummed around in Patong. Nice place. Heaps of photos on facebook and stuck one on here for you. Phuket again in the future definitely, or the Andaman area again anyway, next time a little more adventurous than resort town, It'll come.

Back to site and all manner of weird shit. My new boss got the shaft through a strange series of events. He was a bit of a knob, and I don't mean that in a terrible way, he certainly had a lot of good things to offer. But anyhow, he managed to self destruct in six weeks and now it's back to being an army of one again. It's pissing me off. Our new Risk Manager starts in a couple of days, and will be taking on Asset Protection as well. Things are on the change again - hopefully it will lead to improvement.

Following break I ventured across to Vietnam to take a look at a small and as yet unbuilt underground nickel operation. Very interesting, a hell of a lot like Kundana of old in concept, although the terrain etc is way different. Very different group of people, or so I thought at first. Then I realised - this mob are only looking weird becuase they are not a mob of cock smoking freaks like I've been - alas - used to for the last four years. This crew are lean, mean and mongrel as all fuck and I liked them immensly. Knew a couple of them too from Kalgoorlie, typical goldfielder lads and rock solid. They've got 150 metres developed so far - still virtually in daylight, and a lot of work yet to be done. It liked what I saw.

The wedding draws ever nearer and preparations appear to be going okay. I can easily say that, since I'm not preparing a whole lot myself. Nic is a Trojan. I'm looking forward to the day, very much.

Nic is no longer working on site, she has been shunted back to Vientiane to finish off her contract plugging away on Aurion - the new HR database that is strangely named after the best most brilliant company I ever worked for in my entire life. This leaves me somewhat at odds on site - no one to annoy and it's kinda booring. Thank the maker for DVD's.

The job, the job continues. There is never a dull moment in that respect, some bad, most good - we fix the majority of them up. A couple of losers along the way, but that's part of the warp and woof of it. Workplace injury rehabilitation is a good thing, a worthy thing, and great when it pays off at the end. Couple of births, couple of the other, there you go.

The Frog Song

2008-05-22T21:40:00.003+10:00

If your French and you know it, run away
Cest le Francai, le comprend, escap'e
If your French and you know it
And you feel the need to show it
If your French and you know it
Run away.

If your Dutch and you know it, take of your gear
If your Dutch and you know it, bare your rear
If your Dutch and you know it
You'll always damn well show it
So get it over with, and take off all your gear

If your British and you know it, we'll, your fucked
If your British and you know it - your bad luck
If your a whiney pommy fuckwit
And you cannot help but show it
If your British and you know it
Don't take a bath

If your a Kiwi and you know it, root a sheep
If your a Kiwi and proud of it, go 'bleat bleat'
If your a Kiwi and you know it
Put on gumboots and get to it
If your a Kiwi and you know it
Shag a sheep

If your a Yank, and you know it, open your mouth
If your a Yank, and wish to show it, open your mouth
If your a Yank and want to display it
The best way for you to do it
Is open your mouth, and crap will dribble outta it

If your an Aussie and you know it, wear your thongs
If your an Aussie and you know it, wear your thongs
If your an Aussie and you know it
Then thongs will really show it
If your an Aussie, just remember, 'thongs and bongs'

If your French and you know it, eat some garlic
If your a French chick and you know it, don't shave your legs
If your French and you know it, best be prepared to defend it
'Cause everyone else will want to punch your head in

Slackness

2008-05-12T14:03:00.004+10:00

Getting to be a tad lengthy between posts. Must extract the digit.

Since last have been back to Aussie twice. Went to a wedding in Brisbane - Nic left first I followed later - one of Nic's friends. Was a good wedding, had a great time, didnt hardly get a chance to draw breath. Then we bolted down to Melbored to meet and greet Nic's family and friends. Hectic times, but we did manage to storm a couple of outdoor gear shops and buy up some quality lightweight tropical style shorts and shirts - the kind with ventilation built in, wicking material and lots of pockets. Clever stuff.

Back to site again and met my new boss - thats right didnt get the job oh well - who seems like a decent enough bloke, which is a relief. Would have been a real shame if he was a cocksmoker. Was on site for a paltry six days then back to Aussie *again*, this time to Kalgoorlie for the surface comp.

Brett had done a huge amount of work preparing for it, or claimed to have. He got stuffed around a lot, location kept getting changed and we went from an excellent location to a rubbish one right next to the hall of fame. Ah well.

The event was not our best, but it still went well and the suprise element threw a lot of teams. Not many completed the scenario - dissapointing. Ben Ingham for once didnt compete, but still managed to take the stage. Philthy could not spend the weekend with us - his first missed one in a long while. Muzza stepped up and with two able assistants created 17 ball tearing fires for us - well done brother, you killed the pig again.

Feet aching and heads throbbing we packed up the last of the stuff on the Monday - made it look very hard. But it was done. Tuesday we dropped off some gear at KB - I had to wait in the carpark, heh - then shot out bush for some yabbying. Muzz bought along a couple of weapons and I bought a couple of boxes of rounds, we had a lot of fun blazing away at not much. Red necks. Cooked up a nice feed for the fellas - Duncan came along too - then we pulled nets. At the end of the day we ended up with an unpeeled weight of 10kg - not bad at all - all good sizes and not too full of shit.

Back to Muzzas for a slap up cook up. Muzz did something special with sweet chillie - loved it. Enough yabbies that all had had enough by the end - a rare thing.

Shot down to Perth the next day - head aching again - after a lunch with the guys and was collected by Sauly at the airport - he flew in from Murrin Murrin at the same time. We went to his place and got into a couple of burbs, shot the breeze a bit. He showed me the permit system he administrates - man it's a kicker.

And then back to Laos. Long flight via Phuket, finally got home 18 hours later but was all worth it to see Nic again. We're back on site and looking forward to the next break, where we do nothing at all - was going to go to Vang Vieng but fuck it - lets take it easy for once.

Oh yeah, Dad is coming up early June. Cool!

And our wedding is getting closer and closer and more and more organised. Nic doing an amazing job, me doing not a lot! Hey - it's all about her, right?

No comp photos for you but heres one of us in Bleak Town, or Melbland, or whatever you want to call it... And another of playing around with Muzza's shooters.

Paul Kelly Said It

2008-03-30T00:59:00.005+10:00

By crikey, a long interval between posts. Why? I dunno. It's been busy. My mum and sister came over for an excellent visit, then we went to Bangkok for three days of what poncey travel brochures refer to as "indolent sensual luxury", and what I refers to as "three days on the piss, plus shopping". Gotta love all that shopping.

Anyway, today, and it's noteworthy for it, the mills cranked up in anger for the first real time, and we started shoving feed through 'em, and on into the floats. Quite a day, one half of the board of directors was on site too, and they got to see the big spinning things, umm, spinning.

Mind you, a lot of our people are not that happy. They are stressed and kind of high strung. I feel for 'em.

Things are otherwise - "all good", as the saying goes.

There are no major dramatic personal tales, we've been to parties, engagements, and we've thrown a number of BBQ's. Its a good life.

So there you have it, rock in and mud out, just like your uncle told you. And in another week, copper concentrate will come off the filter, and after that we'll have the crusher fired up and our first truck load of concentrate will leave the site. Now *that* will be a photo worth having.

In the meanwhile, heres a photo of half of the board, standing in front of the bigger spinning thing.

And it's spinning.

Paul Kelly? You figure it out.

Strange things are afoot

2008-01-21T03:49:00.000+10:00

They are indeed, but I'll get to that in a minute. First up, we had a big blessing of the fleet ceremony here a couple of days ago, a Baasi ceremony on an unheard of scale. Stretch and his able mining crews managed to assemble the entire fleet, including the shovels and drills, into a geometrically perfect circle. It nearly did Stretch's voice in (he's been crook lately), but do it they did. They even had the 777's laid out in sequential numbered order.

I'd been tabbed to take photo's and was really looking forward to it. At last, I thought, my chance to get a photo of a monk standing next to a truck. Similar colours and all. Alas, while I did get some cool photos of the assembled equipment, I had to then scurry over to the camp and catch the arriving helo with it's VIP's. More photo's and then aboard the helo, a very new MIL 17 ship, wonderful beasts. No wonder that the Russki's are still making them, and people still buy them. I did get some photo's of the assembled fleet before the ceremony, so that's better than nothing.

The crew were happy enough for me to have the port door open and lean out on the loadmasters seat, which suited me fine although I'd much prefer to use a harness and then sit in the actual doorway itself. The first time I did that was years and years ago, flying orbits around Paddington and it's satellite pits with a video camera, sitting in the doorspace of a small Cessna. It's the only way to go. So once we had the other passengers on board for the jolly I got seated and we headed off. Got some good shots of the plant and pit, and some absolute crackers of the heap leach pad we have in the next valley.

Anyway, due to that dragging on for a bit, and some confusion after landing about photographing the VIPS's having lunch (photographs of people eating NEVER look any good at all, unless it's Marilyn Monroe and a can of instant whipped cream), I never did get to see the Baasi - a great dissapointment.

James arrived back on site the day before that, and I gotta say that I was glad to see him. He'd been really sick the last month and I'd been left on my own - a bit of a root as I'm still struggling to come to grips with the place in a lot of ways. Anyway, that was then, but as of today James is no more, and it's really difficult to draw a line between when I first got here through to this point. I won't go into details, as its not really my story to tell, but basically James went down to Vientiane today and won't be coming back. Where that leaves me I have no idea really, except a hunch that things are going to be busier than usual and I'm going to find it more difficult to get some leave later in the year.

Not looking forward to telling the crew tomorrow. They will be gutted.

Other news, our startup comissioning date has slipped officially to the last half of March. Not unexpected, and really it's not as if it has slipped at all. The original completion date was mid year - June / July, and Pan have been steadily stating that we are on track to kick her in the guts 'in the March quarter". There's been some engineering fuckups, nothing bad and certainly not out of the ordinary for a construction (oh I remember the Paddington Stage 3B expansion - now THAT was a cluster fuck!) but it's hard to get rectified quickly here, and the punchlist is a little longer and more involved than most suspected.

There are benfits in not starting till March. The crusher / conveyor will be that much closer to completion, reducing the amount of screening we have to do. Processing will have refined their procedures and systems that much more, as will the rest of us I hope. Have some of that ER equipment in place too. It's all good and the mood is as high and confident as ever. Awesome to be working with a positive and singleminded group of people like this.

Going over to Udon Thani this break for a day, to hit the shops. I'm determined to bring back a big fuck off plasma, so long as we can get Mr Yess to do the driving and work his magic with his brothers on the border bridge crossing - don't want to have to pay that import tax. And I think it's time to try another PDA. The first one got soaked and refused to work, the second one got melted and the screen wouldnt work anymore, so I swore off for a bit there. But in truth, there are that many threads to hold onto, a pocket sized access point would help tremendously. The way that IT have got the place totally covered for wireless means that I won't need to continuously drop it into a docking station either.

