Mid West WA, a procrastination blog

I'm procrastinating.. The last night this year I actually need to be up late doing shit (I have an assignment to hand in tomorrow and then I'm done for the year), and rather than do it and go to sleep, I'm procrastinating. Kimberly commented on my blog, which reminded me people actually read it at a time I was open to posting.

So yeah, it's been a busy few months. Work and uni are fully dominating my time. I had three exams this week, which sucked, especially by the third when I really couldn't be bothered. The last thing one wants to do after spending all day at work, is go home and study or do assignments. It's even worse when working away, even if I wanted to there's no time. Oh well, almost there.

Work wise I've been mapping a proposed iron ore railway corridor, 500km long! Plus an 80km spur. So far we've mapped 200km in two trips, and hope to knock off another 300km in the next two trips. That'll take me through to christmas, when hopefully I'll be taking a 4 week break before going back and mapping the 80km spur.

In the first two trips we managed to drive 6,500km. Most of the driving was to and from the place we were staying. So I've seen a lot of this sort of view out the front of the car:




Here I am wandering through the bush.


I should probably mention at this point that I'm not mapping along, I'm mapping with a Sri Lankan engineering geologist. I think the cultural and language barriers are getting to me a little, or it might just be the fact that he's a SHIT driver and he usually drives in the mornings so I can call the office in Perth on the sat phone to check in. He has to learn too I guess. You've never seen anyone stall a car so many times though... I counted to keep from going insane how many times he stalled, it was 5 the first day, then 6 the next day, then 5, then 7, then 6 again. It's insane. It was forgivable the first couple of days, but for the love of god, learn from you mistakes. He's better know... still stalls every now and again but not as much. I'd hate to see him try to park in a shopping centre. So yeah, this is him:



And here he is changing the only flat we've had so far...and that was only a slow leak...well, fast enough to change the tyre but not dead flat.


There's been no shortage of wildlife either... I've seen a whole heap of sheep, cows, kangaroos, emus, goats, lizards and birds. I hate sheep, they're soooooo stupid, so there's no photos of them, but here are few of the other creatures getting about:

Bungarra, or race horse goanna. This one was digging a hole in the road...I'm not entirely sure why but it wouldn't move, so after taking a few photos I just drover around it.


Kangaroo... plenty of them jumping out in front of the car trying to get killed. I hit two so far, both on the same drive back to our accommodation one afternoon within about an hour of each other. They're relatively small so they don't damage the 4wd when you hit them, just themselves. The first one I hit I killed, and technically it hit me...in the side of the rear bumper. I hit it and then went back to check it was dead... it wasn't, but an ever growing pool of blood around it's head suggested it wouldn't be long. I'd grabbed my rock pick out of the car to put it out of it's misery but it died on its own so I didn't need to. This is a live roo though, i didn't take a photo of the one I killed. The second one I hit must have gone between the wheels or something cause I heard it hit, but didn't see a body.


Wedge Tailed Eagle... these are big birds. Sri Lankan guy just clipped one when we were driving home one day...it had been gorging itself on a roo carcass by the road and was a little slow taking off...it got an extra push from the windscreen and managed to fly away unharmed.


Goats... goats run pretty quick when they see you coming, so I haven't got any photos of live ones... found this one on an electric fence...nasty way to die.


The plant life is much more picturesque. Not sure what kind of tree this is, but it has cool bark.


For the first trip and first two days of the second trip we stayed at a mine site.. which was decent. After that we moved to a town called Cue, and stayed at the Queen of the Murchison bed and breakfast. Not a bad place, except there was an aboriginal funeral on while we were there and so we could only buy mid strength beer from friday morning to monday night...at least the view was interesting.



After that we moved to a town called Yalgoo...what a shithole. We stayed at the Yalgoo Hotel-Motel... we saw it from the outside and thought we were at the wrong place cause it looked closed down. It wasn't, and is actually alright inside, but the rooms were questionable. Next trip we're staying at a pastoral station..that'll be interesting.


