Hap Working The World

The end of last year Woodie Woodie (the mine where I am working) got the best Christmas present ever, a new airport!  Gone are the days of the red dirt runway with the outdoor shade cloth terminal. 

The new airport was built so jets could land.  This is great news for the workers of Woodie.  It means that we no longer have to fly in the Brasilia airplanes.  If you don’t watch Air Crash Investigation, your probably not familiar with the Brasilia aircraft.  At work it is nicknamed the flying coffin, and everybody has countless stories of the aircraft being grounded for maintenance problems and dodgy landings by the trainee pilots they use to transport the miners into the outback.  To sum up the Brasilia aircraft, before taking off the air hostess hands out ear plugs, becasue as soon as its in the air, you can’t even hear your ipodon full volume.  OK, it’s not that bad, I’m sure it would be the pride of the Air Ethiopia fleet.

The new fokker 100 jet, woop woop.

So now its all big pimping for the Woodie workers, we don’t have to worry about the red dirt runway getting washed away in a down pour, we now wait in an air conditioned terminal while the flies wait outside and we are all guaranteed to get on the flight, as the jet seats 100 people compared to the 30 on the Brasilia.  It was pretty classic, one of the first flights from Perth, the jet brought up 2 passengers, haha, if you work it out, that’s probably atleast $20,000 per passenger (but a contracts a contract and the jet has to fly)!

With the new airport, I volunteered my services to the “jet pit crew”, helping out with baggage handling, refuelling, marshalling etc.  I saw this as a great opportunity to get experience working around aircrafts, as this will be invaluable when applying for work in Antarctica. 

Here’s some photos kindly taken by my photographer Jacko of the first dreadlocked marshaller, you can imagine the pilots thought as he’s bringing the jet full of 100 passengers into land and sees the state of the guy marshalling him in, he’s probably already said his “hail mary’s”.

“Hey Hap you poser, you forget to pick-up the baggage”

Chilling out in the baggage compartment, it’s amazing in there, as it comes down from altitude and its still freezing, a welcome relief from the heat (And people wonder why it takes so long for their bags to come off the plane).

Jacko guarding the “stairway to heaven – civilisation”

Here’s a couple of photos of this mornings Emergency Response Team (ERT) ropes training out at one of our old pits. If your wondering why the pit is full of water, it’s becasue it is redundant and that’s the level of the water table. At Woodie Woodie its a constant battle for the mining guys to keep pumping the water out of the pits so they can keep mining.

Here’s a couple of photos,

Assessing the pit wall

Going down………the wall

The hard part for my skinny arms, coming back up the wall!

Dave ascending the rope and Jack descending

Last swing I went over to neighbouring mine Telfer with the Woodie Woodie Emergency Response Team.

Each mine has an Emergency Response Team (ERT) as they have to be self sufficient in all aspects including emergencies, due to there isolated nature.  The ERT team plays the role that a Volunteer Fire Brigade does in towns, ie attending fires, vehicle accidents, plane crashes, chemical spills, rope rescues, search and rescue etc.

The Telfer Training involved a bush fire and search and rescue exercise. These are two scenarios where our ERT teams (Telfer, Nifty and Woodie Mines) would have to join forces and help each other due to our isolated nature from other mines and towns. It was a great day (not too mention night), and learnt heaps from the Telfer guys. Check out the photos below. 

Next week I’m attending a 4 day Cert 3 Mines Rescue Emergency First Responder course which is an advanced first aid course based on being the first person on the scene. I’ve been studying for this the past couple of months and I’m really looking forward to it as it goes into detail about anatomy and the functioning of the human body etc, so learning heaps.  I will post some photos of the course if I get the chance to take any.