Day 53 Yandi Mine Site
Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 05:03AM Ok folks, we spent the night in Newman WA, and after driving through town on our way to the caravan park we saw the local constabulary shooing a few of the locals off the school oval (as has been the case with my last few blogs they were drinking!). We wondered what we would find at the caravan park.
We were a bit worried as the first park we pulled into told us that they can’t take caravans as they are doing construction works to expand the park. Now what has happened is that with the mining boom, small caravan parks have discovered that they can make more money providing accommodation to mine workers. So they have all expanded and have hundreds (yes hundreds) of dongas! (single person accommodation) all the caravan spaces are now taken up with rows and rows of dongas.
So we moved on to the next caravan park where they too had dongas but they still had caravan sites. So we booked in for the night.
It’s funny how one industry can be so dominant, everything in Newman has something to do with mining, most of the sporting clubs are sponsored or supported by the mine, the schools, in the local newspaper there are a lot of community functions and initiatives supported by the mine. And then there are the support industries, businesses that rely wholly & solely on the mine for their work.
Newman is the home of Mt Whaleback iron ore mine, it is the biggest iron ore mine in the world, they have been digging this hole for over 30 years and have recently discovered that there are another 30 years left worth of resources! The caravan park we actually stayed was the village for some of the Whaleback staff...they had 300 dongas!!
So as we were setting up the van for the night there was a constant stream of mine vehicles and workers returning from work or going out for night shift.
Hey talking about setting up the van here is a quick lesson for you non caravanners.
- Ness gets her bike out (it stays inside van while travelling), arranges inside the van and moves items that we store on the bed while travelling (computers etc)
- Ness & I both pull out awning & outdoor chair for Ness
- Depending on time of day we cook, read, do blog, have a beer, make love! In your dreams!!! :)
Most of the time we leave the car hooked up to the van but sometimes we unhook, this is a simple task and we have it down to a couple of minutes now.
Leaving is just a reverse of the above!
So an uneventful night in Newman, Ness got up early and went to the supermarket and came home with an 8 pack of hot cross buns, excellent breakfast, straight from the packet with butter.... Yum! Ness toasted hers, a habit she apparently gets from DG.
Left Newman and saw a scruffy looking hitch hiker standing on the side of the road, we smiled at him and he smiled back.... but we kept going! It was about 130km from Newman to the turn off for the mine, and we cruised along at 100km/h, we were overtaken by a couple of cars, but not too many.
Arrived at the turn off to the mine site and guess what?.... The bloody hitch hiker was there! No way! I said to Ness. We smiled at him again but then pulled into the mine access road and kept going, I felt sorry for him but we were going a different way..... But if I see him again I will stop and pick him up!
My mum got back from Scotland last night, Welcome home Mum & Bert, I hope the trip was good and you caught up with everyone. You will have to read the last couple of months blogs to catch up on all our news.
Newsflash!.... Bradley found his key! For those of you who don’t know, Brad (my son) has his motorbike license and a perfectly good motorbike. But he lost his key a week ago, so has been back on buses and trains to get to Tafe. But he found it hanging on the gate (it fell out when he was jumping the back gate to get into his mums house) so he is back on the road.
We made it to Yandi mine site, this site is owned by BHP but the major contractor is HWE, so basically BHP pay HWE to get the stuff out of the ground for them, smart way of doing business huh? Anyhow the mine camp that we are in this week is an old camp that has just been tacked on to bit by bit as it got bigger, the room we have been given sure has seen its share of people, the permanently red dirt stained vinyl floor & old furniture has had its day, but at least the air conditioner works! We will take some photos of this camp, not as flash as some we have been to. Not to mention the baby blue vinyl couch that is now actually brownish red from the dirt...Lovely!!! So happy we have the caravan.
Anyhow when we arrived we parked the van outside our room & were told the electricians would be there soon to hook up power, when the electricians arrived they said it would be easier if we could move the van nearer to where the power supply was, so we hooked the van back up and moved it, the only problem is we are now parked just feet away from an 11,000V sub station! What the!..... does anyone know the effects of getting too close to a sub station? Will my hair go curly?
Ok, off to the mess, will give a report on the food here tomorrow night.
Dangaz, good to see that you got there ok, whatever you do don’t drink XXXX beer, it will make you turn out like Uncle Brad! Have a great time and make sure you buy Aunty Heather & Uncle Brad a present for staying with them.
Marc, you sure you don’t want a career change? Plenty of work over here driving big machines and digging big holes!
Shona, well done for waking up at 2am to go to the airport and pick mum up, especially after I woke you at 11pm to see if you were going! Doh.
Heather, the moral of this story is that if you had got out of bed first you would have taken Daniel with you and left Brad at home waiting for the tradies (by the way, what time did he turn up.... have you ever noticed if they say between 10am & 1pm they will always turn up just before 1pm!)
Sandy & David, how is normality going? Hope you got back into it easily.
Marc & Christopher, want to let you know that your movies are being well used, but the best bit is WHERE we are watching them..... Nothing like watching a new release movie in the middle of the bush! (we can turn the volume up really LOUD!)
And what about Jackie from SA (not Sth Australia!) who is currently in Singas have not heard from you either.
Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it! Or should it be commiserate it? I personally don’t but I do love a nice hot cross bun!...... Oh and those eggs with cream in them...Yeh!
On a serious note sorry to hear your bad news Sarah F, hang in there kid, life can be tough sometimes. Sending you lots of love and hugs. xoxo
Love from us...... In the middle of red earth! I seriously have red stains on my hands from the iron ore. And I seriously have red feet with thong marks...have been trying to convince myself it is a tan....but it just looks a little wrong, not to mention dirty!!!
James & Ness
Reader Comments (8)
so your comment about the hot cross buns implies that you think toasting them is not the normal way to have them...having arrived in Australia late 1998 and never having seen hot crossed buns before(americans?!?) I can barely remember a time in my 11 years of Australian Easter where they weren't toasted...perhaps, and I say this with a bit of trepidation...it's you James that have been eating them the wrong way...just a thought!
Xin Chao
Thanks for another great Blog but coming from another American, I have to concur with my fellow countryman that toasting is the only way to eat a hot cross bun!! Yum Yum Yum
Now, I went to view the 'Caravan of Love Tour map' to see where you guys are and there are no blue line for me to follow!! Can you let me know when this will be updated as I was looking forward to seeing the blue line going across SA into WA.
Missing you both, James try toasting you will never go back...
Karen xo
Happy Easter James and Ness
Eat heaps of vegemite Ness. Keeps the mossies at bay.
Yes, Hot Cross Buns should be posted.
take care. love sandyx
Toasted - definitely not posted.
EEEEEWWWWWWWWW! - Im with you James - toasted would make the sultana's taste like chemicals
We must have been too poor to own a toaster as I cant remember having them any other way than straight out of the bag
maybe we were just too eager to eat them
yeah stupid key. and you no what i just relised. i was wondering how your posts got more sophisticated but then i relised the green writing was ness. i was going to say dad your never care wither things are clean you just care if they have foxtel :P
There is no way I'd offer Dan a XXXX mate.............Hahn Light is the way to go !
Big day today ...Dragons V Storm !
Taking Dan fishing tomorrow.
Save some of that red dust for Heather, she love a fake tan !
Happy Easter guys ;-)
Great to hear that Bradley has found the key. Might be an idea to get a few copied.......or for us all to send him a keyring so that when he drops them he will hear them.
When you find a cure for mozzie bites let me know. Braidy has reactions to them and Cameron has one on his eye making him look slightly cross eyed!! I was told the other day they go for people who sweat a lot.
Have a great Easter.
BLACS xxxxx