First Stint Completed

Today is the first day of my week off, and I spent most of it staring at the inside of my eyelids.  Since starting work on the 2^nd of the month I have had one day off, and the last 7 I have been on nightshift.  So it is a bit of a relief to be getting a few days of in a row.  Three crews have now been assembled and a roster has been formed: 1 week of days, 1 week of nights and then 1 week off.

Upon knocking off at 6:30 this morning after a pretty tough night, working through a bit of a storm (yes, there was plenty of drifting going on) it was a unanimous decision to head straight to one of Kalgoorlie’s many pubs.  I managed to get 1 bourbon down, and then decided that a feed was what I was really after.  Thankfully Hannans (the pub) does a mean breaky and I tucked in to a plate of spaghetti on toast whilst the other boys (most of whom are Irish) just kept drinking.  An hour or so later I called it quits and headed for the minibus.  Not bothering to start the engine, I went straight for the bench seat at the rear of the minibus and slept for a couple of hours before driving home to sleep some more.  This evening after waking up I discovered that my neighbour (one of the Irish lads from work) was no home yet, so I thought I do a mercy run back to Hannans before handing the minibus over to the next shift.  I found him still there propped up at the bar unable to walk or talk and barely able to keep his eyes open.  I had a good laugh with the bar maid who was rather relived to see me and then carried my mate out.

Working a 12 hour nightshift on the mine site was pretty tough.  It was hard to see, particularly when there were rain droplets on the windows and mirrors, and what limited lighting there was always seemed to be shining in my eyes rather than on where I wanted to be going.  Also it was hard to see the potholes in the haul road, so I was constantly getting bounced around.  The hardest part though was staying awake, especially around 4am nearing the end of the shift.  Thankfully I am on probably the best and definitely the most relaxed of the three crew and there is a lot of rubbish thrown around on the two way radio which helps to keep me awake.

Whilst over the last month I have spent most of my time in the Dump trucks I can also say that I have been in every machine on site.  It has been good to get back into an excavator and found it was like riding a bike (you never forget how).  I have spent a small amount of time on the grader and dozer.  The hardest part of the grader is that there are so many different ways to adjust the blade to cut the road, but at least you can see the front of the blade so you know when to make an adjustment.  The dozer is the complete opposite, you cant see a thing, it is all done by feel.  Also, the dozer has so much power so it just keeps on pushing and it is really easy to dig a hole if you haven got your level right.  I think I will need to spend a few more hours in the dozer before I get the feel for the right level?!

Well that should just about bring you all up to speed on where I am at.  Hope all is well wherever you are in the world, and hopefully the weather is being a bit kinder to you.  Another storm has just blown in, thankfully it is someone else turn to go to work tonight.  I think I will go and have a quick bite and then go back to bed.

Drifting Dump Trucks

Gday All.  I have been working for a week now and although my first day was rather difficult, I have started to get used to the routine of working again.  My alarm goes off at 3:30am but all I have to do is reach up and turn on the heater, then fall back to sleep.  My next alarm goes off at 4 and this is the painful one because it is now time to get up, at least the donga is now warm.  By 5am I am across the road at the Caltex waiting to be picked up in the mini bus to arrive on site by 5:45.  A quick toolbox meeting (safety meeting) and the machines are being started around 6 o’clock.  We get a 15 minute smoko at 10:30 and 45 minutes for lunch about 1:30pm, we then push through til 5:45pm to be out the door at 6 and home just after 6:30.  I will then cook tea and eat with the donga boys and am in bed generally around 8:30, ready to do it all again the next day.

So far at work I have spent all my time in the little articulated dump trucks.  These trucks hold around 40-50tonne of dirt.  There are three trucks and each day we run about 110 loads out of the pit each.  The trucks drive very slowly up out of the pit when they are loaded, but we have no trouble reaching their top speed of 55kph going back down into the pit.  The best times are just after the water cart has wet the road to keep the dust down.  We get about 3 runs each with very little traction and there is some serious drifting going on around the corners.  As the trucks are articulated and the drive tyres are on the trailer, it is a lot different to sliding a rigid vehicle and took me a while to get used to it but if at first you don’t succeed…  On Wednesday night it rained heavily and yesterday we were sliding all morning.  There is a tight ‘s bend’ upon entering the pit and the only thing pulling us around the bend were the wheel ruts in the road.  So far it has been quite a laugh driving these little dumpys, and the days seem to fly by.

 

The 80Tonne Excavator Loading The Articulated Dump Trucks

The D8 Dozer

 

The definite highlight of the week though had to be last night just after we parked up the machines and loaded into the minibus.  The driver then decided he would take a short cut through a huge puddle and got bogged.  We tried pushing but soon realised we were wasting our effort.  As we were still on the mine site it would have taken a lot of bureaucratic stuffing around, which no one wanted after a long day, so we quickly and quietly got the front end loader and lifted the rear of the minibus up with the front bucket and pushed it out of the puddle.  Later that night after a few drinks we were retelling each others perspective of the event, the noises the minibus was making and the worried looks on people faces, hoping the supervisor didn’t come looking for us at that moment.  We were in tears from laughing so hard.

Today three of us were given the day off because we are being moved to another crew (this has nothing to do with the minibus incident).  Tomorrow I will be starting a week of dayshift, then a week of nightshift and then a week off.  There will be three crews running so that the mine can run 24/7.  Hopefully the new crew will be as much of a laugh as the last one.  I haven’t done much today, only a load of washing and then just relaxed with the boys around the caravan park.  Well it’s about tea time so I will end here.  Hope everyone is staying out of trouble better than I am, if not at least not getting caught.