Hap Working The World

So I’m back in the real world of work, and to tell you the truth I’m kind of enjoying being back in a routine. It’s a little unfortunate that I’m not in Melbourne – well I am but I’m working a 2 weeks on in Tasmania (1 hour flight across Bass Straight from Melbourne) and then 1 week back in Melbourne roster. The reason I have chosen this job is to save money for Africa, as when I’m in Tasmania there is nowhere to spend money so I’m forced to save, its’ just work and no play (in theory).

I’m doing exploration field work again, as you may remember I did similar work in Western Australia in 2008 and it was my favourite job that I have had out of my 7 years of “working the world”. This role is a lot different, a little more monotonous at times which basically consists of making big rocks into small rocks. But it is also varied with work in the bush, collecting samples and cutting tracks etc which will be cool.

It’s quite funny to compare this job with my cruise ship job. Working as a 6 star waiter on an Antarctic cruise ship sounds rather glamorous and looking at rocks all day rather unglamorous. But I would rather this job any day. The sole reason, the people! Both jobs I work long hours but in this job I’m actually treated like a person and shown respect instead of a slave that is treated as a resource and shouted at! It also helps that my boss here does not say “I’m your boss, I demand respect”………………ooohhhhhhhh my blood just boils thinking back how I was spoken to on that ship for no better reason than I was in a lower position. I remember being shouted at “I could train my dog better than you (expletives)” and then having to reply with “yes sir, sorry sir (stick it up your arse sir)”..

I best stop talking about that as I’m getting all tense…………………..anyway here are some photos from my first 2 week stint at work in Western Tasmania.

First day of work, going bush bashing to collect some dirt samples with other fieldy’s Kristen and Q. You will notice that it is raining; it has rained every day since I have been here, but I can’t complain as I’m getting paid to go hiking.

Beautiful native bush – although sometimes it loses its appeal when you have to clamber/crawl/fall through it with a 30 kg pack full of dirt in the rain. I kind of hope they don’t find anything here as you know if we strike gold, or in our case tin (what we are looking for), there will be a mine here. But I suppose that’s the price we have to pay for our tin cans, unfortunately tin doesn’t grow on trees

Where are we? Follow the sun………….….shit!

The bush “sticking” it to me, or you could say that I’m “branching out” (notice the stick coming out of my ear)

That is one expensive bag of dirt! A lot of time and money goes into getting this bag of dirt..

It can’t be all fun and games, the shed where I spend a lot of time playing with rocks and dirt.

One of the ways we make the big rocks into small rocks. This is the part of the day where I have to stop thinking about the Africa expedition and concentrate on what I’m doing……well I suppose I could still cycle with only 3 fingers.

My plane touched down at Devonport Airport in Tasmania, an island off the south eastern coast of Australia. Tassie as it’s known by Aussies is famous for the Tasmanian devil and jokes about inbreeding and off spring with extra digits. I suppose it has a lot of similarities with New Zealand, a couple of islands off the south eastern coast of Australia and all you have to do is change the Tasmanian devil for the kiwi and the inbreeding for sheep shagging – I should feel at home!

My thoughts of sheep shagging and extra digited off spring vanished as the seat belt signs were switched off and all the passengers did that frantic scramble to get their bag out of the overhead lockers only to wait standing up while the air hostess struggled with the door.

I exited the plane as the airport guys unloaded my bags on to the small cart and I headed in the direction of the small town airport terminal. My mind wondered what my new work colleagues would be like, and how the “exploration field assistant – fieldy” job would differ from my previous role in Western Australia’s desert. One thing was clear from what I saw out of the airplane window, there was going to be no red dirt, but a lot of green hills rolling into mountainous native bush, I felt as though I had just flown across the Tasman Sea and arrived on New Zealand’s west coast (I wonder if the sheep are less paranoid here in Tasmania?).

I entered the terminal doors and did the disguised relaxed look around where I try to look as though I’m not looking for someone but really I just look like a person who is trying to not look like he’s looking for someone. I eventually run out of waiting people that could be my new boss and I stand there looking like a 4 year old who’s lost his mother in a crowded shopping mall.

I get my cell phone out to call the number of my senior field assistant who is meant to be meeting me. As I’m putting in the number my arm is grabbed from behind and I spin around in 3^rd world backpacker mode ready to defend my most expensive possessions (which currently amounts to a laptop that has no battery) in my day pack. I’m met by an athletic retired cop looking guy with short “steelo” like hair looking me in the eye, he says “airport security, come with me”.

As you know I haven’t really had much luck with airport security in the past and I tried to think what I had done or packed to warrant airport securities eagle eye. My mind was running “I no longer have dreadlocks, I didn’t pack my sheep, I left my 1kg of herion in Melbourne, ……”. As my night spent in cell 210 in Atlanta city prison before being deported from the states flashed before my eyes, the retired cop face beamed into a smile, “You must be the man, Hap is it? I’m Brendon your senior fieldy, nice to meet you”. – Gold, I think I’ll fit in just fine.

Tomorrow is going to be a shock to the system as it will be my first day of work – I wonder if my body will remember what to do when it hears the beep beep beep of my alarm clock. The past 14 months as I have completed my Dive Masters in Thailand, lived and travelled in South America, looked for Antarctic work, studied Spanish I have only worked a total of 2 months. So it’s going to be hard yards getting back into the slog but I’m looking forward to it. The settling down process is in session, time to start earning some money, get set –up so I can start focusing on Africa.