Luang Prabang for New Years

2008-01-06T12:52:00.000+10:00

We got back to town in good time on the 30th, Dave DeLany in the car with us. Stopped at the usual place for a couple of Beerlao and by the time we got home were relaxed and wound down. Young Riley was there, none the worse for wear for her hospital adventures but a little dissapointed at the lack of organisation by the doctor responsible to ushering her around. It's Lao.

Up earlyish the next day to catch our 1000 flight. I faffed around and made us a little late. Didnt matter anyway, when we got to the airport we found the others sitting there looking glum. Lao Air had decided to move the 1000 flight to 0930 - didnt bother to actually TELL anyone - so the flight was gone without us. Ting worked some mysterious Lao magic and conjoured some seats out of Lao Air for an 1130 flight - bloody well done.

So we rocks on into Luang Prabang about 1300, catch a Jumbo and set about finding our guesthouse. A few false attempts but the driver finally tracked it down, a fine old Lao house. Rooms were nice enough with tiny little en-suite bathrooms. The guy running the house was a laid back (naturally) young bloke who wandered around strumming his prized guitar.

A short (oh so short) rest and then we wandered down to the Mekong and began bar hopping. I won't say anymore, other than that I didnt quite make it to midnight and woke up the next day feeling terrible.

Weakly wandered around the next day, poking about. Nic and I took a cruise on the river as the sun went down, just for an hour. The boat we took was to be the boat we would take the following day on a tour of some caves about 25 klicks upriver. It was a nice little jaunt on the river, lot's of other little slow boats and falang doing the same thing.

Rejoined the others for a couple of beers and then wandered down to the night markets. Went a little crazy, bought some ultra-cool shirts and tie-pants and bits and pieces. Lot's of stuff being sold and it's all good quality gear, not crap like a lot of the stuff you see at the Talat Sao in Vientiane.

Ate at the Blue Lagoon, a beutifully serviced restaurant run by a Swiss bloke. Service was amazing, and the steak was to die for. We all retired early that night, looking forward to the next day.

Up early the next day and alas Riley was very ill, chucking and looking quivery and pale. She wouldnt be coming with us, but did get up later that afternoon and go for a stroll around.

We walked down to where the boat would be and Dave grabbed a block of Beerlao. Down into the boat, into the first can at 0900 and we set off upriver.

It was a two hour trip, awesome. The river is very low at the moment and will go lower still. Some parts are very shallow but the near nil draft slow boats have no trouble. There was one spot up towards the caves where the river rolls through a jumble of rocks and spires that must churn it up something awful when it is in flood. As it was we just bounced and rocked a little.

By the time we reached the caves most of the beer was gone, so pulled up at a bar on the other side and got stuck into some more beers and a feed. I wandered off after a bit and got some nice photo's.

Eventually, and after arranging for another block of beer for the boat, we motored back across the river to the caves. Climbed the stairs to the upper cave first. It was not what I expected, neither extensive nor particularly cave-like as I know them. This was a long dead cave, and it was worn smooth and featureless due to the constant occupation of people for a bloody long time. It was filled with Bhudda images, most of them quite small. At the rear of the cave was a raised platform on which stood a small Stupa. The Stupa is supposed to hold the remains of a very holy and revered man, but has been there for so long that nobody remembers who he was or what his story was.

I got some pretty good photos and we made our way back down the long stairway to the lower cave, pausing to buy and release some birds for good luck - which promptly flew back to the tree that they were most likely captured from. The girls kept one bird, a quail, which - being a quail - aint gonna fly nowhere.

The lower cave was shallower but much much higher, reaching up a long way. Some really neat Bhudda icons in there. Lot's of people about.

We stumbled back onto the boat and started heading downstream - at twice the speed we went up. Was more exciting passing through the rapids area this time, another slow boat coming upstream and a faster one coming down behind us that slipped around in a different channel. The river dropped a visible vertical distance through this section.

I stood up at the front where I could look out through the roof and rest my beer on it. Dave joined me, sitting on the roof and we enjoyed watching the banks slide past as we careered downstream, sucking on some cold ones.

Back at town we thanked the pilot and headed off to the guesthouse. I managed a short sleep on the balcony upstairs, iPod going. We were all pretty pissed.

Collected Riley and we headed back to the same restaurant as last night and really tied one on. It was a big night and lots of laughs - last to leave the place. Ducked out into the night markets a couple of times to get some more of those cools shirts and some really cool paintings done by one of several local artists. They will frame well. Some silk prints too.

Next day Riley went off on an elephant tour and we visited more temples, did a heap more shopping and ended up buying a large suitcase to put our haul in. Lesson for next time - bring a big empty suitcase with you! More shirts, more pants, more this and that, and some dodgy DVD's, some of which looked like they might actually work. At a dollar a pop, it's a gamble you are happy to take.

Lunch, shopping, more temples, this time climbing right up to the top of the steep hill in the centre of town to look at the view and the golden Stupa at the pinnacle. Very nice views, got some great photo's.

Met with the others for a quick bite and a gin and tonic or two. It got dark and it was time to head back to the airport and back to Vientiane.

Four days well spent in a truly wicked part of Laos, and of the world in general. We'll be back again - no fear.

Photo's are all up on face book - take a look there are some neat ones there.

As an aside, the town was crawling, literally crawling with the poxed French. Parlay-fucking-voo you fuckers. Damn the French, damn their eyes, the blackguardly barstards. Poncing about in their scarves and blazers, even a couple in their old colonial garb of the white linen suit. Garlic breathing froggy fuckers with their upturned noses and aloof expressions. I would dearly love to whip one of them, just between you and me. Haunting the faded past of an empire that was, at best, second rate. Just give it up for fucks sake, go back to Franco and concentrate on being a nation of cowards and croissant makers, supporters of lost causes and whiney nasal voices.

You can tell. I don't have any time for the French. Bah!

Santa comes - all are scared!

2007-12-25T23:22:00.000+10:00

Merry fucken christmas, meh meh, all that.

Big pissup last night. Alas, I couldnt really take place - feeling too blech. But it was a good night. Santa came. He started off pretty good, only the nicer ladies on his knee, nice and polite and easy with the lollies.

Not that long after, the lady-boys are on his knee, he's half undressed, the beard is doing something weird on his forehead. But the lollies are still flowing.

I won't name the guy, except to say that he is one of the more legendary and awesome blokes on site. He was a huge hit with the Lao - they loved it. Thanks mate, your a braver man than the rest of us!

The Jones is ill

2007-12-22T13:21:00.000+10:00

Bleargh, I've been sick. Sick with something, trouble is, can't find out what the problem is. Fever, aches, chills, sweating, nausea, lethargy and malaise. Couldnt work so came back to the city Friday a week ago and have been back and forth to the Belgian doctors clinic since, test after test. It's not a Hepatitis, nor is it HIV, nor any of a bunch of other nasties, however my liver is still pumping out far too many weird enzymes. The verdict? Mystery Virus - ah yes good old mystery virus - as is it's a fucking mystery.

I feel pretty fucked. Can't keep hydrated, keep sweating it back out and my piss has gone this funny brown colour. Kidneys must be working hard. I'm going back to work this Monday, fuck it.

Bloke from work, Geoff Savage (top bloke) has his young daughter staying with us for a couple of weeks. Shes a medical student. Nice girl, she's gone for a trip to Vang Vieng this weekend.

I bought a gas-powered airsoft gun in Udon Thani. What a wicked thing, 25 shots in the mag, semi-automatic, gas blowback. Fucken take your eye out too these things, nasty.

Finally took receipt of the new laptop. What an ordeal. I'll never go Alienware again. Nice machines, just too painful.

We got some nice lights in Udon too, really cool. I love them.

Heres a really wrong photo. Lao traditional massage - with Lao sized pants. Try again!

Vang Vieng

2007-12-08T11:41:00.000+10:00

We went up to a place called Vang Vieng for three days on this break. What a brilliant place! You can go here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vang_Vieng or here http://www.travelfish.org/location/laos/vientiane_and_surrounds/vientiane/vang_vieng to read a little more about it.

While the more 'puritan' global travellers turn their nose up at it, if your looking for a fun and exciting place to go and have some good times, I gotta recommend this place. Loads of little bars and eating places, massages, shopping, all that stuff. But the best thing about it is the activities you can do around the place.

If you go to http://www.greendiscoverylaos.com/ you'll get some idea of the activities on offer. Green Discovery are not the only people offering kayaking etc, but they are probably the best run and most professional outfit.

Kayaking, rock climbing, caving, rafting, trekking - it's all there and all in the most amazing looking country. Limestone karst like I've never seen, and far more accessible than the limestone country in PNG.

We took a one day kayaking / trekking tour with Green Discovery. Not what you would call extreme, but it was a load of fun nonetheless. A Jumbo (larger Tuk Tuk) took us out of town, dropping us about 18km upstream from Vang Vieng. There we took to the Nam Song river in two person inflatable kayaks. Not suitable for anything other than a mild rapid (they use proper kayaks for the more wicked stuff) but fine for lazing down a river with a couple of small rapid sections.

We noodled down the river for a couple of klicks - a few little exciting bits to bump over. Got stranded on one small shallow and had to get out to push. Pulled up on a gravelly bar and the guide, a very cheerful young Lao man called Phan, took us off on a short trek.

We climbed up the side of one of the limestone mountains, up a brutally steep (but thankfully short) trail that led over a pass. Down the other side into a lovely little valley, full of rice paddys with people squatting in them under their coolie hats, working away. Harvest is in full swing, 50kg bags of rice are being carried everywhere.

Down in the valley we turned and dropped into a mostly dry creek bed, following that we descended with the creek into the large mouth of a cave. Following the creek through the cave, walking along a lovely pebble floor, with people humping these 50kg sacks of rice through the cave, we walked back the way we had come, only this time under the mountain. A nice dry season short cut for the locals. The cave was wide and high for the main, and it reminded me greatly of the description of the 'lands below' by C.S.Lewis in 'The Silver Chair', when Jill and Eustace and Puddleglum are marched away by the exiles from Bism. Half expected to stumble across a dozing Father Time.

We eventually came out the other side and walked a different route back to where we left the kayaks, where Phan cooked a lovely feed of skewered meat and veg over a simple fire. Ken, the only other person with us - a Chinese American IT guy and good company - was full of praise for the cave experience.

After a great feed we launched into the river again and headed down another couple of klicks, pulling out at the Organic Farm, a sort of collective being assisted by some Falang. They grow a wicked mulberry tea there that was very refreshing, and Hibiscus tea too, which was flavoursome.

Back in the river and we are joined now by groups of backpackers - brits, paddys and yanks mostly - floating down the river on their tubes. We come across these awesome cobbled together bars on the sides of the river, with music pumping, backpackers revelling, and scary looking high swings and flying foxes launching screeching backpacker after screeching backpacker through the air and splashing into the river. Lots of fun times being had.

