Post Christmas swing at work.

The first swing back at work after the Christmas break has been a good one.  Apart from the fact that the daily temperatures has been hitting 47 degree celsius with a splash of humidity to wash it down during the day. But luckily it’s been dropping to a chilly 28 degrees celsius overnight! I’m currently in our “air conditioned” office, its 5.30pm, all 4 air conditioners are reading the INSIDE temperature as 30 degrees! Even the air conditioners can’t handle the heat!

Yep, summer has definitely hit the Pilbara region, and the flies have come to the party.  Its the time of the year when there’s no such thing as a cold shower, why? Because when you turn on the cold water tap you nearly burn yourself with the water that’s been sitting in the black pipes sun bathing. Check out my previous blog post on Pilbara weather and flies.

OK, enough of the weather and flies, so what have I been up to this swing. Exploring will be the best word to describe it, and well since I’m an Exploration Field Assistant, that shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Its currently cyclone season in the Northwest of Australia, so all our drill rigs are currently on break until the wet season is over, which will be around April. The reason being as we don’t want them stranded by flood waters in the remote Outback.  And flood it does, flash floods to be exact, as when it rains, it rains. Take a look at the photo below, its a photo of me in a dry river bed, but check out whats 5 metres above me in the tree, yep sticks and debris from previous floods.

So now while its the Exploration quiet period we are preparing for kick off in April.  This requires going out to our tenements, and scouting out our proposed drilling areas.  As there are no roads this involves four-wheel driving all day to try and figure out the best tracks for the bulldozers to make roads in for the drill rigs. It takes a long time usually to get to the co-ordinates of the sites, and sometimes we are unsuccessful and have to come back the following day to try an alternative route to get there as we try to dodge boulders, canyons, rivers, ditches, cliffs, wildlife and those tyre popping stakes.  And bumpy, lets just say my backs been taking a hammering, but I can’t think of a better way to get a sore back.

Sorry for those of you in your office hating the report that’s due, I can’t help it, I’m just doing my job. Check out the photos, if you click on the thumbnails (photos) they will go to a bigger size, and I have saved them as a bigger size from past photos, so its worth a click.