Meekatharra Revolutions

A Willy Willy

Well I did another trip to Meekatharra. This time it was just a quick two nighter because the drillers hadn't finished in time during the last trip. They also said they had struck exactly what we were looking. So I headed all the way back, just to discover that they don't know what they are talking about. Talk about a waste.

Not much exciting from this trip. It was much much cooler, only about 37 / 38 C this time. The highlight of the trip was being in the middle of a "Willy Willy". It wasn't quite as extreme as the photo above, but it shows up out of nowhere. We step out of the LandCruiser, and noticed a slight breeze, as we walked out a bit further it picked up. "Nice wind, it's blowing the flies away" [there were still thousands of flies]. Then the winds really picked up and a piece of paper blew out the LandCruiser door. The fieldie raced to close the doors, while I watched this paper to see where it would blow to. I did not expect to blow almost completely vertical, with a spiral flow. Pretty soon it was so far up in the air that we lost it. I'm guessing well over 500m to 1 km high, and it just kept going as it was trapped in it. I'm just glad it wasn't my hat that blew away.....

My other big event in Meeka was discovering that something was in my toilet on monday. It was large, and moved very quick; it went "under" before i could get my eyes on it. My best guess was cockroach or frog. Anyhow, the next day, and after a few "flushes" (props to it for surviving a couple of them ;)..... I saw it just sitting on the rim, and yes it was a frog. Tried to get a photo, but it was camera shy.

That was the excitement. Then back to Meekatharra:
Jon: Hi, my name is Jon, I'm on the flight
Airport Staffer: Ok Jon, place your bag on the scale, Do you have any dangerous goods or weapons?
Jon: Nope
Airport Staffer: Ok, see you on the plane
You aren't even given a boarding pass .... gotta love outback security ..... :)

___________________________________

Back to Perth, I had a taxi driver tell me he was going to show me something I've never seen before. He said, he knew a building that was built like a sheep. I was quite excited, as this is not New Zealand. Anyway, he showed me the building, and I was really upset, as it looked absolutely nothing like a sheep. Still he insisted, a sheep, a sheep, a big sheep. That's when I realized that for the last 10 minutes he had been talking about SHIPS.... oh my ... talk about lost in translation.... I'm still learning Australian

I hit up City Beach for a bit and met up with Matt after he finished work. Then spent the afternoon getting tossed around by giant waves. Now I'm paying the price as salt water keeps coming out of my nose whenever I lean over.....

or is it clear blood????

Oh yah ..... Australian Idol winner was Natalie .... the show went on way too long, and I just looked it up on the internet, and then went to bed ....

Meekatharra Reloaded

Meekatharra Reloaded ….. some of the highlights (& lowlights) of 10 days in the bush at temperatures hovering in the low 40’s!!!! (in point form …. I’m getting tired of sentence and paragraph structure):

