Well it's now 18:51 and I'm sat in my cell - sorry twin-share portacabin. The day started before dawn when I arrived at the airport, found the correct airlines offices, weighed my luggage in and collected my earplugs. On the runway is a twin engine Cessna Conquest. This is the start of a two day service trip and involves an overnight stay at a minesite. So after a days servicing in the minesite lab its back to the camp.
To describe; a 8ft x 8ft box. 2 doors - 1 to outside, the other to
the shared toilet and shower. Outside are several rows of portacabins and a shed
with the mess in. The shift finishes at 18:00, bus picks up at 18:20 outside the
lab, drops outside the mess. Eat and wander to cabin. Its still well over 40
degrees outside and everything in the cabin is hot even the floor! I've the
air con on flat out but I've had a shower and even sat here naked on the bed
I'm slowly drowning in sweat. The room features a small bunk with dooner and
pillow. One plastic patio chair. A corner table about 2ft X 18". An empty fridge,
a small hand sink and a wardrobe with 1 coat hanger. Wardrobe is bit of an exaggeration,
it's too small to actually get my jacket on a hanger inside! This leaves not
quite enough floor space to lay down on (if one so wished).
The camp is about 1 km from the labs and offices and in a fenced compound to stop us wandering off and the local fauna from wandering in. Only transport is the company bus and company utes. For entertainment (there's no TV or radio here) I have, well the laptop has 7 tracks by Sash on it as mp3 files, they play as I type this but I will get bored of them soon. The problem being that as you are so strapped for weight I only brought a change of shirt, skidders, socks, toothpaste/brush, brush, soap, towel and deodorant - all crammed into my laptops case. I have dozens of technical manuals on the laptop so I suppose I should be a good diligent employee and read one - like the one for the machine I've got to go and fix on Monday and have NO idea about having never seen one of it's TYPE - never mind model - before.
Well it was a bit of stretch to spend ALL day fixing and then servicing the one machine but it is now in service and gave excellent results on the calibration run. Tomorrow starts at 06:00 in the lab, bus leaves the mess at 05:50. Fortunately I fly out at 5pm - so only 11 hours to kill servicing the other machine, a machine that is fairly new and basically working well, that I couldn't find anything to do on 6 months ago, and you can't really get stuck in in case something breaks and then you can't fix it. Theoretically if I'd have broken something vital today (on the older machine), someone in the office could have used a satellite phone to call Alistair who could have delivered a part to the airline tomorrow before dawn to come up on the morning (06:00) flight. I'm really don't enjoy being here, but today was 10hrs labour. Tomorrow will be 6 - 4, another 10hrs
Apparently the total lack of phones I found on arrival is due to a storm last Saturday night which blew something up. Not even any phones in 'town' (if you could get there). Rumour has it Telstra are waiting for a part to come up on tomorrow's flight. But everything here is "waiting for something to arrive on tomorrow's flight". Initially they said things would work today, bet they've been saying that since Sunday. I keep reminding myself that it is these few hours of 'just not pleasant' that pays for the good things in life and makes it all worthwhile. I'd totally forgotten as well that cellphones just don't work out here ever - any type. I must remember that next time as it is a real pain. At the moment the world could have ended and I'd just never know - I find that a bit scary really, I'm so used to always being in communication, being able to contact friends and family at any time. I did find it a strain when I first moved to Australia, after what I was used to in the UK, but of course you adapt and once in Perth it's nearly as good. Anyway, that load of old cods took a whole hour to write, then I dozed off and now it's 23:15. So I'd better try and get some more sleep so I can wake up at 05:00!