Finally at Work

I made it... long story. Oh, you have time. Ok then.

Firstly, where did i leave you last instalment? Oh, a hotel in Perth. Well, I got a phone call on Tuesday night saying that i was on the 6am flight on Wednesday morning to Nifty. So, I packed my shit up and got very little sleep.

I woke up at 4am, had a shower, checked out of the hotel, caught a taxi to the airport and waited for my flight. There were planes & people everywhere. All the mines up here must have had the same problems. Our plane left on time and one left about half an hour before us. Just as we were taxiing up the tarmac the flight attendent said "Welcome aboard your flight to Newman". What the???? We were all confused. Anyway 2 and a half hours past and we landed in Newman at 8:30am.

There is a map for you. I dont know where Nifty is in relation to Newman, but a bit out of the road. The plane that left before us was there waiting as well as 5 or 6 other flights to other mines. So there was people everywhere. We were told that we would wait about half an hour to see if the Nifty airstrip was dry enough to land. I don't know why this was not confirmed before we left Perth.

So, 4 hours later..... still at Newman, waiting, waiting, waiting. We were listening to the goss and apparently someone was saying to leave the people behind and get the freight to Perth. One of the planes (the one I was on) had a fuel leak and was parked up. So they had to get 2 plane loads of people and 2 plane loads of freight up to Nifty???? So then there was a decision that had to be made. Only 10 people were allowed to go to Nifty (on a charter from Port Headland) and everyone else had to get the good plane back to Perth. I dont know what happened to the freight??? I know that they left 26 dozen cartons of eggs at Newman LOL.

I made the short list of 10! YAY.

Then they decided to get the charter to drop 10 people off at Nifty, then go back for another 10. So 20 people came to work and the rest went back to Perth.

You still with me?

While we were waiting for the charter, we ate the plane food from the sick plane for lunch. Noice soggy sangas, a tim-tam and some cheese and bickies. Hit the spot, cause I didnt have any breakfast.

I had a splitting headache sitting at Newman and when we finally got our bags of the plane, I retreived my panadol and all was sweet.

Ok, so the charter arrived at about 1:00pm. And my first reaction was "Oh My God - it is tiny". The thunder was rolling in and we had to get on a 10 seater plane? I am feeling lucky... on account of the really good luck I have had lately :) so I got on the first one.

While flying I was just dozing when i heard a big BANG and i shit myself. Turns out we hit a bird and it dinged up the wing. Nice. We arrived at Nifty at about 2:15pm. The landing was surprisingly smooth and we were all safe and sound.

No one was there to pick me up, then Mel turned up and took me straight to work.

Didn't do much last night and have to change my room again today because they hadn't organised a room for me (Arghhh) so we'll see how we go this arvo. I will wait til later because apparently 200 people are being flown in and 200 being flown out today, so everyone is a bit stressed out right now.

Love and airports

Jes