Just one of those days…

It’s 9am, 24 degrees and warming up quickly. We are in for a scorcher of a week – highs in the upper 30s and lows not falling much below 20 degrees for the next few days. I love waking up for work at 5am to a wall heat. Nothing beats the Aussie summer!

Unfortunately it would seem that the increase in temperature has a direct correlation with the number of flat tires I get. Wednesday was one of those days. You know the ones. The kind of day where everything goes wrong but you can’t do anything but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

It all started (as it often does for me) with a flat tire. I made it all the way to work without problem, but when I exited the vehicle I quickly noticed a hissing sound coming from somewhere close by. I did a quick walk around of the ute and found the source of the noise – a rock had punctured the thickest part of the tread on one of my rear tires and it was losing air quickly. I decided to leave the tire for a few hours and come back out and change it. Bad idea! Within 10 minutes of getting into the office I was presented a snake catching kit by one of our emergency response officers. The only time these guys give us the kits is if they want us to release a snake. I went to grab hold of the bag with one hand and very quickly realized that this was no normal snake – I needed two hands to hold up the bag! I promptly hopped in a vehicle and found a nice vegetated area to let the beast go. As I untied the bag and ushered the snake out I was completely taken aback by its size. Unlike the venomous Eastern Brown and Tiger snakes we normally deal with, this was a Python. And it was huge. It slowly meandered out of the bag as I watched in amazement and tried to snap a couple photos. The thing was at least 2 metres long. Fortunately it was also very docile and wasn’t interested in me in the least. It was absolutely incredible to watch. The photo does it little justice.

Later that morning I decided to head out and change my tire. I immediately realized I shouldn’t have waited because it was stinkin’ hot outside. And this is what I had to deal with:

With the tire fully flat my bottle jack wouldn’t lift the ute high enough to get the spare tire on. So I had to rustle up a piece of wood to use as a platform and try two or three times before I got it jacked up high enough. I was sweating and exhausted before I even got the tire off! The remainder of the day was no better. Unexpected issues kept popping up at work that had to be dealt with before I could head back to Forbes to get my tire fixed. To top it all off, I was trying to prepare myself for a phone interview for a position with the Regional Environment team in Perth the next morning. Oh the stress! Needless to say the day flew by very quickly. As did the rest of the week.

And here we are now. Today is Halloween which means very little in Australia. So to all of you in Canada, please have fun with the costumes, trick-or-treaters and jack-o-lanterns for us! We will be celebrating tonight by introducing Greg and Ange to a truly Canadian drink – the Caesar – for Ange’s birthday. A Canuck co-worker of mine brought me back Clamato juice after his latest trip to Vancouver and I have been patiently waiting for the right opportunity to use it. Yay!

To WA and Back

It’s finally raining! The past couple weeks have been especially dry and the lawn is starting to show its true summer colours. Yellow-brown. As I sit here writing I am trying to avoid looking out the window to the backyard where an entire day’s worth of laundry is hanging on the line, soaking wet thanks to this unexpected downpour. I could have taken it down last night but thought a few extra hours couldn’t hurt. It’s funny how quickly we become accustomed to the endless sun of a central west New South Wales summer.

I had a great week in Western Australia. There is something about that place that gets me every time. It’s just too bad it is so far away. Monday and Friday were full days of travel. My flight from Sydney to Perth was quite entertaining as the plane was full of athletes returning home from the World Masters Games in Sydney. The airport was full of people wearing team uniforms and medals. The plane was abuzz with excitement for the entire five hour flight. I was seated next to a lovely older couple from Perth who had just returned from a bus tour in Sydney to see Andre Rieu. They had some great stories to share with me about first moving to Australia from the UK in 1950s and the changes they have seen to the city of Perth over the years. I sometimes forget how young Australia is in terms of its European inhabitants.

After arriving in Perth I promptly got called in to the Barrick office to help with some work. We didn’t accomplish much as I was busy catching up with our Regional Closure Manager who just happened to be in for a visit from Brisbane. On Monday night I hopped on the train and caught up with a friend for dinner in Victoria Park. Tuesday morning I went into the office bright and early to try finish up what we had started on Monday afternoon. Like Saskatchewan, Western Australia doesn’t participate in Daylight Savings Time which means there is currently a three hour time difference between them and New South Wales. As a result I woke up at 3am every morning thinking it was time to get up. So going into work for a few hours certainly wasn’t a problem! Getting an adequate amount of sleep was, however. Tuesday was spent in a conference discussing Cyanide Code and lessons learned at Cowal after our recent recertification audit. There were a few people in attendance who used to work at Cowal but have since moved west and it was great to catch up with them again. That night we enjoyed a huge feast of Japanese food, teppanyaki style. That was my first teppanyaki experience and it was good fun.

On Wednesday morning I headed to Kalgoorlie with the two-man Regional Enviro team (Environment, Health and Safety Director and EMS & Compliance Manager) to visit the Kanowna Belle site. We piloting an Integrated Process Management System at the site in order to sustain Cyanide Code compliance moving forward. The work is interesting and exciting and it was nice to finally see another one of Barrick’s Aussie sites. I also had a chance to meet the KB Enviro team which was good after two years of hearing their names. Interestingly enough, Ryan Hawes was also visiting Kanowna Belle on Wednesday as part of his work with Barrick’s Technical Services team from Toronto. I still find it a bit unbelievable that we both ended up in Kalgoorlie at the same time for completely different reasons, despite the fact that we live world’s apart! Ryan and I had dinner on Wednesday night and it was great to catch up with him after almost two years.

Kalgoorlie itself is an interesting town. I wasn’t sure what to expect of the place knowing its reputation as a rough mining town, but was pleasantly surprised. It actually reminded me a lot of Sudbury. The vibe, the people and even the look of the place to some extent was very familiar. I think it must have been the smelters that did it for me! Before leaving town on Thursday night we stopped by the Super Pit lookout to check out the famed KCGM operation, which Barricj has 50% ownership of. The vastness of the pit is absolutely mind-boggling. It has an amazing history and photos just don’t do it justice.

It seems that every time I got to WA things happen that make me love the place more and more. This trip it seemed to be the random people I ran into everywhere. First – seeing our Regional Closure Manager (who is based in Brisbane) at the Perth office on Monday night. Catching up with people who used to work at Cowal on Tuesday. Then running into Ryan Hawes on Wednesday. I also met a girl on Wednesday afternoon who saw the Canada flag on my backpack and asked where I was from. As it turns out she was from London, Ontario. Then on Thursday evening when I got in the elevator at the hotel another lady made a similar inquiry about my backpack and I found out she was from Kitchener. And then finally, on the flight from Perth to Sydney, the guy sitting next to me mentioned that his neighbours are from Sudbury. Unbelievable!

Photo Op

I have only had a few opportunities to play with my new camera since buying it, however the results so far are very impressive. Lately I have been spending a lot of time fiddling with Photoshop and playing with post-processing. This one took a while but I quite like how it turned out!

Hopefully this weekend I will have more to post!

It has been a busy week. I found out this morning that I’m heading to Perth on Monday morning for the week. Yippee! Western Australia-bound for the third time this year!