Bevin has worked for a couple of maintenance firms so far ..one job removing and replacing filter socks, one job at NRG, the power station here and the other out at Boyne Smelter , the latter taking such a toll on the workers an investigation is underway, due to the heat conditions of the job. Bevin suffered Heat exhaustion one day with vomiting and chills..not a good look.
The smelter he said was a very interesting place. What happens at a refinery(basically)... is the ore or bauxite comes down from up North (Wepa) then they add Sodium Hydroxide to it, add heat(plenty of it) and through other processes it yields a fine alumina (white powder..definitely not for snorting hahaha) This Alumina , then goes to the refineries to be made into ingots and other shapes and grades(they add different alloys to the big pots when molten for different properties needed for different things) to be trucked off to places to be made into things like aluminium joinery etc. At the smelter they put the white alumina powder into big crucibles (pots) and basically add huge amounts of electricity by putting huge carbon blocks or rods that are charged up. This has a layer of cryolite over top like floating sheets I think to keep heat and other things in, this process takes 36 hours or so and the aluminium sinks to bottom where its taken off and then goes to furnaces to be melted...big trucks with hot pots lined with bricks take the molten aluminium to other parts of the refinery for processing either as I said into ingots or to have other alloys added to it before it too is made into shapes to go elsewhere. Thats Mordor for you!
When it was very hot several weeks back I had been meeting Bevin out at the beach, at Tannum Sands. I would ride out there with his swim gear, water has been very warm but is always quite silty.Kite surfers would come down in the afternoon so was great to see them set up and do their thing Bevin always looked forward to a swim after he'd been working in those hot conditions and the gear you wear man you wonder how ya gonna breath. Everyones gear, and it looks like we are working in China given that everyone in Gladstone seems to be wearing same clothes, are long dark blue drill pants and either a dark blue long sleeved drill shirt with fluoro reflective yellow stripes across back and chest or a long sleeves orange drill shirt with reflective strips across back arms and chest, and this is heavy gear for these parts, then heavy work boots and if inside or also outside depending on what you are doing full face masks..sounds awfully claustrophobic aye
Our plans at the mo are to work for a couple of months maybe till June/July then we can start making a move North when the weather..cyclones and summer tropical rains have stopped. Its cooling down nicely now, mid to upper 20's.. not so many dripping days for us :-)
We are also looking at a weekend out diving the Great Barrier Reef from here ...Gladstone is the Southern Gateway to Great Barrier Reef, so there are a few charters going out from here and a wee place called 1770 (yip Seventeen Seventy), its a wee surf town right next to Agnes Water just South of here..we rode down there a couple of weekends back with some friends and had lunch at 1770 (called that as it was one of Cooks 2nd landings after Byron Bay in 1770 no less) so we are looking forward to doing that.
We went for couple of long bike rides weekend before last..Saturday saw us going down to Bundaberg(hadn't been there before) and Bargara on the coast by Bundy. Nice little place, Bundy had some nice art deco style buildings and of course both the rum distillery and Ginger Beer factory to look at. So all round Bundy are Sugar cane plantations for such. Talked to a guy at Bargara that said Bundy and Bargara had quite a low standard of living with the average wage round $40k and that it was more a lifestyle choice. Lots would also commute to Gladstone to work each day..thats about a 2hour 15 min drive each way!
The following day we went for a ride with another couple of guys out to a place called Many Peaks..sort of like going to Wangamomona without the saddles to ride over, though some twists and turns in road but nothing like NZ, with the end result being the stop at end at the county pub for few drinks and lunch before riding the 90k's back to Gladstone..nice day and nice ride though..last time we tried to do this ride it wasnt possible due to it being all under water out back there from all the floods.
We have also visited several market days around Gladstone and surrounds looking at various local produce and wares, where we have picked up cheap pineapples and such. Fruit is not so cheap here as might have imagined with the bananas up to $13 kilo, they say due to damage to the crops through cyclones and floods..who in their right mind would bother though?
Bevin and I had a ride out to a National Park yesterday called Kroombit Tops. It is about 90 k's odd from Gladstone with about 60 k's of gravel which at first I was a bit wary of but lots braver on the return. There were at least 30 river crossings with many of the fords underwater so mastered those too with my feet in the air..nothing to a pro like Bevin of course, he just loved it all to bits..its all good training for riding up Cape York. There is an old World War 2 bomber, called Beautiful Betsy up there that is a heritage site now, but there wasn't enough time to walk to see it this trip, but will go back to do that. At one stage of the ride Bevin was stopped..he did that alot to take pics of me riding up the road or other sites..this particular stop he was pointing at the road and signalling windy road ahead I thought...WRONG..it was a rather large snake with small head and large striped body, a Tiger snake, not one of the ones you want to corner..Bevin said to me later when we stopped "I couldn't believe you rode past only a metre from it"..what snake I was busy trying to figure out what he was saying to me ..phew!
Whilst I have been waiting for a job..trouble with being Jack of all Trades and Master of None.. I have been trying to walk 8-10k's a day with a bit of
up-pace shuffling thrown in from time to time..well on my walk this morning I saw another snake just whistling away from me, on return there it was again so took a pic when it came back out..think I've ID'd it as just a common tree snake..not dangerous..that's my second one now as I saw another on a walk I do through bushland close by last week, that could have been a brown, definitely one to avoid.. I walk with a stick now through there....eyes open!
No comments:
Post a Comment