Cyclone Pancho is my First

Well i never thought about it being cyclone time here in the southern hemisphere and we had a close shave this week, it was heading for maybe 400 Km away but in the end it drifted away and is diminishing in power from the deadly 4 to a 1 now, It is heading for Perth but will be nothing more than a tropical depression when it gets there and dumps all its rain which is badly needed just now, we have had 4 days of rain and last night we got a real downpour that flooded roads but we still managed to get a few beers last off after work. So this is a land of firsts for me first marsupials and now Cyclones

Pancho was just a big softy

Perth for Easter and Quokka Soccer

I was given a long weekend off in Perth, home of the lovely little Quokka, it is a small marsupial, a mini kangaroo and very cute. We had arranged to go on a trip to Rottnest Island,a small island on the easter Saturday to cycle around it and see the local wildlife, it is a very touristy place with thousands of perthians going there by boat for easter, not what i would call a relaxing place as it was full of friggin tourists, but we had an interesting day seeing some snakes and a huge lizard and two Quokkas, well these little things are so cute but some of the local morons thought it was funny to play football with them, hence the term Quokka soccer, they can now get fines of $10,000 so it doesnt happen much now,

Me and little Quokka



Cute Littel Creature



Rottnest Island boaters



So we arrived in Perth late thrursday to stay in Scarborough a lovely beach side resort only 15 Km north of Perth and the beach extends all the way back down to Perth, we walked along the shore Friday and to our Surprise everything but a few shops was closed for Friday, bars restuarants and the like, it was almost like the Uk in the 70's with the shops closed on Holidays. the beaches are fantastic and clean with lovely white sand. The layout of all the houses and roads is an example of great planning and it is a fantastic place but the mineral commodity boom is making this place like the klondike goldrush, the houses prices are just going astronomical and $1 million is not out of the question for a typical 3 bedroom house, the prices are making paupers of middle class families who missed buying at the non boom times, it is crazy but a wonderful place,

Fantastic Scarborough Beach



We were given a guided tour of the kings park and expensive areas of Perth by Shane, one of the guys who i am working with and we saw all the fantastic tourist stuff, Kings Park is a great park that overlooks the central area of perth and shows the huge Swan River to its best. We also had a good few beers at his house and then we all went out for a meal at the beach and we had a fantastic time and forced the barman to keep the bar open for 3 more hours while we had fun and beer and wine and more beer

Kings Park plus Perth in the Background



The Tree Top Walk in Kings Park



Me and Shane Perth in The Background



I could work here as the place is so nice and the climate is so nice, but it is so expensive that I couldn't afford to get a place. Plus more importantly it is expensive for the beer.

The Harding Dam and Growling Kangaroos

When we went out for our little tour of the surrounding area, we ended up at the local dam that feeds all the small communities here, the local weather is cyclonic, in the rainy season they can have a huge amount of water in a short time and then nothing for the rest of the year, you only see trees growing in the water course edges. It is a typically dry countryside with only grass growing and I have seen no Kangaroos anywhere other than feeding on the irrigated grass lawns around the offices in the plant, I am not sure how they actually get in, perhaps they wear a disguise and use forged passes, but there is a huge fence around the plant and controlled access gates so it is a mystery to me how they manage to sneak in to taste the lush vegetation of the lawns, I was told that they eat mostly at night as it is cooler and I have seen them eating during the night, the larger of the two was lazing near the smoking area and when my colleague was going to sit down the large one growled at him so he thought better of getting too close to him, they do look cute when small but the big ones really do look very intimidating and could give you a nasty kick in the crown jewels, Well worth thinking about. I am hoping to do some more touring but who knows, my company could pull me out this friday or leave me here for another month.