We pulled out after a bit and explored another cave system. This one required wading through an initial section up to our chests - very cold water - before we got into the dryer section. This cave was used as a bomb shelter in the war, there was little evidence left of it. We wandered around before making our way uphill, very slippery conditions. Eventually we came to a squeeze, through which daylight glimmered. A bit of a scramble, but I got through ok with my hat still on. Nic had no dramas.

Back to the kayaks, down a little further and we pulled out at another bar for a beer. Nice.

It was getting late, so back on the river and the last five or so klicks back to town, bobbing along with other tubers and kayakers, plus local people fishing and commuting. Some longtail boats headed upstream with chinese tourists looking happy.

Got to the end and wished out guide a good day and headed off for a shower and a feed. Pretty rooted, worn out, a little burnt but really happy with the day.

Photo's from Vang Vieng posted in a new section on my facebook page - check it out!

A new first

2007-11-26T17:53:00.000+10:00

Life certainly has been taking some interesting twists and turns.

After something of a whirlwind romance - forgive the soppy phrase, the Jones does not do soppy phrases very well - over the last two months, I have to confess I'm madly in love with with Nic. The same the other way it appears.

So mad, the both of us, that all reason has been banished and a couple of days ago, on the last night of our break, I uh, popped 'the' question.

Yeah I know. Fuck.

She said yes too.

Double fucking fuck.

All those staunch affirmations of, "Nah, never - not me!" blown to pieces.

It's early days yet, and as far as a venue or a time goes, it's anyones guess. But one thing is for sure - no turning back. This is for keeps.

Faaaark....

Waterfall

2007-11-11T12:42:00.000+10:00

Ah, I forgot - the waterfall itself. Yeah ok, it's not the biggest or most impressive - but I reckon a photo here in seven months time at the peak of the wet would cause you to rethink.

Bamboo Cutters

2007-11-11T12:32:00.000+10:00

Bamboo cutting is a national pastime. So many things are made out of it. Apart from the obvious things like building houses and saala's, the 'boo is used as string (split and carefully peeled), water bottles, disposable food containers (and about as bio-friendly as you could get), fencing, bridge building, scaffolding, decorations, shoring - endless list.

You name it, Bamboo is the answer for it.

This young lady was cutting lengths with her mother and a young bloke who I think was her brother.

Starting to explore

2007-11-11T10:50:00.000+10:00

Got back to site yesterday from first proper break in Vientiane. It was excellent. We explored the city, getting out on the little scooter everyday, conquering (most) of the remaining doubt over the safety aspects of riding a scooter in the city. It's not that hard really, most of the locals sort of putter and splutter along on their scooters, causing the car drivers to be held up behind them. If you worm your way up to pole on the lights and hook off as soon as they go green, you can leave the pack behind you and enjoy a big slice of road all to yourself.

We found an awesome restraunt in town, they do a great spread for a good price and have a good selection of wine too. And then there is Jomo's, a trendy little cafe next to the fountain that does these wicked waffles and a thing called a Bagel Egger that is the perfect breakfast food.

Found a bookshop too, picked up some cool things. And went shopping for bits and pieces, picking up music and movies and all sorts of things along the way. Got a stereo - just a cheap assed thing to start with but it's got us going with the tunes anyway. Plus it plays DVD's - added bonus.

We went over the border into Thailand to a city called Udon Thani. The change when you cross the border is palpable. From the laid back Lao pace and single lane of buckled blacktop, into full bore modern society and three lane freeways. I prefer the Lao style myself, but it was good to mooch about a modern mall, I got some shirts and a pair of khaki cargo pants that are, even I have to admit, just a little bit ok. Nic found a bodyshop and went AWOL for a while, making cooing noises and filling up a basket in a determined manner.

Still havent done any real sight seeing, planning on doing so next break - which is as of today a mere eight sleeps away.

We drove one of the new mining vehicles up to site from Vientiane. We stopped off along the way at a water fall in the little national park that you cross through to get to site. It did not have a lot of water coming over it, but by the scoured look of the river and the height of the tide marks on the banks I'd say that in wet season it's quite the cataract.

Good to be back on site I have to admit.

Loi Krathong 4

2007-10-27T19:45:00.000+10:00

Lots of fireworks and fun. Please don't bother giving me the "What about safety" thing.

Loi Krathong 3

2007-10-27T19:39:00.000+10:00

The alternative wettie we built down at container-ville, where all the reprobates are being held until the new camp is completed. Took a group of Lao admin boys three days to chuck it up, the planking is all old packaging for processing plant construction material. BLT = BeerLao Time.

Loi Krathong 2

2007-10-27T19:35:00.000+10:00

Bunch of happy Lao back at the camp wet mess.

Loi Krathong Celebration

2007-10-27T19:24:00.000+10:00

I won't attempt to rabbit on and explain too much about the celebration last night, other than it involved launching small floating raft things and boats onto the local river, decorated with candles and sparklers and incense, then letting off stacks of bungers and crackers, followed by returning to the camp, letting off a hell of a lot more crackers, drinking some beers and then listening to lots and lots of Lao singing their hearts out around the place. Bloody fantastic, brilliant to be a part of.

The Locals

2007-10-20T20:18:00.001+10:00

Kids are always great fun to point a camera at, and the local Hmong children are no exception. Wonderfully animated and happy and very very active. They thought the helo was great fun and shouted for joy when it took off again after I'd finished with it. Everyone seems to love kids up here, adults are always smiling at them and patting them on the head, but they don't seem overly indulged, seem to be pretty well behaved - for kids :-)

The Mine

2007-10-20T20:13:00.000+10:00

The benched areas down the mountain have already been pre-stripped. The exposed top area at the top is where all the action is, and those slashes of green and ivy are copper bearing ore that has been exposed. The whole side of the mountain will eventually go, as far along as you can see. Amazing. The plant is located way off in the distance, down the ridge of the mountain.

The Plant

2007-10-20T20:08:00.000+10:00

The big red crane, a 600 tonne beasty named "The Crane" is assembling the SAG mill. The yellow gantry crane is a permanent piece of plant for future maintenance and is being used mainly to lift structural steel and cement kibbles. Other cranes are dotted around. The big sheds down the back are the maintenance workshop and warehouses. The brown roofed buildings down the back are the administration complex and safety / medical building. The pink roofed building to the middle right is the laboratory. Less than a hundred days to go before the first truck load gets tipped into the crusher, I don't for the life of me know how we are going to do it, but apparently it's all on schedule.

The New Camp

2007-10-20T20:01:00.000+10:00

Here's our lovely new camp, close to being finished. The large octagonal structure at the bottom is the wet mess, the dry mess is the large building at the top. Yet to come is the tennis court, squash court, driving range and a 25 meter pool. And the best view in the world. Never seen a camp like it. The rooms for the senior staff are bloody hooooge too.

Constructing Chaos

2007-10-20T19:32:00.000+10:00

There was a hip-hop song, oh ages ago, that had a refrain "It's a jungle out there" running through it. Reminds me of this. The sheer scale and intensity of the construction project is staggering. There are thousands of people involved in this and it's impossible to get your head around where they all are and what they are all doing. And the speed at which things are moving is staggering. Truck after truck of raw materials is coming up the highway from Vientiane and disgorging cargo, which immediately gets carted off and thrown into the mix. Every square inch of space has a large item of equipment temporarily parked on it, waiting to be slotted into the jugsaw. Even the front of the new administration block is providing a home for four rather intimidatingly sized barge pumps, which will eventually find their way out onto the tailings dam.

I had a nice break today. Our top honcho big bananna, the Pan Australian boss, flew up with his wife and a couple of other Brisbane managers this morning for a site visit, to see how things are getting on with their baby.

I got tapped on the shoulder yesterday to take the helo they flew up in after they landed and grab a heap of happy snaps of the state of the project so far. It was a lovely low-hour Eurocopter Squirrel, very modern little helo and impossible to compare to a Bell 206, which would be their closest cousin. The squirrel has a big bubble plexi canopy and generous side windows which gives you a tremendous field of view. It also punches well above it's weight with a balanced three blade rotor and more lift capacity that any five-seater should posess. The pilot had enough juice to give us 30 minutes of airtime and still have enough in reserve for the return trip to Vientiane, so I made good use of it and had him orbit the plant, camp, dam and the pit. Got some great photo's, which are included. At last I've got a true picture of how the place is laid out, and was able to see the pit for what it truly is - not to mention what it will become. Man, that is going to be one big mother of a slice cut out of the side of the mountain.

Mining is at such a stage that you can clearly see how the gold bearing gossan cap is being carefully pared away from the copper orebody, and there are now slashes of lovely green copper ore exposed to sight. It's quite a sight.

The dam to, I was informed, is only at the bare foundation stage now! I thought that was it! But no, it will gradually lift in height as the dam fills over the 12 year lifetime of the mine, until it is an enormous rearing earth wall.. I'm told it will eventually be in the top ten of the worlds rock fill gravity dams for size, not a bad effort.

As a result of my little boondoggle I'm even more impressed with the operation if that were possible, and firmly convinced that taking the opportunity to be a part of this project was absolutly the right idea.

Anyway, I got some great photo's so here they are.

First impressions of Lao PDR

2007-10-12T02:03:00.001+10:00

Laos. Man, it's odd.

Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty cool place. Anywhere that a longneck of the local beer (imaginatively named 'Beerlao' - and bloody good too) costs about one American dollar, a pack of smokes about fifty cents, and a decent meal for two with three or beerlao's each is the princely sum of about 11 greenbacks, well that place has gotta have something going for it.

But its no not at all what I thought it would be like. The people are very Thai in appearance but milder, very casual and kick back. This is proving a source of frustration for some of the more traditionally goal oriented Australians working for the company, myself I think we need to adapt our expectations. A big challenge already - and I don't mean to paint too much of a cartoonish picture - but the karma / fatalism aspect of bhuddism has some dire implications for workplace health and safety. Use your imagination.

The whole culture is such a major shift from what I'm used to. The PNG blokes, while obviously different than us Aussies, had similar motivations and were similar enough in outlook that you could comprehend them, or at least enough of them, that you felt like you had a bit of a grasp on what drove them - what they lived their lives for. They kinda 'thought' in English - know what I mean? The Lao people - nothing at all like that, totally different way of thinking and a totally different set of motivations.

A major hurdle for me is their absolutly impeccible manners. I love a crude joke - the old 'pull my finger' being something of a favorite - and the PNG blokes had a similar take, but the Lao are mightily offended by crudity and coarseness. If nothing else, living there is going to improve my table manners. Falang (whiteys) are held in a high amount of regard just for the sake of being whiteys (we all look the same apparently, and have remarkably ugly pointy noses - who woulda thought?), quite high up in the pyramid of respect and face, but offset somewhat - not within the pyramidial structure but outside. We get a fair bit of leeway just for being Falang, and they forgive the day to day slips.