So what is my job? I’m back into the old mining industry doing my favourite job; Exploration Field Assistant. Once again a friend opened the door so it saved me going through the whole job hunting process. In fact since I’ve been working the world 95% of my jobs have come from contacts. I have a 2 week trial so I will see what happens, I will be flying out of Melbourne to work in Tasmania.

How’s the house hunting going? Well it’s going, there’s quite a bit of competition over here and on paper Mandy and I aren’t really the best tenants when you put us up against…………well anyone I suppose, for example the questions like; previous addresses (this takes up a page), previous jobs (this another page), how long were you at your last address (not long), bank accounts showing income (last years income – what’s that?)etc. You can imagine what my history of this looks like, somewhat nomadic would sum it up. But we have 3 more applications that we are waiting to hear back about so fingers crossed. We are lucky though as we are staying with friends Matt and Linnley which means there is no rush. I’m loving Melbourne as a city, and enjoying hanging out with mates.

Mandy’s immigration application has been handed in. And in true immigration style it won’t even be looked at for another 4-6 weeks, so Mandy is unable to work until this comes through which is looking like July.

Today I added a new asset to my asset portfolio that consists of my pack and all the clothes that fill it – oh and a 15 year old stereo in Mum and Dads attic with a missing button. But check it out, my new wheels, $30 at a garage sale – gold!

This is officially my last swing at work. I have 3 more days of being an Exploration Field Assistant. It’s always in the last days of a job that you start to appreciate (more) your surroundings. It’s a time of “lasts”, eg the last time I will sleep in my donga, the last time I will have a laugh with my work mates, the last time I will go four wheel driving in the outback, the last time I will get on the plane to Perth etc.

This past year I have been lucky enough to have experienced the unique Austrlian Outback and all its glory. A big part of that glory are the animals that inhabit this vast red wilderness, animals that are as Ozzie as beer and barbies.

Below are photos of animals I have come across throughout the past year.  There have been some animals that I have failed to snap photos of, emu’s, wedge tail eagles and others I can not think of, but enjoy the ones I got.

Dingos. I’ve seen plenty of  these wild dogs cruising the outback. Dingo stole me baby!

Kangaroos, my new favourite animal, they’re so bouncy, happy and unique, plus they don’t want to hurt you, unlike most of the animals in OZ.  I’ve taken a lot of Kangaroo photos at work, but decided to post this comical one that I took 3 weeks ago when camping in Margaret River.   ”Mum have you seen my socks”?

Cattle.  Woodie Woodie where I work is located on a cattle farm, so there are always our bovine buddies walking around camp feasting on the green grass of the camp, which is very much a delicacy in the outback, its like eating lobster in the desert.

Camels.  Australia is home to the largest wild camel population in the world!

This is my pitiful photo of the first snake I saw. And yes I was scared shitless, that’s the reason the photo’s taken from a million miles away, check out my blog post I did on my my encounter with my first snake.

Donkies.  Now that’s a great arse!

Bungarras.  Otherwise known as Goanna’s are commonly sighted around the camp. From the tip of their tale to their head they are easily over a metre long. When you walk around the side of a donga (sleeping cabin) and startle one of these miniature dinosaurs, it requires a change of underwear afterwards.

Frogs.  Now I’ve heard of  toilet ducks (toilet cleaner in NZ), but toilet frogs! You can imagine my surprise when busting for a pee and being confronted by this little fella (frog), to pee or not to pee? Now that is the question.

It wouldn’t be an authentic outback post without mentioning those annoying little flying maggots that are so abundant this time of year. The flies applying first aid to my cut.

The Australian Outback is a harsh unrelenting place to be, especially if your a sick/elderly camel.

The story behind the photo below is, I was riding shot gun with El at the wheel and the two passenger side wheels start sliding down the river bank into the boggy area. El giggling as my passenger side sank down so that I was nearly face to face with the decaying carcass of the camel. As you can imagine I exited the vehicle through the drivers side, but didn’t last long before I jumped back in as my gag reflect was about to start due to the stench. Luckily I was able to unbog it from the comfort of the odourless drivers seat.

As mentioned before, carcasses are part of everyday work up here, especially when travelling on the 400km of sealed outback highway-on any NW Australian highway for that matter- to Port Headland.  It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that cattle and fast travelling road trains hauling our manganese don’t mix.  But I had never seen anything like the photo below that I took a couple of swings ago while doing a field trip to Mount Sydney. It’s a mystery to me, maybe it’s the site of  a camel cult mass suicide.

OK Hap, enough of the dead animals.  Best I leave you with a warm fuzzy cute animal photo.  Although I have not come across any of our woolly four legged friends during my Outback chapter, they deserve a place in the blog.  Why? Because although us kiwi’s get the reputation as…….how do I say it ………as “sheep lovers”, it is our big brother Australia that has the largest sheep population in the world! (NZ has 40 million sheep and Australia has 90 million-and yes I realise that’s a ratio of 10 sheep to every kiwi and only 5 sheep to every Ozzie, but let’s not focus on that, Australia has the biggest sheep population, end of story).  

PS, while googling for a “sexy sheep photo” (weird I know), this website came up as first choice,  AdultSheepFinder – The Worlds #1 Sheep Sex and Dating Personals Site  – now that’s weird! (bet you its an Australian site – haha, come on Australia I’ve had my fare share of sheep jokes, it’s about time you guys got your share). The website was blocked on my work computer, I just hope the IT guys don’t over my internet browser history!

Stay posted for my next post, it will be the last post of my Australian chapter.