The Main Dam Wall



The spillway and the river full of black swans from top of the dam wall, The trees only grow where the water is and these are called Ghost Gum Trees



The Growling Grey Kangaroo and Joey

Little Tour While Suffering Sleeplessness

I was offered a tour of the local region by the electrical guy i am working with on night shift, we arranged to meet and go out for a late lunch, we went to a local town(75Km) and had proper english fish and chips with a lemon squash, the fish was fantastic, all firm and fresh and i did asked for a small portion and was given what i would call a double portion. it was fantastic and almost made me smile and raised my morale from morbid to miserable, which is a bonus i wasnt expecting, we also went to a local reservoir which feeds all the local towns and is built on the Harding river, it was bigger than i expected as the area is as flat as a fart but we found the hills it is built in and the level was down even if we are in the cyclone season, not good news, but there were a mass of the State bird, the Black swan on the overspill and river just below the dam, we also got caught out by an iron ore train that is about 1 mile long, maybe 1/2 a mile, but it was long and they run all the time as the port had 4 ship filling up and 3 waiting to fill, Australia is making a mint with the boom in metals.

The train just went on forever



Black Swans everywhere



The pool is very nice but as hot as a Jacuzzi, lovely!!!

My Old Buddy From West Africa Says Hello

I had a very nice surprise last week, I was contacted by an old work buddy who I had worked with in Equatorial Guinea, he was the funniest guy i had worked with in a long time and I was sad that after about 8 months that he left and we lost touch. He tells me he is working for another outfit and is back travelling the world and he found me on the internet and said hello, he sent me some pics of the last night party we had in the camp in Malabo, I actually taught him all he knows about downloading from the internet, now you can't drag him away from it. here a few pics of ole' Davey and Dave

Davey is directly in front of me



we were only drinking lemon squash



I swear it was only lemon squash

Life Down Under in Oz

This is day 3 of my first trip to Australia and the jetlag is killing me, I am falling asleep at 8pm and waking up at 2am, this my sound like I am getting enough sleep but I am the walking dead. To make the situation worse I am expected to start night shift tonight, I believe it will not last I am going to be ill after day 2, but lets talk about Australia, as soon as I arrived I felt at home and completely comfortable here, I understand the accent completely as it is like a british accent, they use all the quaint little words that are used in the UK and I feel like I have come home. The folks are really friendly and are casual, flip flops and shorts and t-shirts are typical dress in a country that has sun 12 months of the year. Beer drinking at a barbecue is a standard past-time which feels very good to me, I was invited to a barbecue with all the electricians from the plant, which was fantastic, it gets you meeting all the guys that you may only bump into on the job. The town I am staying in is actually a camp town, it was built by the Iron Ore company up here and now the gas terminal is here it seems to be booming the house rpices and rentals are just insane $1800 a week for a 3 bedroom house. It is a really small town centre with 2 supermarkets and a cluster of small other shops, you can probably get everything you want but I suspect the prices are quite expensive. I have just seen the real estate prices this morning and house here are outrageous $500,000 for a shithole and over $1 million for a nice 4 bedroom house, now that is crazy. On my first day on site I was offered two jobs within the first hour, everyone is saying that this country is suffering a jobs boom of crazy proportions, companies are paying retention bonuses of $10,000 a year to stop the guys jumping from job to job. The only problem of living in Karratha it is very rural and you would go crazy after a short time, maybe a year but it is a nice environment, the sun shines all year round apart from the cyclone season. The scenery round here is a strange, unusual rock formations that ripple along the hills that nothing grows on, I was told that the ground is rock and that you cannot dig a hole to put a tree into. The weather here is very hot and humid as it is the end of the cyclone season and it is the worst part of the year, but to me it is heaven as it is the opposite of Tunsia which was ‘orrible. I went to the supermarket to get some snacks and I saw some wild bushmen walking about, probably some of the wildest I have ever seen in my life, they had huge full bushy uncontrolled beards and wild wild hair. The obviously live a different type of life out in the farms far far away from civilization and don’t feel the need to do anything about it, it is a different lifestyle here altogether.

