I stayed at The Vines resort and got to spend 3 days going to talks, drinking, participating in team building activities (ie. look like a moron games, think university Orientation but with grown ups) and meeting the other people who work for BHP Iron Ore. It was a lot of fun!I got to meet alot of the people I will be working with/for, many of them were not from Australia, even a few Canadians! I even won a PS3 on the second night :-) It's very pretty and fancy...... but I don't play video games...... think I can trade it in for a Wii?
I had a day and a half to recuperate before heading up to Newman. Funny thing, I arrived amidst the first rain of the year. Lots of rain. The tail end of a cyclone I'm told. I have the BEST timing! It was good though, the rain cooled things down a bit, it was the first day under 40C that month!
My new boss, Margaret, picked me up from the airport and took me to my new home away from home! Eco-Unit 18 at the Eco-Units on Gun Club Road. It is larger and nicer than my apartment in Vancouver. Well nicer on the inside, it's not near anything in town and I need to get picked up and dropped off every day. On the up side, someone picks me up or drops me off every day. I am a little spoiled. I eat at the Caravan Park Mess, and work in the offices on the Mt. Whaleback site or in the field.
The drills weren't up and running in the area I work in, maybe by the time I get back out there...
So I spent my 2.5 days at work going through various Inductions and getting my kit sorted out. They issue each of us a bunch of stuff, 4 BRIGHT ORANGE work shirts, some work khaki's, steel toed boots, and some other safety equipment. The shirts are very, very, very, bright. Here's a picture. And those white stripes are actually reflective strips. Oh yeah, we are HOT.For the non-geologists out there, we are all staring at our feet because we are looking at rocks. This is our job. Yes, we are paid for this. And it is awesome.
On the filed trip we went looking at a few different formations and getting the new people (there were...... 4 or 5 of us that started in the last month or two) oriented in the rock package.
This is about standard topography in the Pilbarra or Hammersley provinces. You should check out what is called a valley.....
Oh yes, this is one of the valleys...... the picure to the left. I know, easy to miss, it's right in the middle of the picture, that slight depression...... Yup. That's a valley.It isn't all quite this flat, there are little "mountain" ranges (that make the Yukon look positively terrifying in comparison) and interesting features like Ando's Crack. Yes someone named something Ando's Crack. Please insert your own joke here, there are too many for me to choose.
Ando's Crack was the second portion of our field trip, by this point I was getting a little stressed from the heat - though I am aclimatizing - and I didn't get as much out of it as might of. Seriously, I was sweating faster than I could drink water, it was HOT.
Ando's Crack was actually pretty cool, as you can see from these pictures:
This is the entrance, and the lovely tree blocking the way so our vehicles couldn't get in any farther.I took pictures of some of the fauna in there but none turned out but here's a list: Tadpoles, 10's of thousands of tadpoles, all tiny and all creepy. 2 cute little lizards that run on their hind legs, adorable! One baby Monitor Lizard, apparently they have pointy bits. 100's of thousands of tiny, creepy caterpillars, at least i think they were caterpillars. They were gross. One dead snake , eaten snake, also gross. Yummy!
This one is for all the geologists out there, it is the hinge zone of an anticline, plainy visible, or at least it was at the time, here.... well, you'll have to trust me. This is also called "The Cathedral". I think. I was getting a little punchy by then and just wanted to leave so the name may or may not be correct.
And this is the view as we leave Ando's Crack. There are no people in it because I am in front of everyone because I really want to get the hell outta there. I spent the rest of the day with a headache and acting a little weird. I may have to apologize to a couple people on Wednesday.
Well, maybe not apologize, one of them really bugs me - told me I wasn't a REAL geologist because I do exploration. He's a mining geo. I pointed out about 10 ways in which he is actually an engineer and left as soon as my bags came. I won't be apologizing to him. This is might be bad manners, but he started it.
So after getting "home", and by home I mean back to my hotel/apartment that has staff coming into all the freaking time - it's weird - I slept off the sun issues, and then went shopping the next day.
Shopping!!!! I got myself a cute little iPhone which is way more fun than it should be, I kind of love it. And I may name it. I've put the new number in my Facebook profile for people who need it and sent out emails with it. If you didn't get an email and feel i have slighted you.... well, the computer likes me most of the time but not all of the time. There were a few I had to resend or got error messages with the email addresses I was using. So..... it's not my fault, I swear. Love you!
And today I spent my day getting orientated to the rest of Perth and surrounding subburbs. The SIRVA lady even took me to look at a few places for rent. I think I like the Subiaco neighborhood the best - it's not close to the water but it feels more like home. And I think having beach people around all the time might piss me off, so it's best if I stay away from there.
I even looked at a place in Mount Lawley that, if it's available in April, I would actually rent. It's what they call a "villa" here, ground floor only, is one of 5 villa's that are part of the same building. For clarity, if there were only 2 places it would be called a duplex but there are 5.
And now I am tired. And almost over my annoying cold! So I am not going to push it staying up too late (I've been up since 5:45am). Later people!
Kimmy
No comments:
Post a Comment