• I watched an emu run straight into a wire fence .... with humourous results
• I had my first kangaroo .... FOR DINNER!!!! It's just a chewy version of steak. Not bad. Very lean, and no fat.
• 6am start one day, not wakeup but start. Got to see my first Outback sunrise! It was good .... but not great.
• We chased 3 sheep and 1 lamb (not on purpose) down the road in the landcruiser. The lamb tripped and fell, and then one of the sheep bailed overtop it. They both struggled to get up.... them BAMMM. They both got on their feet and ran off.
• One night, watched an Australian Quiz show in the pub and the question was "This person was born in Victoria British Columbia, Canada ......" The answer turned out to be Tara Moss .... she went to my high school!!! Therefore, I am cool….
• Got to see a few more cool animals (dingo, bungarra…. etc)
• Sinead O ‘Connor Karaoke in the Landcruiser. “Nothing compares 2 u”
• Participated in “Chase the Ace” bar game, in which one person gets to draw cards. If they get the Ace of Spades, they win $4000. There was an incident where I heard “70” and thought I WON …. But in actual fact it was “17” … Still have trouble understanding the Australian language.
• Had a CDN moment in a crowded pub on Friday night. Went with 3 straight BA songs. I had to ask everyone to “Please Forgive Me”, because “Everything I do, I do it for you” … haven’t you “Ever really really really really” wanted to listen to BA.
• Holy Crikey!!!! Hearing “Never in 15 years of fieldwork….” and “In 10 years of drilling, I’ve never seen flies this bad” from the more experienced workers is not a good sign. I’ve almost gone completely insane. There have been times when I’ve looked down at my hands and had about 40-50 flies on each of them. I’d say there were probably 1000 within 5 cm of my body. Buzzing, and climbing all over you in desperate search of any bodily fluid. I went to the grocery store, and the mosquito nets were sold out. What are the odds! But there were food covers!!! So I did a little scissor work, and will now look like a bride getting ready to walk down the aisle. Except the aisle of the church is a dusty road in the Outback. And instead of a groom waiting …. I have 1000 little bugs. Yeeeaaahhh!!!
• One great thing about being here for so long. I decided to get a few Cereal snackpacks. Kellog’s!!! Now most of the cereals have actually already been blogged about already;
• However, some new ones:
  Frosted Flakes = Frosties … and bizarrely there is no frosting on them. Theeeeeyyyy’rrrrrrr not Grrreeaaattt!
  Froot Loops – appeared a bit more sugary
  Special K – bigger than the Canadian version, and doesn’t have that crackly sound
• Had my first view of a DEADY Australians spider in a sample bag. The White Tail Spider. Crikey!
• There may have been an appearance by Keanu Reeves. Pop Quiz Hot Shot …It’s 45 Celsius, and you have no water, What do you do? What do you do?
• Took part in my first true outback Australian Barbie!
• Had a different kind of Remembrance Day Ceremony. We attempted 1 minute of silence, but the flies didn’t do a very good job complying.
• Wow, it actually rained for a couple minutes.
• I decided to give up the 3+ weeks of beard growth, and went with a Handle Bar moustache. I was quickly given the nickname Chopper, as there was an infamous Hitman named Chopper Read in Melbourne who had similar facial hair. The nickname then morphed into Chopper Five as that was my room number. I would pound my chest and then give a weather report from “Chopper Five” …. "It’s going to be hot today in Meekatharra”.
• There was an interesting show from one of the locals one morning. It began at 7:30 as he walked into the Corner Store, arms raised, and “Roaring”. He then crouched down, turned towards me and “Hissed”. Very similar to what Misty (childhood cat) used to do. He then checked around the store a bit, before making eye contact with me again. He then started doing some random punches, kicks, and then The Crane (Karate Kid move). At this point, the owner of the store says “If you are going to act like a F@#!ing Idiot, then get the F@#! Out of my store!!!!!!”. He quickly left. Rumours were he was on Petrol. Very very very funny.
• One night one of the driller’s offsiders took offence to something that was said by my coworker. Actually conversation is as follows:
  Him: “Dude, you gotta tell me what room he’s in, I’m going kick his ass”
  Me: “Sorry man, I can’t six say, what room six he’s in, that would six, just go against six work ethics. Room Six”
  Him: “Oh man, come on, you gotta tell me, I’m so “bleeping” mad. He dissed me man, he dissed me. What room is he in”
  Me: Sixry … I mean sorry, I six can’t say man. If six, you went to room six, and beat him six up. I’d get six in trouble, room six.”
  Him: “Shit man, just tell me”
  Me: “Six … I just six can’t say, you’ll have to six, find out six what room six he’s in from six someone else.”
  Him: “Fine, I’ll find out from someone else”
  Can you tell alcohol might have been involved ….. let’s just say, he didn’t show up to work the next morning.
• Finally, brought out the Don Boyd look for the final day.

mmmm mmmm .... my first kangaroo

CSI: Australia .... who ate that kangaroo?

Viewing my first dingo

A bungarra

Stop bugging me!!!

Cereal Funpack

Homemade bug net

Killer spider in the sample bag!!!

A willy willy

Chopper Five

the "Don" Boyd look

Meekatharra Revisited

Day 2
After Day 1's Disaster of missing the flight, I made sure I was on time for today's flight. In fact, I showed up 2 hours early. It was an exciting day of sitting. Then crawled (actually crawled) onto a very small plane, crawled off due to mechanical failure (thanks for noticing that before we took off) then crawled onto another plane. Little plans + turbulence = not a fun flight.

Not much exciting during the day, no hit emus or kangaroos. However, at the end of the day I met a Joey. A girl who owns the hotel i'm staying at is caring for a baby kangaroo that is 8 months old. Her name is Penny. So cute. I want one for myself. Don't worry Mom, I washed my hands before I ate!!!

Other big highlight was my coworker talking about his big "Pool" game. He proceeded to lose to one of the girls who works at the bar. Then, even worse, he loses to me!!!! and I had been drinking!!! I can't remember the last time I beat someone at pool. Must have been my lucky day!