Some major things to consider for us, like the foot. The top of the head is the most holiest spot - closest to heaven / bhudda and all that, so touching a person on their head is a pretty offensive thing to do if done deliberately, and a bad social fopar (love that Kath and Kim mispell!) if accidently. The sole of the foot is the complete opposite, the filthiest of things - furthest from heaven. To point the foot at someone deliberately is really offensive. Easy enough to remember, but then there are the things that one does with ones feet. One thing that I'm sure you'll appreciate in the mining caper is drawing something in the dust / mud with the toe of your boot? Or perhaps kicking an item to indicate that it is the one you want? Do that and you lose your audience straight away, they turn around in disgust. Something I teach on the fireground is never to drop a branch or coupling straight on the ground, instead drop it onto your foot and the gently roll it off the foot onto the ground. Going to have to re-think that one. I asked in my cultural orientation day what would happen if you placed your foot on top of someones head, the person doing the course fair-dinkum looked ill at just considering the thought and said that it was something that should never happen - ever. I 'm going out on a limb here, but I'll wager there is no such thing as a '69' in Lao bedroom culture (unless it's done *really* carefully) , not to mention toe-sucking :-)

Vientiane, the city, is nice. They reckon it is asia's largest village, and in truth there is only one building that is over four stories. It sprawls along the banks of the Mekong, and if you get out of the city centre and drive for fifteen minutes away from the river you end up in rice paddies just like snapping your finger. My house is really nice, I've not moved into it yet. I'm in Aussie now, I fly back on the 15th and thats it - residential from there on. I'll be sure to post up some photo's.

There is a very visible police presence, nicely dressed in their spanking uniforms, big peaked hats and lots of braid. They look very official. It think it's a great thing, seeing such a highly visible presence. Our Aussie police could take a leaf out of this book, instead of relying on camera after camera and getting fat sitting on their bums. Traffic is pretty crazy compared to Australia, but tame compared to Thailand. It all seems to work. Left hand drive though - that is going to be quite a challenge. The roads are good - apparently great strides have been made in the last two years - with lots of ongoing work evident and many traffic lights to come. It would seem that the country is determined to insill order on the city roads, and I applaud this. Still, in the short time I've been there I've seen five or so motorcycle accidents. I won't be buying a bike, not for the city anyway.

The mine is very raw and still well in construction. The tanks are mostly up, the mill shells are on site and when I left a brutally large (600 tonne!) crane was being assembled to install them and the crusher. The push is on to fire it up before the due date - sometime in March rather than June. My staff are pretty raw too, none with any real OH&S experience. One of the doc's is very switched on, and one of the paramedics, a little Thai bloke, while he speaks really rotten english knows plenty about his job. The rest remain to be seen.

The pre-existing part of the mine, a small cheap heap leach operation is winding up. It only employed a handful of people, and was done to both demonstrate to the market that Pan Aust could successfully work in the region, and to pay the wages without dipping into the capital raised off investors.

The new camp being built is fucking five-star - awesome. We move in at the end of the year. Right now I'm in a newly erected container-ville with a bunch of other reprobates. It's a good atmosphere. The Aussies up there are all, so far, really good. And a few ex-Porgera people. Standouts so far have been a bloke called Marty Noaks who is running processing at the new plant - that guy is solid gold. And Dave and Richard from logistics / warehousing are damn fine examples of can-do as well. I'll get to know the rest.

All up it's a definite improvement over PNG. Much safer, the people are very very polite, not to mention fastidiously clean and odour-free. Sexual equality too - there no real glass ceiling except in the political party (I think?), of which there is only the one. Mind you, there are not that many male cleaners (although there are some) and I've seen no (yet!) females tradespersons (only cause all our tradies are filipino at this stage anyway). Then again there is the third sex, the Kathoey or ladie-boy. Several of our catering and cleaning staff are Kathoey, weird huh?

Did I mention how short and slight the Lao are? They are tiny tiny people - perfectly proportioned but oh so tiny. One of the cleaners is a mere 4'1" tall. I made her stand still while I measured her with a tape measure, she though it was hilarious and made me measure myself and show her, went off snorting and chortling to herself. I desperately want to nickname her 'Hobbit' before anyone else pinches the name for one of their people, but am scared to offend if she divines the meaning from someone else and does not like it. Nicknames are important, particularly for women. Something like 75% - I think - of the female population is named 'Noi' - makes it hard.

The sheer height of a Falang - I'm no giant but taller than most Lao - is awe inspiring to them. One Aussie bloke on the construction site, working for Ausenco, he's gotta be 6'7" at least, solid and has a bristling beard. He scares the shit out of them, you can tell, and when he walks past a group of Lao labourers they all stop and stare open mouthed. I've shaved all my hair off again (long hair = too much bother) down to 'baldie' - which is a monk-only look in Lao and odd for that. I was standing outside the admin building on my second or third day with James, feeling that I'm being watched. Turned around and there is a little Lao guy busy snapping us with his mobile camera phone, open mouthed. Probably show his family "lookit the bloody ugliness of these Falang would ya?!"

We have our own mobile tower - progressive - I like it. Laos has a very modern mobile phone network and the Lao people have taken to them like ducks to the water. A major education program going on now about when it is appropriate to switch them off or not answer them, like in the middle of a pre-shift meeting.

There are some pretty strict laws against Falang sleeping with Lao women in an effort to curb prostitution, I agree with this fully. It is around, but nothing at all on the scale or 'in your face' scope of Thailand and the like. There are no girly bars, and the tuk-tuk drivers do not try and pimp their virgin neices onto you. Still, it's stomach-churning to see a bloated, greyed, mid fifties euro-trash bloke out on the town with his two diminutive doe-eyed early 20's 'companions'. Lao authorities are well known for lightning hotel and residence raids, looking for this sort of thing, and will chuck you straight out of the country. But I have the feeling that it's all a checks and balance thing, if you piss someone off they shop you to the authorities and you earn yourself some pain. Keep your nose clean, keep it somewhat discrete and don't treat the ladies poorly and you slip through. We all signed off in our contracts that we will not enter into any sort of relationship (other than professional work stuff of course) with any one - male or female - who works for the company and is a Lao. There have been sackings already I'm told. I'm fine with it - never shit in your own nest anyway right? Anyway, I'm working there for different motivations.

No photos, way too busy, but they will come. The scenery around the mine is breathtaking, a shame really to mine in such an area but it will re-hab beutifully - much better than any of the ugly scrapes we do in Australia, and in PNG too for that matter.

So far, I'm pretty damn happy with things.

Catch.

Two weeks

2007-09-16T22:38:00.000+10:00

It's been a good couple of weeks. Went over to Maggie for a couple of days, nice place as always. One of the cabin lights died completely, so when I came back into Townsville I figured I'd replace it, get a decent one. What started out as being a simple light replacement turned into a major rewire job, it was a snowball and a half. Ripped out lots of mystery wires, replaced then with good marine grade stuff, did all proper soldered joints instead of crimps, replaced the main switchboard panels with two new ones and tidied that right up, lots of new lights - including some natty red night sailing lights, a new chart table light, re-routed some items to different switches, split the nav lighting up onto separate switches, installed spare wires for future needs - lots of wires! I stepped on the soldering iron and burnt the shitter out of my foot, used a lot of aloe vera and just filled a sock up with it and kept it on and kept it topped up for a couple of days and you wouldnt even know it had been burnt now. Amazing miracle stuff that aloe.

I tossed out the tired (and smelly) old foam mattress in the forepeak and cut up a new one out of a better foam. Re did some plumbing under the sink and lots of other little jobs. Even spent some time up the mast, piddling around. Threw away all the pillows, got new ones.

I'm going to switch over to painting for the rest of the break, she needs a lick of paint here and there.

Big spring clean downstairs too, threw out bag after bag of old clothes I hadnt worn in years, kept the good jackets and hats and usefull things but all those old jeans, and work gear, and just shit, threw the lot out. Bags of CD cases, old paperwork that has been following me around for the last decade. I figured if I hadnt worn it or looked at it for the last 18 months, then I didnt need it. It was hard, but I ended up lightening the boat by a couple of hundred kilos easily. I kid you not. Loads of books, surplus cooking gear, old magazines, old computer cables and patch coords, half empty tins of paint and primer that had gone off, threw the lot of it out.

Then I got the fresh water hose inside her and washed the bilges out from stem to stern, just poured it in and washed all that infernal muck that accretes in the bilges out. Killed the bilge pump doing it, which while a little scary was good to have it happen in port. Scary because you rely on those things to keep on going in case of need. I bought a larger Rule pump with the built in float switch.

Then I got into the nether most corners of the bilges and up underneath the sole with Exit Mould, finally kill off that remaining mould smell.

It's been a bit of a drudge and my knees are killing me but it's always nice to have a big spring clean. Certainly looks a lot prettier down below. Was looking at the sole today and while it's nice I think I might carpet over it. I know, I know, carpet has no place on a boat, but I saw this cool stuff at Clarke Rubber that is specially made for boats, it's near indestructible and it's a lovely blue and grey pattern that would work well with my blue upholstery. Only has to be loose fitted and see what it looks like and if it's no good then rip it out. I do know this much though from sailing, that if you have carpet on board it best be glued to the sole, other wise when you try to walk on it while on a heel, you slip and go arse over tit. If it IS glued down, then you have a very non-slip surface indeed. This Clarke Rubber shit is treated for fungi and mould, so it might work. I'll check it out.

Seven days to go till I leave. I think Nicole left today for her stint, I'll see her over there at some point I guess.

Maip rang the other day to say g'day. Was nice to hear his voice. Good old Maip, hope things work out for him.

Perfect weather here in TSV. I'm not that big a fan of the place, but this time of year it is pretty fucken sensational. Day after day of beutiful weather.

Uncle Ken is very sick apparently. Not good.

Bai mi go pinis tasol

2007-09-04T10:46:00.000+10:00

Flew off the site yesteday for the last time ever. A little sad, but only a little. Leaving some good people behind, really good people and I'll probably never see any of the PNG man na meri again, but that's life blah blah rattle blah.

I was given far too many extra bilums and carvings and things - where do you put all that stuff? Dii gave me a lovely necklace made out of Kina shells and pig tusks, it's well wicked and I'll stick a photo of it up here a bit later on.

Was a very small flight - only seven of us. We flew out in the 212, nice to finish the place off with a helo ride instead of the Twin Otter. I'll not forget the geography of the place in a hurry that's for sure. From what I've seen of Laos it looks similar, but not as high or bumpy and decidedly thicker growth.

I bagged row 9 in the Dash 8 too, a first. All to myself. I stretched out and discovered that while it might look like the ideal way to fly, the back seat is actually quite uncomfortable. It didnt really matter, I slept most of the way.

