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Published: April 11th 2011
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I have been busy, busy, busy with work as of late and I have only just recently obtained the internet so hopefully these updates can be more consistent.
Things at the mine have been pretty steady up until now, we have had almost a month and a half of wet weather meaning minimal drilling has been done due to the shear volume of water falling. We were forced not to go into work one day because the dry creek beds swelled up to cover the roads so we got to sleep in. It has been fun yet again to drive around the mine site down old access tracks to check site access. A large portion of the day was spent washing the mud off of our trucks, a testament to how much fun it is to drive through the mud.
Alas cabin fever has set in and everyone is ready to get back to doing regular work again. The office has never been cleaner, our back log of data entry is non-existent, and all of our trucks are sparkling clean.
As for my hitch breaks, they are a little bit more exciting then my work stories. This most
recent hitch I went down to visit Mark and Jacqui in Melbourne! I even managed to convince a Brisbaner, Hannah McAlister to join me on this adventure!It started by missing my flight. Yahoo! Thank god they are cheap flights and it wasn't hard to find another. We arrived a little bit late but it wasn't a big deal, we managed to sneak into our hostel before the reception closed and had an early night.
We explored the city in great detail the following day, checking out parks, walking down eccentrically graffiti'd alleyways, ducking into fun looking little cafes and bars. We met up with Mark for lunch and made plans to get together that evening and then continued exploring. I managed to get an amazing recipe for Chai Vodka which turned out to be absolutely phenomenal! We had a few drinks with M+J that evening and then let them make their escape so they could attend work the following day.
The second day in Melbourne was full of rock climbing at an indoor gym, napping and lazing in a park all sunny afternoon, I am sure all you folk from Calgary are really hating me right now, and
exploring some parts of the city either recommended to us by bar tenders from the previous days exploration or by M+J. We met up for a few drinks on the very top of a building that we had to walk up about 10 flights of stairs to get to the top to have a few Friday after work beers with M+J with a great view of the city.
We went out to have a dumpling dinner and to see the “Best of Edinburgh” comedians at the Melbourne comedy festival. We later bar hopped around to see some of Mark's favorite bars, not really the main stream clubby places which was great but the seedy, out of the way local pubs that were brimming with character. I abandoned Hannah for the evening and left to stay at M+J's place.
We spent a luxurious day at the St. Andrews markets, this is the area Dave Dockman (my travel companion from the year before) visited before when we were last in Melbourne visiting M+J. The markets were brilliant and served amazing food. The day was followed by a lovely wine tasting in the sun which lasted most of the day and
then sampling a couple of the local beers.
We grabbed Hannah, made dinner and ran off to a house warming party that M+J had been invited to. Hannah and myself pretty much showed up and started the house dancing which was mostly due to my coworker having taught me some simple swing dance steps. Me and Hannah stayed until the wee hours of the morning so we could catch our 5 am flight back to Brisbane and tiredly headed to the airport only to arrive earlier then we had thought due to daylight savings time.... Basically we slept in McDonal'ds for two hours.
Upon returning to Brisbane I went to a mate's place to visit and ended up having a large number of coworkers showing up and heading out for one last night on our hitch break. It was yet another magical evening of dancing and taking over a bar with our special women repelling dance moves.
I sit up here in Middlemount, taking photos of frogs, the landscapes, kangaroos and other exciting critters fighting the evening boredom by days on end of squash, a game that has grown on me and I really really like now.
Sadly our squash courts are getting torn down so we will have to find some sort of alternative.
I have plans to head down to Sydney on the 16th until the 21st to visit with my mates down there yet again and hopefully catch some good surf. A good friend, Matt Reece, is back in the country and I am greatly looking forwards to catching up with him again. More stories to come later.
Do not fear, photos will come soon. I think my computer is merely unhappy with some update and will not allow me to upload photos on this website. I will try soon from another computer or come up with an alternative photo sharing solution.
I miss you all very much and would love to hear some of your tales so please do not hesitate to send me something if you are bored at work or school. I might even have a few stories to tell you that didn't make it in this blog as a reward 😉.
Have the best day possible!
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