Day 3
Happy Halloween!!! I kept hearing that no one in Australia celebrates Halloween. So why am I going to a Halloween Party at the hotel??? I'm going as Sheriff Jon. It was fun times. There were stripper cops, fallen angels, outback blokes (they weren't trying very hard), and a few guys did the old wrap yourself in toilet paper, and pretend to be a mummy. They didn't realize they weren't supposed to wear used toilet paper.

Another pool matchup .... surprise surprise I WON AGAIN. I was hitting shots that were unheard of. So unheard of, that I wasn't even attempting then.

Day 4
Another boring day of just work. I met a CDN girl working at the grocery store. Why she chose to live in Meekatharra .... I have no idea???

My streak of pool wins came to a sudden end. However, on a positive note, my nickname the local Meeka girls have called me has changed from "cute canadian geo" to "hot canadian geo".... I'll take that :)

Day 5
Home time! By this day, my body has just been ravaged by the meat, the heat, and just meeka in general. I cannot wait for the flight to get home. Back to Perth, and off to Freo Prison for the tour.

Some photos click here

Live from Meeka

Well not quite..... After waking up at 4:30am (3:30 if you factor in the changing of the clocks), I was all set and ready for my cab to arrive at 5:30am. Then the waiting. More waiting, followed by waiting. Calling Swan Taxis, and then waiting. I had heard rumours of Monday mornings being terrible due to all the Fly In Fly Out miners, and just the fact that Perth taxis were horribly unreliable. Well finally, at 6:30, the taxi arrives. One problem, I was supposed to have been checked in by 6:15.

Enter Zac, the Ethiopian cabbie. A very polite, apologetic cab driver, who actually took it upon himself to pick me up, even though there were closer taxis that were supposedly "ignoring" my pickup. The drive to the airport probably consisted of one red light. Zac was flying through traffic, weaving in and out, and telling the traffic lights "yellow means go faster". I was clutching to anything I could hold. Making the flight took a back seat.... making it out alive was priority one. It was just like The Amazing Race.... except there wasn't a million dollars at the end .... but there was Meekatharra.

I arrived at 6:50 due to the phenomenal drive by zac. 10 minutes before takeoff. Unfortunately, the bags had already been put on the plane, and the weight calculated. They wouldn't let me on. This is where all those years of watching Amazing Race's Charla and Mirna were going to help me. I pleaded, I cried, I begged, I screamed, I bribed, I collapsed, I even told them that I would win $1 million if I got on this plane now. All for not. I guess I was missing one thing ..... a midget :(.

I then had to take the shameful taxi ride back to the office. Try again tomorrow. Also found out today that I'll be spending 14 of the next 18 days in Meekatharra. By that time, I think I will have found a new home!

Meekatharra - the end of the earth

Well I am off again to Meekatharra tomorrow morning. I thought I might take a little time and let everyone know about the Magic that is Meekatharra. It's not all shredded tires, emus, kangaroos, and bullets.... but it's close.

As you can see from the map, Meekatharra is a "Shire" in the Mid West of Western Australia. It's named is derived from an Aboriginal work meaning "place of little water". I can't think of a better location for a town than the place of little water. The average annual rainfall is 237 mm. However, most of the rain is due to infrequent heavy storms. Temperature wise, the mean average maximum temperature for the year is 28.8 C. But during the summer months, it can easily climb into the mid to high 40's.

The population consists of about 950 people, and I'm really not sure why these people choose to live there. The town was settled during a gold rush in the 1890's, but the good times did not last long. The reason it has survived is it became an important location in the Western Australia Government Railway system. Meekatharra is now the major supply centre for pastoral and mining for the surrounding region.

Also of note, Meekatharra is home to the Royal Flying Doctor Service. This is an air ambulance service for those living remote areas of the outback. They provide emergency assitance, primary healthcare, and assist with distance education. The runway in Meekatharra is over 2km long, and is a diversion airport that can support emergency landings for major jumbo jets. This runway was used in a famous emergency landing of the then Prime Minister's plane in the 1980's. After spending a few hours there, his wife described the town as "the end of the earth".

Daylight Savings Update: The curtains have yet to shown significant signs of extra fading. Will continue to keep a watchful eye on them.

Random Daily Photo

As I'm beginning to run out of ideas/motivation .... for now. I may start just adding random photos on days where I'm tired. This was a romantic shot taken on Tuesday {the typical day to get married in australia} in King's Park.