The house in Vientianne is all organised and it looks like a palace, all opulent rich woods. Fully furnished, just need pots and pans. A maid has been arranged for, and she does all the cooking the cleaning and buys all the food. How much better could it be? I'll be sure to pop some photo's up here.

So now I've got three weeks to kill off in Australia. It's going to fly past. I'm hanging out awaiting my new Alienware Area-51, it's going to be the shit. And I reckon I'll buy another lappy as well as that, one of those grunty little ones that are heaps more portable and plane freindly. We'll see.

Flashback to the BERN

2007-08-21T14:17:00.000+10:00

I did promise some photo's from the BERN.

My team at the Vehicle Ex just before the skys opened up on us. My oh my can I operate a pump or what :-)

This is Jack Wass with the Mozza, about to get into some ropes.

This is Jack encountering a Kangaroo for the first time. He was stoked. We were at Caversham Wildlife Park. I'm trying hard to look like I know what I'm talking about.

Pulling the pin

2007-08-15T20:27:00.000+10:00

Resigned today and signed up for a job in Laos with Pan Australian. It's been a long time in the making, months now, and all happened at the last minute. Nothing up here on the blog to show for it, as it was never much of a certainty.

I go back to work for one final stint this Saturday and then thats it - no more Porgera. I feel pretty bloody good about it too. And just a little sad.

The mine is called Phou Kam and is an operation still in construction, a gold / copper operation with a fifteen year life span on current parameters. I've long wanted to be a part of a start up, I got my wish, although this is only a surface operation at this stage - with a low probability of going underground.

Lot's of challenges ahead and I'll be good and sure to put them all up here.

Initially I'll be flying in and out on a four on two off roster. That'll run for about four months, then I'll go residential in Laos, working a ten on four off roster. It's nothing but good and I'm looking forward very much to living in another country. Big change in lifestyle but hey, no reason why you can't yeah?

More news when it's news.

Peace, be at peace

2007-08-11T21:57:00.000+10:00

I'm at my mum's place, kicking back and taking it exceeding easy. Mum lives in Yeppoon, on the coast near Rockhampton. Nice place, with a rotten core of ugliness in the people. I don't blame her for wanting to leave. Last night, the older single mum that has just moved in next door granted her late-teens kiddies a 'party'. It went dreadfully pear-shaped, bottles smashing, fighting, swearing, letter box destroying. Mum was at work. I called the police, it took them half an hour to get there. The poor residents of the house next door were in some degree of shock at how their little party had gotten so far out of hand.

Mum arrived home to broken glass all out the front of her quiet little cul-de-sac. I said "It was'nt me!".

I walked down the bushlands out back of mums place yesterday into the bushlands that surround her. Lovely bush. It's been logged long in the past, but has sprung back well. Lots of critters. I walked the fire trails, up and up farther. Little sumps dug in everywhere for fire fighting water. I was scolded by a family of black cockatoo's for encroaching on their nice new nest. Bush turkeys abound, destructive little barstards - they rip the shit out of the bush and the earth.

I suprised a mild little echidna minding his own life on the side of the track miles from the house. Lovely animal. I'm a major fan of the Quoll, which is beuty personified, but the echidna is only just a bare second. It is a strange beast, ancient and obsolete, a monotreme like it's cousin the Platypus and as such one of only two mammals that lay eggs. The echidna is not capable of making any noise at all, it has no teeth, eats ants, other small insects and worms and sort of bumbles along doing it's own thing in a totally unpredictable manner.

I did a Harry Butler, whipped off my shirt dropped the camera and bounded into the scrub after the little bloke. I just got to him in time before he completed that amazing vertical down dissapearing act that an echidna does and levered him out of his hole.

He was a fat 'un, very healthy and very annoyed at being disturbed, rolled himself into his ball and fanned his quills out.

Lovely animal, I got a couple of photo's, here they are.

An overabundance of cocksuckers

2007-08-05T05:11:00.000+10:00

Man, there are days and there are days. I know that venting your spleen on a blog is an essentially pointless excercise in self-indulgence, but fuck me there are some queer cunts working here. Bend over backwards, wipe their bums for them and try and help guide to a professional end and you get fuck all for it but blank-faced ignorance and apathy, a stab in the back and that pathetic email sniping where correspondants strategically cc' people instead of resolving the problem face to face like a decent person would. It's disheartening and I find myself leaving for field break today in a decidedly less than positive frame of mind.

This is a long winded way of saying that I've got a dire case of the shits on, and while the chittering little red fork tailed guy on my shoulder would like nothing more than to see a desk or two get overturned, reality is all I can do is grind my teeth and look upon what should have been a pretty good roster as being a total bummer, dude.

I swear it would not take a great deal right now to reduce me to a wild eyed axe swinging office redecorator, and I'm not referring to my own office.

On the positive side... Umm... the positive side.... Uh, nope, can't see it.

There must be, ah, yeah, I've flown that little heli a couple of times this roster when the afternoon weather has been kind, that's been fun and I'm still continuing to slowly improve. I can make it piro slowly on the spot now without moving around too much, a harder ask that it sounds like. But I still have a lot of trouble maintaining heading awareness on the thing, it's very easy to lose orientation on exactly what direction it is pointing in when it's at any distance from you. I've gotten some nice slow runs with short climbs and shallow stall turns happening, but can't keep it up for more than two or so before either gaining too much height (too scared to back the collective off enough) or fucking up the stall turn and running out of forward speed half way through the turn. What I need is a really really big clear area to fly it in without any wires or trees, that would make a significant difference.

Goin' fer a BERN

2007-07-26T11:14:00.001+10:00

It was better than I thought it would be. There was minimal cock gobbling in evidence, the other people who attended were excellent and the activities were pretty good too. The weather lashed out at us, it belted down like nothing else immediately we started our first event. Didnt really bother us Porgeras too much as it's situation normal up here, and the three blokes from Tasmania visibly brightened as it began to rain, humming little happy tunes and lapping it up. Everyone else growled, raised their collars and did their best to get on with it.

The way that FESA conduct live training is - odd. Scenarios are presented in a very dry and factual manner and are halted at regular intervals. I heard a couple of the FESA trainers mention something called 'spiral' - which perhaps is meant to be 'SPIRAL' or maybe 'SPEIRAL' or other variation. I guessed it to be an acronym but damned if I can find the definition. Whatever, it's a dynamic siutational assessment tool as far as I can see.

Day one was all scenarios. Vehicle Extrication (or as our FESA friends calls it RAR - Road Accident Rescue) was a good scenario, had all the trappings of a beut, but didnt cut it for me. Too little time and well it was our first event and it did rain like buggery and we were all a bit shakey seeing how we had all only just met five seconds ago. Ropes was so simple it was ludicrous, but a good one. HazMat was not terribly realistic, what with the interruptions and overly simplified scenario. The BA SAR was pretty good, nice SAR building they have got there, enjoyed it and have always enjoyed blind work in BA. Fire was a bit dissapointing, very unrealistic. Good training maybe, not so good scenario. Not in the Team Mongrel spirit of the thing thats for sure.

Day two was different, lot's of mini team challenges. Very enjoyable and a good time was had by all present. Nothing difficult, nothing hard, just blat blat blat one after the other.

A few beers were put on afterwards but nothing organised (however loosely) for a few kicker onneras afterwards - a bit lacking! I ended up in the team for the USA thing in September, all sites got at least one person in so it was good to see representation from across the board. The team I was in for the weekend ended up submitting five people not bad seeing how there was only 12 spots to go around thirty odd people. We had a quick meeting, in which more was said about correct behaviour and representing the company and don't be naughty than was about the trip itself. I guess it had to be said, maybe not so many times by so many different people.

A few ER Coodinators going. Hacks from Cowal, Kuskopf from Kanowna and me. I'm pretty sure the rest are from all different walks of life.

Had a bloke called Steve-o on our team, he's going. Big strapping young bloke with plenty of grit and gusto. Tom Honner from Henty was another, older bloke, underground miner, strong qualities. Steve Kuskopf from KB, busy little bloke. And the other guy was Justin (I think), young fella, active and able.

Tony Granfield from Henty was at the BERN, was great seeing him. Top bloke Tony, classic hard as fucking nails Tassie miner.

The rest, besides the Moz (who much to my dismay is not going to the US - bugger damn and blast it) and Jodie, I've seen their faces at competitions before but wouldnt know them from a bar of slippery stuff.

Mark Flavell is a funny thing, seems to be out of breath all the time and I swear he wore at least eight different sets of ER related clothing items all at different times over the weekend. Oh well I guess he is fond of his ER. All things considered, I reckon he done a pretty decent job of pulling it all together and making it happen.

My boys Maip and Jack had a fat old time. Although Jack was a little let down by his lack of training in some disciplines (he's one of my underground boys) he made up for it. And Maip enjoyed if, even if he kicked himself a little over the Ropes during which he was the team leader.

Lance took Maip, Jack and myself to the underwater thing out at Hillarys - which blew them two away and I gotta admit the big tank impressed me too. Then we shot out to Caversham Wildlife Park, which was grouse. They got to pat Kangaroos and saw pretty much every Aussie critter there is, including some excelllent Quolls - my favorite animal of all.

Plenty of piss drinking but not to excess and nobody fell over or anything and we were never late for anything - 10/10 for that!

Some photo's later on to post up, I'll do them in one big post.

Flying au naturale

2007-07-15T21:11:00.000+10:00

It's been a shockingly long time between updates - my bad. The only excuse I can offer is that I've been without my laptop now for a while which has made updates a difficult thing to do. I usually noodle away on a post for a bit before throwing it up.

I went to Brisbane, had a great time there, caught up with Tamara, explored the city a bit, did lots of stuff with Tam. Dining in Brisbane is better than I'd always thought, great places to eat out. I also bought a new helicopter, as I thought I might. It's a T-REX 450 SE V2, which is quite a mouthful. It is great, just bloody amazingly great. You can go here - http://www.align.com.tw/shop/product_info.php?cPath=22_25&products_id=1572 and learn more if you wish. And I got a controller, a computerised one. And other bits. And extra bits. And blingy bits. And bits to replace bits that break. Lot's of bits involved.

It took a while to build it, lots of fiddly little screws and bits - more bits. It flys great, and to date no bingles and no breakages. Uh, well I *did* manage to smash a set of wooden blades into the edge of the concrete pad at the bottom of Alipis, and I also managed to smash a set of carbon blades with a very stupid flip of the idle up switch in my fucking camp room of all the daft places to be doing that. Result, big ding in the wall and a big ding in my thumb. Big blurt in my pants to, scared the crap out of me.

The roster dribbled along happily. The first half was spent with a group of blokes up to help us gain compliance with the cyanide code. Auditiors sort of, but nice blokes. Second half was in the acting managers role again, and then plenty of stuff went wrong but hey - let's not bore you all with the details.

