Digging Deep and Flying High

I do though, get a good bit of time with my computer. And that makes me happy, because now I can show you this;

And more will follow… 🙂

I look at the landscape here and think;” WOW, Look at that view!!!”

The geo’s look at the same thing and wonder if there’s any mineralisation in that rocky outcrop…

Or they come back from holidays with a rock. And the other gets all excited and wants half of it…

Did I mention it is a rock…  ?

Some of them think I’ll be the same in a while. But for me a rock is a rock is a rock…

although, I did find a pretty one today… 😉

I would not want to see the world through a Geologist eyes.

And don’t think that will happen. I like the world the way I see it now.

Pretty, and colourful, and full of exciting things to discover. Not just iron ore. Or gold. Or copper. I couldn’t care less.

But it’s a job. And a good one at that 🙂

It’s beautiful out in the scrub. Probably my favourite place in Australia. I only wish I could take my tent out and sleep in the bush more often.

My job involves lifting heavy bags, and counting uptill 302… that’s howmany meters deep a hole can get.

I’ve spend a bit of time at the drill rig too, where it gets very noisy and very dusty, so you wear a mask that makes you look like an alien. And I siv. I siv whatever comes out of the ground for the Geo to stare at.

OK. I might not be using a lot of brain… but, by the end of this, I’ll be able to keep cycling for years and years to come.  (And I’ll have some huge muscles in my arms… hehe 😉

And that is what I like.  (the cycling-for-years-bit… ok, the muscles-bit too)

  What I also like is two new family members back in The Netherlands. That’s right! Two of my sisters had baby boys. I can’t wait till they learn to ride bicycles and I can take them on trips with me! So Gijs & Tieme, when you guys can read this… Lets go!

At work we have no mobile phone coverage, it’s a good way of keeping your phone bill down. Another good way is losing your phone. What I just seem to have managed…

On my last  break I talked to a friend when I got back into network-area. He mentioned he was at Perth airport on his way to Sydney. Without thinking (as usual) I replied; “Oh fun! Can I come too?” “Sure”, he said. So four hours later I was aboard a plane on my way East. So strange to think had I stayed on my bike I would probably have arrived in Sydney around this time too… It would’ve taken a little longer then 4 hours though. I hope I still will…

On the plane, a whole new experience, I realised I wasn’t gonna get any food, water or tv unless I paid. I never thought of keeping my wallet on me… About two hours into the flight I read the free magazine front to back and studied all the emergency procedures and tried looking over the shoulder of the girls in front of me to see what’s on the telly…

Finally I turned to the guy sitting next to me and asked: “Is that a really good book you’re reading or would you maybe like to have a conversation… I’m really bored you see…”

Good move, we chatted the rest of the flight and in no time at all the wheels hit the tarmac.

Sydney here I am!!!!

I couldn’t believe I was there. Mentally I’m not capable to travel as fast as I just physically did, so every now and then I had to look around, jump up and down and scream WHOOAAH, IM IN SYDNEY!

And, although I thought it would be a big scary city, turns out Sydney is as ‘little’ as WA. First thing I noticed coming out the train station was a big sign saying ‘MENZIES’… Well, that’s our village back ‘home’. Although the building wearing the sign can probably hold hundred times our population (which is 80)…

Next thing I walked into a shop, got chatting to the owner, turns out he knew the guy I was catching up with that very afternoon. I knew there where only 2 degrees of separation in WA, I didn’t know it counts for the whole of Australia…

The guy was Leigh. We met in February in Albany at the Ulysses-meeting. And as a proud (ex) Sydney-citizen he couldn’t let this opportunity to show me his city pass.

It was great!

He showed me the less-obvious side, we walked up to Kings-Cross and lots of little back alley-ways where he knew an authentic little Thai-place, felt like I was back in Bangkok for a while, and the food was just as good!

Then he showed me the first terrace-houses in Australia, build in 1845, he used to be the caretaker. But now he’s got a place up in the mountains. The old houses are still there though, conveniently located right next to a pub where they served pizza’s with crocodile on it.

It was an excellent day.

I had already walked around the obvious sights and was pleasantly surprised to see that the harbour really is rather pretty. I took the compulsory opera-house picture and found my way into a massive rugby-ball that was there, together with a bunch of dancing and singing Maori’s, to promote New Zealand. For now I’m still enjoying it here, but it’s next on the list…

Of course I had to go and have a look at Bondi beach. Which I did. And after two days (nowhere near long enough) I flew back to Perth. Where I had a first aid course to attend to. Shame I never realised I had to finish a book with lots and lots of questions before attending the course. I found out around 2pm the day before… And it’s supposed to take about 8 hours. It did.

It felt like being back at school where you had to stuff weeks work into half a day right before an exam… well, I did.

It was good fun though, I learned that if I get bitten by a snake in the bush I’ll die. I kinda knew this.

But now I’m sure. Lucky we always carry a satellite phone (so you can let some one know…).

But not to worry! I’ve only seen one snake around work, and that one wasn’t even alive itself.

I have seen lot’s of other funny and interesting creatures though.

One of my jobs is emptying old bags at drill holes from long ago. All sorts you find doing that. My favourites are the multi-coloured centipedes, but lizards are nice too. Lots of spiders who don’t even worry me much any more. Except the big fat ones. I still don’t like them… I even found a scorpion one day. And then there’s the ants. But they don’t excite me much. And flies… They haven’t been too bad in the cold weather.

But now it’s warming up and we had some rain you see more animals and the flowers are starting to come out too. I realise that where I’m cruising around in the big white car, one day in the future there might be nothing but a big huge hole in the ground…

Ah well.

“Such is life”

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😉