Not much new to report. I head back to Meekatharra in 10 days. Wahoo! What sort of crazy adventures will I get up to this time?

Meekatharra - Day #4 & 5 - warning! graphic content

So after the many warnings, and many near misses as kangaroos, cows, emus, and sheep ran across the road, I finally hit my first animal.... It was an emu that ran out in front of the car, and I had zero time to respond. I tapped the break a little, but held firm and kept the wheel locked straight. Emus don't really cause the damage that kangaroos or cows do because they are smaller, and lighter.

Unfortunately, the emu did not take the 80km/hr impact very well. We sat in the car knowing that we would have to go back to put it out of it's misery. Our only option was a tire iron meaning we'd have to get up close and personal ith it. Fortunately a car came up a few minutes later, and there was an old bloke who took a look at us and knew he would have to do the deed. He got out a shovel. It was very heart-breaking, but as any Aussie would tell you, it's just part of life down under...

Also, we had the pleasure of changing another tire today. At least this one wasn't in the middle of the night... Only in the heat of the mid-day sun. The temperature was very hot today, up to around 37 C [In Perth it was 21 C today]. As compared to the cooler 32, 33 C that we worked in the previous three days. I think I drank about 6 litres of water, and only went the washroom (i mean toilet .... don't say washroom here, ppl laugh at you) about twice. The water just gets sucked out of you!

One more day to go .... what crazy adventures will happen tomorrow. I can't wait!!!

FRIDAY - Day 5

Not too exciting today, hung around town and enjoyed country living. Watched some store
owners go wacko losing their patience.

Took the worst flight ever, 30 minutes from Meekatharra to Mt Magnet. We stayed low and
were stuck in thermal winds (vertical winds) that are caused as the hot surface air rises
into the atmosphere. Major turbulence the whole way. The woman behind me asked the
stewardess if this was normal. She smiled and said "Yup". Just great.
Can't wait for the next adventure!

Meekatharra - Day #3 - Meatalcoharra

Decided to add a couple photo features on my pic site. Daily Outback Sunsets, and Daily Self Portaits in Krazy Mirror.

Back to the daily blog. What can I say .... another interesting day in the outback.
I saw my first cloud today as the sun was going down. There aren't many clouds in the sky during the day. Although I've found the sky to be quite gray during the day. Probably because their is so much dust in the sky.

I'm starting to learn about aboriginal affairs. It is a prickly issue here... They haven't been treated very well for the past 200 years. We ended up going back to the location from the previous days aswe had to take an aboriginal fellow to supervise the drilling. So we met Trevor [after searching for 217 Darlot st..... which really is technically 95 Darlot street ... why do houses have two street numbers?] and took him out for a day of geology fun. We fed him, drove him around, provided him with Coke. We had a great day!!! I don't really want to get too into the stories from today. Maybe another time. He was actually a very sweet fellow, but he always repeated what you said, and then made it sound like he came up with it. "Looks like the fence is over there". "Yah, I see the fence is over there". "There might be some tracks in the sand". Ï see tracks in the sand over there"....

All our stakes were taken out by the Rancher because they had flagging tape. We had to re-find the locations.... and then use flagging tape as we didn't have any more stakes... since the rancher took them. The issue with flagging tape is that the cattle will eat it and die. The cattle are so short on food that they have also been eating our sample bags. They also stalk us. They will follow us from hole to hole, hoping that we will be dropping food for them. Then they tear apart our bags. Looks like we are going back again tomorrow to try to save as many bags as possible.

There is no shortage of Meat and Alcohol in this Shire [not a town, it's called a shire] ... I'm considering calling this place Meatalcoharra. I think I'll gain about 10 pounds due to the food I've eaten here this week ... that's assuming I won't have a heart-attack before the end of it. [update- survived without a heart attack but stopped eating any local meals on Friday, just stuck to bananas and apples and iced coffees].

Meekatharra Daily Blog - Day #1 - The never ending story

I thought I would write a blog every night during my trip to the Outback town of Meekatharra on http://www.australialiterally.com/, and then also update pics on http://picasaweb.google.com/australialiterally. I'll start with Monday and every so often add another day etc.

Day 1 started with a Beautiful sunrise over Perth City. I was up at about 4:30am. Yeeeaaaah! I love early flights, especially on Stat Holidays! The flight to Meekatharra took 1 hour 30 minutes, and it was packed! I think there were 8 of us on the flight! Small plane, but better service than any Air Canada flight I've been on lately.