This break it's all about the BERN and okay yeah I'm looking forward to it but it had better not be the knob-gobbling festival of cock smoking that I'm inclined to believe it may be.

I'm in Kalgoorlie it the moment, staying at Brett's place. I came over early to catch up and do stuff prior to the BERN. I got in two days ago. Brett, Muzza and myself went out last night for a few beers and it ended up being a little more than messy, apparently we got back at 0330 which is not a bad effort. Then up again this morning to meet Muzza and some other people out at Lake Perkolilly for a day of hangliding.

Well, pretty crook this morning I can tell ya - real crook. But we went out and met up with Muzza, Duncan and Lynne. Bought lots of water, sausages and bread and a terrible lime drink.

Duncan fired up his powerpack thingy and blipped off, soon disappearing from sight. Muzz faffed around for a bit and then in short order had me buckled into a harness standing on the back of the tow ute and then BANG we was soaring into the sky. It was only a short ride, as my 105kg of weight (muscle, gristle and steel :) and the lack of thermal activity was against us, maybe it was fifteen minutes? But it was totally and absolutely awesome, I was blown away by the sensation. Muzza truly belongs in the sky - he transforms into someone else! If Muzz had gotten me up in the sky with him previously, while I was working and living here, well my personal history may have well turned out different, because I would definitely have taken this up as a sport. Or, not as a sport, something more serious than that. I cannot describe the feeling, but it is so totally like the flying that I've encountered in dreams that it wasnt funny. What a bloody magnificent thing. Muzza, you amaze me.

No photos as *someone* forgot to bring a camera. Ah well.

Thus endeth the lesson.

2007-06-09T10:19:00.000+10:00

Yaho, nuther one bites the dust. I gotta come up with something better than that, or even these posts. So dull.

Nothing out of the ord - lots of training, procedure re-writes, making progress on the AFE for the Fire Rescue Station relocation project, attending a couple of brown paper MOS sessions (yeawn).

Crashed the living fuck out of that little helicopter. Twice. At least I now think I have something of an idea of what I'm doing wrong in the set up. Simply put, the head is too 'tight' - the gyro effect of the flybar / blades / head is not able to do it's "return to neutral" thing as soon as you null the sticks. Will bring more parts back next time, yet more, and set up properly and man I should have that damn thing in the air for longer than 30 seconds. And what the bugger, I might just lash right out this break and buy a 400 size one, a big step up but they reckon the bigger the model the more fly-friendly so might as well. I can see that taking this on as a serious hobby equates to an expensive hobby, but name one hobby that isnt expensive.

The only thing of any note that happened during the roster was the powerline going down for 9 days. Big job for the line crew, you gotta take you hat off to them guys. I saw Sid just after they came back outta the bush, he looked knackered and that guy rarely looks anything other than calm and cheerful, so it must have been a tough one.

The old man is experiencing some extreme weather down at Newcastle. A big freighter has been forced up onto Knobbys beach of all places, and judging by the photo's (which I'm sure you've seen) it's a high and dry ship. Got me stuffed why they dont ballast up. There was some awesome footage of another one fighting it's way out of the Stockton Bight, well and truly embayed and at one point only 600 metres off the Stockton sands - you could see the muck churning up in the water behind it. Same thing, it was well out of ballast, but I think in that case if you took a heap of water on you might end up on the bottom anyway. It eventually clawed off. It's funny, I was there when the Sygna went up on the beach and can dimly remember howling at the sand being blown by the helicopter and being cold and wet. I was only two. Dad seems like he's okay, lot's of flooding but Tilligherry drains well, some big trees down out the back but his house is intact. Hope his yacht is okay, must ask him about that.

Last day fast day, out tomorrow. Have been acting OH&S manager for last few days but amazingly nothing major has gone down for once filling the post. Lance in later this morning.

Off to Brisbane this break, looking forward to that.

Slackness

2007-05-17T13:29:00.000+10:00

What a slack bugger, not updating for so long!

The gates opened after a few more days and we got back into buisness in very quick order. Much negotiations going on with the landowners afterwards, and still not really sure what the eventual outcome is going to be but I hope it works out beneficial to ALL parties.

The second week of the roster was a blurry one, we had an IM struck by a rock with an open fracture of the lower tibia / fibia - nasty. And also an employee struck by a rock on the foot underground that required a bit of action. Poor guys foot looks like it might be out of action for a long time. Training took up the rest of the time, and got some additional jobs completed in there in the meantime.

For the break, first couple of days in Townsville doing this and that, and I think I'l buy another RC helicopter, a cheap one, to practise on. Next roster I'll be taking heaps of parts to work with me, so I can repair the bigger one each time I smash it.

I've started baiting one of those Nigerian email scammers, the results of which I'll publish here. It's been interesting so far.

More later. No picture!

Hurry up and stop mining

2007-04-28T21:09:00.000+10:00

Got back in this morning. Found out four days ago that the local landowners have forced the mine to cease operations, due to a complicated and torturously hard to follow dispute over resettlement. Any other mine in a third world country, any other mine operator, they would be dealing with a situation like this via force. It pleases me greatly that we do not do this.

Instead, immediately ceasing operations puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the PNG government, as the mine contributes something greater than 25% of the GDPof this country. The last thing any of us wants is violence, certainly not from us and we absolutely don't want to see any from the government either.

It's a peacefull picket outside the fence. There was a large gathering today, slightly more than 1000 people by my humble count, as the MGM presented a written reply to the landowners, a reply to their demands. I'm not yet up to speed on the demands themselves, but from what I hear they are a little over the top. Don't know yet how the reply went down with them, we'll find out a little more tomorrow.

Today was the fifth day of cessation of operations.

It's difficult to predict what will happen. Tomorrow we may find ourselves back in buisness. Or it may take weeks. Interesting situation, and I wonder what the rest of the pre-election period will bring our way.

A few tense people on site, but really, as things are at the moment, there is nothing much to be tense about. In fact, it's a lot duller than usual. I'm the sole occupant of my camp building, and I'm in the very bottom-most camp building, so it's very quiet at night, the slightest bit spooky, and bloody dull as hell - nobody to joke or yarn with.

Photo here of the big pow-wow today. As I said, very peaceful.

The Surf

2007-04-28T21:01:00.000+10:00

Cool day.

Point Sir Issac

2007-04-28T20:55:00.000+10:00

My Sisters man Chris managed to get away from his work for the weekend and took us out into the Coffin Bay National Park, out to Point Sir Issac to one of his favorite surfing breaks.

Coffin Bay

2007-04-24T10:04:00.000+10:00

What can I say, amazing place, simply beutiful. This is Dylan, my sisters little wonder. Had a great time doing some uncle-ing.

Flipped Flop

2007-04-16T11:08:00.000+10:00

Back in Oz - nuff said.

Here's a snap of a peacock, Hammond Park - Kalgoorlie.

Porgera Open Pit

2007-04-11T05:11:00.000+10:00

Thought I'd post an image of the open pit. It's an older one, taken around about November 2005. Gives you an idea of the scale of the place though. Even more so when you consider that where there is now a pit was origionally a mountain, which has since been removed. If you open the picture itself and look down into the bottom right you'll see one of our shovels loading a truck. The shovels are RH200's, they weigh - I dunno -250 tonnes? Big suckers anyway, and theres one looking like a dwarf.

You can see that the upper half of the pit looks different than the bottom, like a great muddy wall. Thats a fair assessment of it actually, the material in that upper section is a weak sediment and it progressively failed over a period of a year and a bit, more washing and slumping down each time it rained - which is every day. And if you look real real carefull around the middle of the frame, you'll see another RH200 shovel, fruitlessly digging away some of the slumped mud and loading it into a truck. Here's a closer shot;

Since these snaps were taken the situation has changed drastically, and I'll do myself a favor and get some photo's from the same location so you can see the difference. The sediment has been stabilised with a large rock wall to stop it from continuing to slump, and another mini-cut back has begin at the top, mining down to the stage 5 cutback (which is where this shovel is digging).

And now it looks as though stage 6 will go ahead, which means a doubling in the size of the pit. No light decision, it's going to have major effects on the operation if it goes ahead. Not only is there the issue of where to put all the waste rock, but stage 6 cuts back into areas where we presently have a lot of infrastructure located, and it also cuts into both working portals of the underground component of the mine, so you can see there are all sorts of flow on effects from an expansion of such magnitude. We're all holding our breaths, stage 6 pushes the current mine life from 2020 out to god knows when - 2040? Longer even?

Just for comparison, heres a closer shot again of an RH200;

Ok, me again

2007-04-04T07:50:00.000+10:00

Heres a nice photo taken by Karen of the Mozza, Katrina and myself, back in November 2006. Katie was our main casualty for the the May surface and November underground competitions, my god she took some horrendous knocks during that one - was black and blue all over. Perfect Team Mongrel member, not some shrinking violet or girly girl when theres work to be done. She was unable to make the surface competition, but will be coming back for the underground. I hope so, we all missed her this time around.

Karen (better half of Boddo) filled Katies boots as main casualty for this surface comp and did a similarly awesome job.

Shiny faces, we musta been getting a glow on by this stage.

Me?

2007-04-04T07:37:00.000+10:00

I just realised, all this posting and whatnot and I've not flashed up a photo exclusively of myself yet. Is'nt that what blogging is supposed to be all about? Me me me me me me! Certainly looks that way from the few casual flicks I've had though other personal blogs around.

So here you go, a snap of me. Mozza's lovely better half Liisa (top lady - don't get on her grumpy side!) took this after a group of us had had a particularly enthusiastic time getting stuck into a heap of beer, cider and a fateful bottle of green fairy Absinthe. Horrid tasting stuff, but it makes you giggle. And see shit. Looks like I'm enjoying the cider anyway. I'm probably laughing at Mozza, he was being very funny. By the fuck, my face was burnt!

Fire Scenario - Team Mongrel with the winners of our event - Lake Johnston

2007-03-29T18:36:00.000+10:00

Right to left at rear- Johnno (Uvex), Victa (KCGM), Paige (Barrick Kanowna), Tacka (KCGM), Kiera, Lance (PJV), Moose (KCGM), Quokka (KCGM), Maip (PJV), Ian (St Johns), Blisters (Minproc), Philthy (Bardsmech), Moz (Barrick Kanowna), Kazza, Woody (Barrick Kanowna), Me (PJV), Chook (Barrick Kanowna)

Front row - the Lake Johnston team. Don't know their names, but just look at the size of that captain of theirs. He was a huge man, with a bloody great big voice to match and did a top job.

Fire Scenario - A team doing a goob job on the truck

2007-03-29T18:34:00.000+10:00

Not a bad snap. Two man attack team in close, exposure / defence line on a different angle from further back. You can't pick a fault with that.

Fire Scenario - The Truck Prop honking away

2007-03-29T18:29:00.000+10:00

The truck after a couple of burns. The fuel tank fire is blipping away, while the wind is pushing the engine bay fire out the back of the truck. This was a great prop, worked really well.