Well I've written enough I think. I'll leave you with a couple photos of the Dalgaranga meteorite crater, a wholly underwhelming experience :)



oh, and for the record...Nissan Patrols are a shit 4wd. They're okay on the highway, being a turbo diesel, but damn, get them in a bit of sand and they struggle really badly...very underpowered vehicle. I recommend a Toyota Landcruiser for any serious off-road adventures. I haven't tried but I'd also imagine the Patrol to be terrible for towing.

safety first

okay, maybe some old pics





I'll post some new pics from the mapping eventually :)

yep.. no post

2 months and no post... damn, my excuse is I've been busy... which is true. Maybe christmas :)

It's a bird, it's a plane, no wait.... it's a post.

And a proper one at that :) It's 1am, I have to work in the morning, but I'm posting anyway. By doing stuff late at night I feel I've better utilised my day, and will strangely probably sleep better, maybe not so strange, It's a good way to unwind. Anyway let's start with another bee photo, this one in my own back yard, which actually reminds me that there were three bees in my house the other day... not sure how they got in, but it took me a while to figure out the buzzing wasn't coming from my speakers, but rather a bunch of bees. There's also a redback at the ceiling of my lounge, but he's probably not going to come down so that's cool, I'll leave her there a couple days, she can kill the god damn crickets that have been sneaking in.. but then she'll have to die too, I don't want no red back on my toilet seat :) Anyway.. bee photo...



I'm doing a Masters in Engineering Geology over in Sydney, which means I have to fly over every now and again for some short courses. Actually got out to the city last trip for a decent look around. I took some obligatory shots of the opera house and harbour bridge... even walked across the bridge and around Luna Park. While wandering through the city I came across this...



A closer look...



Yep, that's right, a mere week and a bit before APEC some mischievous people put dishwashing liquid in a fountain.



Sadly they didn't use a decent and more bubbly brand/product so it didn't seem to bubble too much... made for a decent photo though :)



Sadly I didn't have a taller tripod with me but no matter. The small one did still allow me to get a decent night panorama, the stitching of which is a partial cause to me starting this post so late. A slightly less common Sydney shot (not that there was any shortage of people around taking night shots of the opera house and bridge. click for a bigger pic).



The Lunar eclipse (red moon) happened while I was over east, but I didn't get any decent shots for two reasons, one I didn't take a decent tripod this trip, and two, I hadn't charged my camera battery and it was flashing the low battery warning after the first couple shots... Doh!



Once back in Perth I finally bit the bullet and bought a new wetsuit (the old one was uncomfortably too small) so I could start surfing (bodyboarding) again. There was a decent swell, and apart from a couple excruciating calf cramps it was good. This was two weekends ago, and I went last weekend as well. I might even go this weekend if the winds are right. I took a couple photos after I got out of the water and got into some dry clothes. It was quite crowded by this stage.



But there were still decent waves to be had.



So that sort of brings things up to date. I go away Monday to start mapping of a 500k rail route so don't expect a post more than once a fortnight, but hopefully the trip will yield some decent photos :)

I don't know, I guess I'm just weird like that.

I'm in a strange place in my life right now, hard to describe, a sort of limbo, between where I want to be and the lower echelon of where I'll end up if I don't get my shit together. Not that I absolutely NEED to get my shit together, I've done alright so far without ever managing to really get my shit together, but by not getting it together, I'm sure to make things harder for myself.

Work is somewhat stressful at present, the age old work situation of far too much to do and oh so little time in which to do it. This is compounded by my postgraduate studies, which are the icing on an all too heavy cake.... apparently I'm studying full time, no wonder I'm feeling the pressure :(

Oh well.... she'll be right. I've managed to scrape through life thus far, the next two weeks shall be no exception. Shame I miss maja's bday party though :( That REALLY sucks!

Anyway, It's about time I posted a pic. Pretty sure I haven't posted this one yet, it's from the Pilbara, a bee flying to a flower quite rare where we were, the only one (although there were a whole bunch in a 50m square area) of its kind we'd seen in about 150km of driving in fact.



Next post I might put up my wholly unoriginal long exposures of the sydney opera house and sydney harbour bridge from my last trip over for uni.