Strange rock formations with no plants,

Wonderful Surprise In Phoenix International Airport

I flew into Phoenix Internationa Airport and had a wonderful experience, I didnt even know that Phoenix had a clearing facility for international flights and it was a wonderful experience. We landed and walked into a totally deserted immigration building and after spending all of 2 minutes being processed politely the baggage collection was only 20 paces behind the lines, we waited a total of about 10 minutes for the bags to arrive and then clearing customs we rechecked the bags easily and again with polite staff, It was the smoothest and pleasant arrival in any US airport i have ever had, it was a sample of things to come, I flew in San Francisco Airport to have only a short wait for my flight and was allowed in the red carpet club, I was given beer tokens , which i didn't use becasue i was trying to have a good sleep on the plane and beer keeps me peeing all night long, i ate a few snacks and finally a banana, not good to got o bed on but i felt like it. I was flying united Airlines out to Sydney and it was a Jumbo, an old 747 and man it feels old , i can hardly remember the last time i flew on one, they are ancient technology and should have all been retired by now, the seats were pretty poor but recliners but it was all manual stuff, you had to push and pull the seat about, no whirring mortors, but i sat down and got out my valiums and took a whole 10Mg tablet and pulled on my blindfold and i hardly remember taking off, I slept until well after dinner had been cleared away and even the second meal had gone, it was 7 hours later when i opened my eyes and i felt so fresh that i went and had some juice and cookies and then cleaned my teeth, I even then slept some more until breakfast was being called out, man i felt good, sleep is better than sex i will swear to it, I landed in Sydney and found a beautiful airport but the change from the International building to the doemstic was like dropping back to some bus station and the tiny dept was shocking in its basic and primitive status. far too few counters and far too many people it was chaotic and a total shambles, we then had to get on the bus and we were shuttled across the airport to the domestic lounges, it is a very nice and airey small building but getting to it is a miserable struggle, When we took off we got a great view of Sydney harbour but on the flight to Perth I was talking to 2 expat Brtis who have lived here for so long and would never go back, the depressing weather is the main thing everyone talks about. i am in the main lounge in Perth looking through some huge windows at the very flat landscape, it was flat nearly all the way across 5000 Km and here is not much different, further north i have been told there are hills and valleys and some rivers, as it is more tropical and more water. we will see on my next leg of the Australian venture

A view of the coastal Town of Perth Western Australia



we got a great shot of the harbour as we took off

Moved House and My First Trip To Australia

Well I have been home for 3 weeks now and i have been busy non-stop the entire time, not even a few beers at the beach for a day out. You never realise how much junk you accumulate while you stay in a house until you come to move it, my wife has been clearing out the rubbish and she would have been throwing out my stuff if i hadn't been carefully watching her, well anyway, we are now much closer to the little girls school and this morning i actually walked her to school on her birthday, she is a 6 year old little devil. That beside, the house is near the shops and we had an evening stroll to try the pizza shop and it was a very nice Italian style one, nice and thin with not too much topping, the walk was a little too long and it was cold by the time we got it home but it was still nice, nothing better than cold pizza in the morning after a lot of beers the night before. So we are now wonderfully situated in town with everything close, we have found the local Sunday market and that is great for fruit and veg from the local farmers, Mangoes are pretty good this time of year. After the market we went to the pool for the first time early before the sun got too hot, as it is summer now and the skies are crystal clear and the sun is very intense, dangerous even for those pale white honkeys on holiday who know nothing about taking the sun in a tropical country. the water though was almost icey cold and far too cold for swimming, just dipping your feet in to cool off, the wind blows here all year through and it chills the water to about 15C, not good for swimming.

With my attempt to get into Australia, well I am supposed to be leaving friday for a 1 month operation in a small town called Karratha, this is a consolation prize as the main project in Darwin is delayed a little as the project manager is stuck in the middle east and it is tricky to get everyone synchronised to get me the departure date, the customer will have me, I have the Visa and want to travel, but we need the project manager to get it to happen, so with all my complaining they gave me this while i am waiting to go, i accepted gracefully. but the flight is going to take many hours, I am having a many stop journey, (1) Pheonix USA (2) San Francisco USA (3) Sydney Australia (4) Perth Australia (5) Karatha Australia.

I am going to be sooper jet lagged as it is a 9 hour time difference and the trans pacific is 14 hours long, enough for a few movies.

This is the pool with paddling pools for the kids



This is the childrens play area at the side of the pool



This is the view from the Bedroom