Fire Scenario - The Pool Prop in action

2007-03-29T18:25:00.000+10:00

Here is the pool prop at full noise. This worked particularly well, very happy with the design and execution. The prop is the bottom third of an old bulk fuel tank, kindly provided by a local scrap merchant. He gave us free access to his workshop, allowed us to use all his gear - what a top bloke. We cut the remains of the baffles out of the bottom of it, sealed up some holes, put a drainage slot in one end and then added some baffles at that end to contain the diesel while still allowing the water to drain away (underflow / overflow arrangement). It worked bloody brilliantly. The diesel was injected into the base of the prop by a steel line that we drilled a couple of dozen holes into, and ignition was by an LPG gas pilot positioned off to one side. You can see the corrugated tin shield - just - it's held in place with a couple of star pickets. The pilot is behind it.

The heat generated by this prop when it got fired up to this stage was tremendous and after a short while the ground would begin baking and steaming. We had a great deal of control over the fire - impossible to do with normal pool fire props - as soon as we shut off the supply of diesel the fire would begin to back off and eventually self-extinguish when it ran right out of fuel. One of our better ideas I think, bloody brilliant.

End of the comp, and the break.

2007-03-29T18:14:00.000+10:00

Theres so much to say, so much that happened.

The first week is a bit of a blur, Brett and myself, and a little later on Muz (he had to work) were flat out booting around the place obtaining gear and bits and pieces and you name it. The week prior to the comp it all started to come together, as more people arrived and the gear started to take some shape. The list of jobs dwindled and it began looking more and more like we had done everything we needed to do. Brett did an awesome job of getting everything together, teeing up the props and people, it all fell into place perfectly and the only niggly bits were truly just niggly bits that didnt really matter and were resolved anyway. Of all the things that we thought of and did the only real dissapointment was the marqee (marky? marque? markee? Bugger me, how do you spell it?) that Moz bought to go over the fire trailers. It worked and looked great when we set it up, then half way through the day a 30 knot gust roared through the place and busted it. Bummer. Hope he got it sorted out with those fuckers at the camping shop.

On Thursday we took one trailer down to Coolgardie and pre-burnt the props. The truck looked really good, and we were enthused that with two burn heads going it would look even better. We burnt the shit out of that thing, slashed the tyres and thought we had covered all bases, but as it turned out when we burnt it in anger for the first team on Saturday an accumulator (we think) let go with a report like a short plug of gel. *BOOM*. Made me flinch, I can tell ya, but not as bad as the last surface comp when Philthy (the animal) managed to get the fuel mix just right in the burning sea container and have it explode inside, a violent little backdrafty. This burst the doors open with a clang, I dunno how high I jumped, and blew the floor out of it. It wasnt quite the same for the remaining fires.

The pool prop which Brett, Muzza and me spent a whole Saturday working on worked a treat. We were really lucky with the lay of the land, and Brett getting the holes pre-dug by the council and their later assistance with a backhoe loader, and also the drop of a hat loan of a bobcat by a nearby local (Wally the legend), which I used to dig recovery drains and properly embed the pool. Lot's of free advice, barstards. Long time since I was on a skid steer, funny things. You wouldnt bog an end with it. Gimmie a 151 any fucking day of the week, now that would have knocked the job over in no time at all.

On Friday we set up in earnest with 80% of our people for the weekend. We did a full wet run of the scenario, tightened a few bits and pieces and packed away happy.

Saturday and Sunday ran mostly flawlessly. We were heading towards running out of diesel and LPG for Sunday, and had to arrange for additional fuels for the next day that night. My fault, I had made the origonal calculations based on a totally different scenario, silly error. On the upside I got Brett and Muzz to drop me at the old Kanowna cemetary with some beers while they got the fuels. I lit a fire and watched the last light die out of the sky, drank a couple of lovely cans and relaxed totally for the first time since arriving in Kal. Only there for a couple of hours, but it made a big difference.

We won the trophy for Best Scenario again, thats two in a row now. What a great feeling, all that hard work and bullshit paid off. This time the full Team Mongrel went up on stage for the award, shirts off and singlets out. Cast of thousands indeed.

The reception afterwards was overwhelming. People were literally stroking us, thanking us, begging to be a part of the next effort. It was mind blowing. And it was gratifying. What a pleasure to be a part of the genesis of something that in a short while has become special to a lot of people, is setting benchmarks and is putting something of value back into ER.

I've attached a photo of the truck on fire first thing in the morning (Sunday morning Team Mongrel tradition now to fire the prop up in the dark pre-dawn), and the next post will feature more. Enjoy.

Perth

2007-03-14T15:20:00.000+10:00

I'm cooling my heels in Perth, at the airport, waiting. Waiting.

I got out of Townsville early this morning, made it to Perth by 1300 Brisbane time, and now I sit here and wait until 1830 to catch the next flight to Kalgoorlie. Truly an unfair flight arrangement. But I guess it's meant mainly for those that are commuting to Kal and back, or those going shopping in Perth for a day. It still sucks.

Brett and Liis get into Perth sometime later this afternoon from their holiday in Thailand, and as luck would have it are on the same flight as me. Actually, given that there is only the one flight in the afternoon, luck would have nothing to do with it. I'm looking forward to seeing them both, top people.

I'm staying at their place, Chez Morrow, for my stay in Kalgoorlie. Got the most awesome back room.

I took my camera out last night in Townsville, looking for subjects for long-exposure images. I was on the public wharf in Ross Creek and was fronted by a vigilant and aged security guard. Well, not fronted, he just came over to check out what was going on. Perhaps he thought I was taking sneaky snaps through windows or something. Anyway he was cool. Having a camera in your hand generally leads to friendly conversation, people want to see what you are trying to capture, and will tell you about the 'really good' photo's they have taken in the past. It's good fun and I don't mind spending the time of day with them.

So my photo here is one from last night. It's Palmer Street in South Townsville. Okay, there's nothing particularly new in photographing tail-lights of cars, and this one isnt even really well composed but it's something. I'll try Kalgoorlie's Hannan Street on a Thursday night, right down the bottom where there is not too much light. That should make for some good trails, because of the roundabout and plenty of hot cars. I might strap on my flash and try for some freezes with light trails too, but should probably be careful about copping any aggro from the hoons. I'll try some during the day, with that panning technique and the image stabilised wide angle lens and see what I can get. I think that would work better in monochrome.

Perth airport is a pretty provincial looking place and I cannot recall it changing any in the 15 years I've been around this neck of the woods. Ooh that was a heavy landing! A Qantas F100 bounced - nearly a pogo - on his gear then - ouchies. Because of the layout of the place and the local weather in Perth, Perth airport can get very bouncy in the afternoons of sunny still days, interaction between the Fremantle Doctor and the thermals. There is a DC-3 parked near the old tower - how cool is that! And I can see a SAAB 340 getting ready to takeoff - nice planes the SAAB. Can't make out the livery from here. The 767 I came in on is still sitting there with people fuck-arsing around. Must be a while before it heads back to Sydney. This is it's normal shuttle-run, back and forth. I return to Sydney when I leave on a 747-400 transit run - cool as it will have all the international shit on it. Wish I wish I wish I mange to score an upgrade on that fucker. Heh, that F100 just rolled past - It's VH-NHG. I don't think a great deal of the Fokkers - underpowered engines and spartan interiors. There goes the SAAB now, probably off to a mine up north somewhere. Now heres a 737 on North approach. Wobbling around. Wobbling a lot. Effortless landing though once he settling into the flare - great workhorses the 737's (this one is an ER) they just seem to lack a bit of personality, like the DC-10 had personality in spades.

You can tell I'm a little bored. They'll be here in half an hour, then we'll have a beer and get the heck off to Kalgoorlie.

A short stint, a longer break

2007-03-04T15:59:00.000+10:00

Back on site again, for eight days only this time. My o my, the last truck parts have arrived from Lae. I unpacked them eagerly, and became more and more dissapointed as I went. The paint job is rubbish, just rubbish. The weld quality is rubbish. The workmanship is rubbish. I could have done a better job myself, in fact I did do a better job myself on the sub-chassis. What a bloody piss off.

It got worse. Some of the parts are not fully assembled. Where one part bolts to another, the holes have not been match drilled - they wander all over the place.

I'm going to have to do so much fucken re-work on this utter cocksucker of a job. Fuck that shits me off.

And only eight days on site this roster, which is rapidly going to be consumed by loads of other stuff.

On the good side though, there is only six days to go! I'm going to spend the first two days in Cairns fucking about. Then Townsville for two days. Then on the bird to Kalgoorlie for a very fucken busy couple of weeks.

Todays snap was taken with my brand new SLR camera, a Canon EOS 400D I bought in Brisbane last break. It's a beuty. The snap is of Townsville, looking suprisingly peacefull. I'll be using this camera extensively, I have promised myself to go absolutely crazy with photography, to the point of excess. I'll be taking a tripod with me, and trying out some dusk and morning shots from around the traps. It came with a rather neat little 16mm-55mm lens, which has quite a good wide angle view on it and is stabilised. I also got a 75mm-300mm lens, a bit of overkill I know, it's not stabilised but is a decent enough lens. I put a circular polarising filter on the wide angle, and a UV filter on the zoom. The zoom has plenty of available aperture, and the wide angle stops down to a ridiculous f38 - should make for some interesting possibilities for shots.

As far as fancy features go, the 400D is not an overkill camera. The usual auto-modes are present, including one which forces the flash off. It has one of those auto-popup flashes - not convinced if this is a good idea yet but it only works on the auto modes and I don't expect to be using them very much.

It has aperture priority and shutter priority modes, a full manual mode, and another one that only allows you to shift a couple of stops in either direction. In the manual and priority modes you get complete control over ISO speed too, from ISO 100 to ISO 1600. Cool.

If you drill down a little you get a bunch of silly colour balance features and other doodads.

One very cool feature is an aperture preview button on the front of the body - way cool I love this.

Being an SLR it's all viewfinder driven, with the basic neccessary information displayed in a couple of fields. The back panel has a very large and very high resolution LCD, which automatically turns itself off when you put your eye to the view finder.

The CCD is one of the new advanced low noise ones, capable of capturing 10.1 megapixels. I'm looking forward to testing out just how low a noise threshold it has in some low-light conditions.

It also came with a neat flash unit in addition to the built in one, which gives you access to a heap of manual modes.

I'm pretty happy with it so far!

Is this the return to Oz?

2007-02-19T23:12:00.000+10:00

I don't know. Each time I come back, it's a shock, a readjustment. Clean streets, attractive women, no rubbish or Buai stains all over everything.

I came back on my usual flight, which in addition to our normal people had a crew of Kiwi and Aussie reliners from WA, and Matt Ryan, the young driller that stays in the same camp building as me.

