Working in Karratha

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It's been nearly 3 months since my last blog, so I thought it was about time for an update....

Following our roadtrip I had a one day stop over in Perth before I repacked my bags and started the next chapter of my adventure. This time my destination wasn't a beautiful beach location or a popular tourist spot; I was flying to the busy mining town of Karratha to begin 10 weeks of work in beautiful MacDonalds....

My first impression of Karratha was not great. Infact, I had such a horrendous first day that I would have happily got on the next plane out of there. I had started the day with such optimism; I was looking forward to going to a new place, meeting new people, and even starting to have a routine again after 4 months of not working. However the combination of an early morning, a delayed flight, a half hour wait for a taxi in the scorching heat wearing warm Perth clothes and a 3 hour wait at my new place of work, I was soon feeling tired and grumpy. To make matters worse, before I could begin to unpack and get settled into my new home I had to go to the supermarket to buy some essentials. Me being me (ie unable to go anywhere without talking to someone), I naturally got on the phone as soon as I left the house and as a result I paid no attention to where I was going.... Amazingly I did find my way to the shops, it was only after I was laden down with heavy bags that I realised I had no clue how to get home, or even what the name of my road was.... 2 hours later after wandering in various circles up and down identical streets, I admitted defeat and had to walk back to MacDonalds and ask someone to show me the way home. Nothing like making a good first impression and I'm sure at that moment they thought I was a natural ditzy blonde....

There are 3 things that that everyone tells you when you arrive in Karratha;

1) There is NOTHING to do; Karratha consists of a shopping centre and a swimming pool.... Our days were filled by working in MacDonalds, eating in MacDonalds, sitting in MacDonalds using the free internet and then going home to have a drink before going to bed and repeating this routine the next day (although not necessarily in that order)! MacDonalds was like a second home to all of us and even on our days off it was likely that at some point we could be found sitting in there.

2) Karratha is HOT....nearly everyday I would have a conversation with a customer that would go along the lines of
c - "Where are you from?"
Me - "London"
C - "Bet you're finding it hot here then?"
Me - "Yep, I'm melting."
C - "It's not even summer yet, it's going to get hotter"

Everytime I began to think that I was acclimatising to the heat the temperature would go up a couple of degrees. By the time I left the temperature was around 46 degrees which just makes you feel exhausted. I'm just so grateful that our house was fully airconditioned otherwise I think I really would have melted!

3) There are lots of flies. I can't even begin to describe what a pain the flies were. They had a tendency to land on your lips or try to crawl up your nose as you walked along. In the end I learnt to let them crawl across the lenses of my sunglasses rather than swat them away, as at least it meant that they weren't around my mouth or nose! But it wasn't just the flies that I had to become accustomed to; during my stay we had numourous coackroaches in the house, a frog living in the toilet, a lizard in the shower and mice and a snake in the garden oh and not to forget the night that I was bitten 38 times by mosquitoes....

My accommodation in Karratha was in MacDonalds staff housing which was also home to 10 others (sharing 2 small bathrooms....) I'm sure living and working with people can be tough at the best of times, let alone when you're living in such cramped conditions, so I was very fortunate to find that all of my housemates were lovely and soon became my adoptive family.

Working in MacDonalds wasn't too bad either. The hardest part was the random shifts 6 days a week. Although the store isn't open 24 hours (thankfully), morning shifts start as early as 4am, with closing shifts finishing at 12:30pm. This meant that any routine you may have quickly goes out of the window....I felt like I was back at uni again, grabbing food and sleep whenever I could (and also going to work hungover after only 2 hours sleep because of partying....)

Despite all of the above and the feeling that I now have a limited vocabulary (Is that in a meal? What size? Coke for the Drink? Anything else? Dine in or takeaway?) I was genuinely sad to leave Karratha. So much so that I have decided to head back to Karratha for New Year (maybe the heat addled my brain????) For the next couple of weeks though I will be leaving Karratha and MacDonalds far behind as I fly off to Asia for a Christmas in Malaysia and Thailand!

Merry Christmas everyone, I will be thinking of you all. xxx

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Comments

[Helen]

Update at last!
Thanks for the blog update! I'm guessing you're already in Thailand so hope you're having a fantastic time! Have a great Christmas x x

[Rachel]

Jeeez what an update..
I'm loving the blog update, thanks babe. What got me giggling was the fact that McDonalds of all places provide staff accomodation - imagine if they did that in England. We would all be working there, ha!! Can't wait for a Thailand/Malaysia and crimbo update - bet you had such a blast!! HAPPY NEW YEAR my darling, hope you had a good one - I was too drunk to even remember 12 oclock, whooppsss. So yep nothing changes this side of the world, haha!! Party on!! Lots of belated christmassy love, Rach xx