Incident 1 - It really began when we forgot to pick up the "hired" sat phone at the end of last week. Woops... well we have more coworkers coming on Wednesday, so we can use the one in the car. No worries.

Incident 2 - No keys for the car. The airport staff were given the keys to look after, and they forgot where they put them! Fortunately, someone left the door open!!! Not the best move as there is a Huge Break-In issue in Meekatharra as there is obviously nothing else to do.

Incident 3 - The car wouldn't start! Yeah! Turns out there was an electrical problem. We had one local help us jump start the car. He almost electricuted himself about 10 times. I stood back and watched. Far back. Once we got on the road, we noticed that nothing was working, lights, speedometer, blinkers, radio etc. The airport staff (one woman) was kind enough to lead us to the Auto shop, and she helped us get a "Hire" Car, while ours was at the Sparky's.

Incident 4 - Not really an incident. I was in charge of driving the hire car from the airport back to town. First time on the road in Australia Baby!!! It's a bit awkward using the stick shift with the left hand. I only turned the windshield wipers on once when I was about to turn the corner :)

Incident 5 - Someone left open a bottle of tire sealent in the back of our car. This stuff reminded me of the ooze you see in Ninja Turtles movies. Gross.

Incident 6 - We had to pick up a pump for the drillers at a Courier, but due to the stat holiday, it was closed. We just waited outside for 15 minutes and eventually the owner saw us. People live where they work here. So we got the pump! Patience pays.

Incident 7 - The drillers requested bread .... Every store was out of bread due to the Great Bread Shortage of 2007. Fortunately we met some stations owners who let us borrow a couple loaves from them.

Incident 8 - Complete disorganization. Due to the car switch, we left a lot of important gear behind in the old car. Woops! Also, the GPS wouldn't communicate with our PDA, and we didn't have the password for the satellite phone. Well we won't need those anyway.... right?
The day went pretty smooth once we were at work. Some nice photos below:

Incident 9 - On the drive back (me driving ... and on the correct side of the road), my coworker Jacqui tells me of all the times she has run over kangaroos, and emus, and how dusk is the WORST time. Her advice, "Don't break, don't turn, just hit the damn thing". No more than 2 minutes later, an emu comes screaming out of the bush, and I brake a little and just miss slaughtering the big bird. 20 Minutes later, a kangaroo comes flying out from the right, not nearly as close as the emu. Holy crap, this is going to be interesting....

Incident 10 - As I was driving I noticed how the car was really losing power. Then it got bouncy. Then I could smell burning. Uh oh, we blew another engine. NOPE. I blew out a tire!!! Wahoo! My first one! Good thing the sun has just gone down and we are in the Middle of nowhere!!! We'll just use the satellite phone to, oh wait no, Not working... Luckily we had a crappy jack, but we struggled to find a good location to get the car up enough. Enter the helpful aboriginal couple who stopped.

Incident 11 - We could have been there for hours if they didn't stop. The guy came out, and scoped out the situation... Who we were ... what happened ... I now know it's EXTREMELY dangerous meeting people in the bush in the middle of the night. But we were ok for him. He brought out his super jack, and helped us with the replacing of the tire. As a thank-you, Jacqui offered him another co-workers beer stash. He was quick to accept.

Incident 12 - Hmmmmm, I use the flashlight to see if we missed anything [more on that tomorrow], and found a BULLET!!!!! Jacqui said she saw him drop some stuff and scramble to pick it up. Yikes!!!! Did we ever get lucky.

After 5 minutes of driving, we caught back up to the couple (on the road now), he waved us to pass .... I wonder where the beers were now!!! :)

Lots of bad luck, but lots of good luck. Time for bed!!!

Perth Royal Show

The sea of people

Seeing as how the Perth Royal Show is right next to my place, I decided to go have a visit today (and may go back for the fireworks tonight ... depending on if the stamp on my mind doesn't wash off.). It was quite the adventuresome day.

Nothing as crazy as Pedology

Highlights include:

• ShowBags
• The Scuba Band
• The Exciting Chairlifts
• Blue and Pink Sheep
• The Horse Competition.

The Show Bags Guys

The adventures can be viewed with sufficient commentary on my picture site. http://picasaweb.google.com/australialiterally/PerthRoyalShow

I'm now off to Meekatharra bright and early tomorrow. It's a "town" of about 1000 or so in the Outback. Should be an interesting 5 days. I'm sure I'll have some great photos and stories on Friday. Catch ya on the flip side!