I went out with them all last night, but I'm too old now to keep up. Went to some strip joint - a suprise for me I did'nt think there were any in Cairns, QLD being the most prudish and conservative of all the Aussie states. With the exception of Tasmania perhaps. The strip joint was the usual thing, women undressing, a pole, lap dancing, doof doof music. Fairly robust buisness model, your average strip joint. All geared to milk the punters as quickly and effectively as possible. One girl had nipples as long as half my little finger, an odd trait, but I'm sure she did'nt mind me staring. I wonder what Darwin would have made of it. I left, had a feed, a bit drunk and wobbly. Went back to the motel.

I'm off to Townsville tomorrow for a couple of days, then onwards to Brisbane and meeting up with Tamara again for a while. I'm looking forward to it.

And other good news, Lance (Mr Humphries - "I'm free!") is going to be coming to the comp next month, which is fantastic. He is the cats whiskers with the first aid adjudication, and we need a straight man to keep us honest.

It's all looking really good for this comp.

My photo for this post is from the Cook Islands last year, October, on Rarotonga Island. It was a nice afternoon, bottom of low tide and the locals came out to do some fishing in the lagoon. Little bit of jiggling and I was able to get just the right balance of exposure to get the sky to match the sea. Nice place, visit if you get the chance. Just don't drink the dreaded Tearanga cocktail!

One of them bad days

2007-02-08T16:02:00.000+10:00

It's an unavoidable thing up here, the environment being what it is. I received an emergency call mid-morning that some illegal miners had been buried on one of the dumps when their excavation collapsed. I think this is the fourth or fifth event we've had like this since I started working here. No photo's, I'm sure you'll understand.

I took the appliance down with one offsider, thinking I might be able to use the hydraulic recovery method I've used before, but the way it was layed out meant it was a dig job.

Took a lot of work to get rid of the crowd, but eventually CA and the guards got them out of the area.

It turned out that two people managed to scramble free, two women. A man was left buried.

I got a nearby dozer down and he cut a ramp for me into the area. I'd already got a backhoe to dispatch from further up the hill to come down. He turned up at the right time and was able to go in as soon as the dozer finished the ramp and cleared a workpad.

It was a long and difficult and slightly stressing job, gently clearing ground until I had exposed a hand, then carefully exploring either side to get a idea of the orientation of the body. Once I had an idea how he was situated, I was able to get the backhoe to dig down immediately alongside the body and eventually rill it out into the trench we excavated.

The snatch and grab was a little risky with the ground being so unstable, but a calculated risk.

The poor bugger was as dead as a stone, still warm from being covered by the earth and rigour mortis had not quite begin to set in. I'm not a big fan of dead bodies, seen enough of them but they are never what you call pleasant and you never get used to it. The ones that are badly mangled are not so bad, it's the ones that are basically intact, like this bloke, that make me feel saddest. The fresher they are the more lifelike they look, and they are completely floppy when fresh, which makes for difficult handling. And they always without fail shit and piss themselves. At least this guy died quickly and didnt have that horrible expression on his face.

He had a few nicks and cuts on him, I could see from how they had not bled a great deal that he had passed away shortly after being entombed. The poor barstard, what a complete and utter fucking waste of a life, only a young bloke too.

As always after one of these incidents, I feel a little morose, a little less than interested. Just a shame that the end result was not a winner.

The usual offer of counselling afterwards from the HR mindfuckers. No thanks.

Anyway, here's a nice photo of a PNG dawg I took at Tari, in the Southern Highlands, 2005. PNG dog's have a definite touch of the dingo in 'em. This old bloke spent the morning slumped outside the building, shifting every now and then to catch the sun better. Everytime he moved he would grumble and moan and mutter to himself, but was very happy to get a passing scratch on the head. The owner said he was an excellent hunting dog when he was younger, so he could lay around as much as he liked in his retirement.

My boat

2007-01-22T15:14:00.000+10:00

I've been rabbiting on about mining and very little about sailing. So heres a snap of my barky, taken not long after I had purchased it, but not as the date indicates. It would have been early 2005. Don't blame me for the composition, Mum took it.

Since made a lot of changes and I really must get around to photo-documenting the whole thing. I intended to photograph every stage of everything I did. Never even bothered starting!

It's a problem I have. People say I can take a decent photograph (the secret is simply to take bucket loads and bracket them, then pick the ones that are decent, heh). But I don't carry the damn thing with me everywhere like a good photographer should, and often I won't bother photographing something because of whatever reason - and as it ends up sometimes I go a whole break without taking a single photograph.

I know, only myself to blame.

I'm back in Townsville now, it's raining out in the cockpit. I do believe I will walk into town shortly and get myself around a beer. There should be a few blokes I know up at the Herbert Hotel, a rough shithole in the middle of Townsville city centre. Always something different going on in the Herbert!

Back in Oz

2007-01-22T09:29:00.000+10:00

Made it back in yesterday evening. I quite enjoy the flight from Mt Hagen to Cairns. You get to see much more than the flight up, 'cause of the time of the day. Lots of coral ribbon reefs in the straits, and then the run down the east coat of Oz, where you meet Cape Flattery and onwards, over Lizard Island.

Heres a snap of one of my underground rescue teams enaging in fire training at our fireground. Good lads, they are well positioned and are utilising their water correctly.

Get's pretty hot in the containers. I built a fire simulator out of scrap that was lying about and I'm positive that what we ended up with at the end is better than anything I've seen anywhere else. I'll do a post on it later sometime. The simulator uses LPG as a pilot flame and as a flame enhancer, and atomised diesel which provides the regular grunt of the fire, so the fires are real and can get up over 600 celcius. But - and this is the great thing about a simulator - I can turn the fire off at any time. If it all goes pear shaped, off she goes.

Huli wigmen

2007-01-21T06:36:00.000+10:00

We generate our own power for the mine at the Hides gas fields. This is a huge deposit of natural gas, and we are it's sole customer, utilising less than 1% of 1% of it's total yield per year. The powerstation is 60 kilometers away as the crow flys, and power is transmitted by an overland powerline, crossing some of the most rugged country in PNG. Construction of the powerline itself was a major engineering feat. Keeping it up, with landslides and the occasional act of vandalism by drunk or annoyed locals, is a similarly large undertaking.

Hides is located at Nogoli, a small population area in the Southern Highlands. The people in this district, the Huli, are markedly different from the Ipili people where the mine itself is. The Huli men specialise in the construction of elaborate wigs made from their own hair.

This photo is of a well spoken young Huli man who is retouching a wig - getting it ready for some ceremonial action. He is in the process of growing his hair to make a new wig.

Wig making has died out somewhat over the last couple of decades with the intrustion of modernisation into the Huli lands, however it has seen a recent resurgance and young men are getting active in the art of wigmaking again.

The wigs are beutifully made and set off elegantly with feathers and flowers. As a whole, PNG people have an eye for beuty. This is reflected in their art and artifacts, as well as their clothing and the construction of their dwellings. Young men are like young men anywhere, dandifying themselves in order to attract a bit of lovin' attention from the opposite sex. And with bush materials, it's not hard. Some vine leaf elegantly braided around the bicep, a couple of feathers here and there, a bush headband and hey presto look out ladies here I come.

Two posts in one day?

2007-01-20T09:52:00.000+10:00

I'm quite sure that as the novelty wears off posts will become less and less frequent. That's assuming that there *is* novelty value in it. I mean, how vain an exercise, typing away and nailing up images that nobody will look at?

Oh, whats that, your supposed to *tell* people to go look at your blog? That's even vainer!

Anyway, heres another snap.

It's me with some of my Fire Rescue staff, at the end of 2005. Left to right is Ronald Lembon, who is no longer with me - went to work at the Lihir mine; Doris Lyamb, who was a temporary clerk I employed to input a heap of dusty old training records; Jimson Tande, who was a vacational student working for me during the holiday period - he learnt how to service fire extinguishers. Then there's me, with the hair starting to grow - I stopped cutting it completely in October 2005; and lastly we have the redoubtable Maip Manda, scowling (as usual) there on the far right.

Maip is the only employee I have left from that period. He is one staunch little fellow, as tough as nails and with a heart the size of Phar Lap. He is a too, always in trouble for one reason or another outside of work. I must admit, I would be somewhat lost without him.

Behind us we have Ambulance 1 and Ambulance 2. In the middle is AM325 - our day to day Fire Rescue ute. It's a sad piece of equipment, the donk is clapped out, the suspension rooted and it's full of rust. I'd love to replace it but the mine only gets a certain number of replacement vehicles per year and there are many in worse condition than this, so we persist. Really it's not that bad, not when compared to some of the other vehicles we have up here.

Post the second

2007-01-20T08:01:00.001+10:00

This blogging thing is a laff innit? I was reading through some stuff other people have, man, is there some overinflated opinions and sense of self out there.

Here's a snap of me and the boys up at Waile Creek Dam at 10, 500 feet. We're having a muck around with a new bit of kit, a Fire-Flote. It's a simple thing, a floating two-stroke pump. Handy for drafting water out of a river or dam, or just on it's own as a very basic means of fire fighting. It works okay - nothing flash. Another piece of equipment for the arsenal. This was taken in late 2005, when my hair was still short.

I should have mentioned. While I love my sailing, you gotta pay for it somehow and that unfortunatly involves work. I am the Emergency Response Coordinator (what a grand title) at the Porgera Gold Mine, which is located in the wilds of the highlands in Enga Province. Porgera is million ounce plus per annum operation, one of the largest in the world. It's operated by Barrick Gold Corp, which is the largest gold mining company on the planet. Hoo, it's all irrelevant anyway.

Post #1

2007-01-19T05:37:00.000+10:00

Everyone has to have a first post, and every first post has to have the obligatory 'my very first post!' message there, so, uh, here it is - my very first post.

Yeah.

Check it out.

Woowee...

Anyway to kick it off, here's a photo of me, off the coast near Port Stephens, NSW. The middle of winter 2006, me and old mate Sloth borrowed the old mans little PR25 and somehow managed to fluke one of those NSW winter weekends where the days are crystal clear, the sun is white bright and the weather very kindly. It was pretty damn cold at night though, near as fuck to freezing.

There's another photo of the Sloth, helming the little PR25 under main and #1 as we slowly worked our way out of the port. Beer firmly clutched in hand at 1100, if there is a better way to sail other than hanging onto a tinny I'd like to hear about it.

We shot up the coast a ways to Broughton Island, a bit pissy by the time we got there but an absolutly ripping broad reach under MPS. Saw some whales too, which is always nice. The anchorage in Esmerelda Cove at Broughton is swell prone, but time and memory had dimmed just how bad it could be. We rolled and pitched in there all night, very little sleep. The next day was just as perfect, a tight sail very much on the nose to return to Port Stephens - another whale encounter on the way - where we lost the wind altogether and had to motor in through the heads and up to Nelson Bay for a bit more fuel.