Mini Holiday

31st Aug - 2nd Sep 2015

I had been in Karratha for 3 months now and still planned to be there for a further 3 months so I thought it might be nice to get out of town for a bit. I had been planning a return to Karijini ever since I got washed out of there the first time. I invited a few people but in the end it was just me and Rob. This German had been working at the Tambrey for a couple of months now and when ever I heard him yell "Is anyvon vaiting?" I couldn't help but laugh. Everytime!

Me and Rob ready for a roadtrip

We had 2 and half days to see and do as much as possible so we had an early start to get supplies and then we hit the road. It was really nice to be in my car exploring again even if it was for only a couple of days.

Big trucks

Rob slept most of the way there but the journey wasn't without a few interesting things to see. We had to pull off the road for a few supersize trucks.

Fires

Bigger the better

After 5 hours driving we finally found the northern part of the Karijini National Park. There was only a few of hours left until sunset so we only went to a couple of lookouts.

Driving into Karijini

A gorge

As the sun was setting we went for a swim in Fern Pool which looked stunning. The blue water was very refreshing. The two waterfalls were like hot and cold taps to sit under. It was really strange that one had cold water and the other one warm. I was surprised to find any flowing water as it hadn't rained in months!

Fern Pool

We made camp and ate dinner before watching a film. It was Despicable Me 2 which I found hilarious!

Off on a walk

We had a full day in the park the next day. We made the hour journey from our campsite around to the other side of the park where I had been to last time. I think I enjoyed discovering this place more then first time around as you can't be surprised twice. I think Rob felt the same as this was also his second visit. At least this time I managed to keep the pictures that I took!

Hancock Gorge

In the gorge

The first walk we did was down Hancock Gorge. It was still as fun as last time to climb through the gorge and wade through the water. There were a few more people around then last time I was here but still not too busy.

Gonna have to get wet

Bit of climbing

Very deep gorge

Scene of the crime

We made it the pool without any incident. This was the exact spot that my phone went flying into the last time. It was very strange to witness the same thing nearly happen to someone else. He picked up his bag and his phone went flying into the stream. Luckily for him the water was not flowing any where near as much as when I did it and he was able to grab it before it went flying off the end and into the pool.

Amazing!

We didn't swim in this one as the water was horrendously cold. We took a few pictures before heading back up the gorge. The next walk we did was down to Handrail Pool.

Squeeze through

The handrail into Handrail Pool

Handrail Pool

Handrail pool was my favourite last time and it is incredible. Its hard to get the scale of this huge hole into a single picture so check out the vid at the bottom. We went for a swim in this one because it you want to get to the end of the track then you have to. The water was truly freezing. We were shivering quite a lot.

End of the track is this way

After lunch we went around to Joffre Gorge. I didn't come here last time so it was great to see something new.

Joffre Gorge

This was Robs favourite place and its easy to understand why. You walk up the stream and it opens out into a massive cathedral of red stone.

The entrance

Very high walls

Rob looking cool

We did a few ridiculous photos before leaving. The day was almost done so we went back to camp for dinner and another film. This time it was San Andreas - a truly shit film.

Its me

We left early the next day because we both had to work that night. We had to get back to Karratha and the real(ish) world. Rob slept most of the way back too!

Awesomeness

It was a really good trip and it was great to get out of Karratha, if only for a couple of days. It was a bit of a booster to get me through another 3 months at the Tambrey.

Karratha: The Good Times

August 2015

Chilling by the pool

After 2 months in Karratha I was earning some decent money. I hadn't been out for a long time in order to save money but I was desperate for a good night out. Luckily, throughout August, there were plenty of excuses to get drunk and head to Evos. The first weekend was Bobbi's leaving party. This crazy Canadian had just finished 6 months in Karratha. She used to wind Ollie up so much. It was genuinely quite entertaining to watch actually.

Party in Evos

Cassy, Bobbi and Loic

Cassie was a very interesting character to be working with. She hasn't been mentioned yet because we didn't seem to get on initially. I didn't think she liked me very much and so I don't like her very much. She is one of those girls that's hot and they know it but she is the best example of a 'don't judge a book by its cover' that I've ever come across. We quickly became good friends after we established we didn't hate each other. I came to realise she is a genuinely amazing person especially after we had a very deep and meaningful conversation at the hot tub party. She became a good friend whilst I was here.

Party in the tub

I think it was Robs birthday and he invited us back to the house that he and some other Germans (Lenny and Flo) were house sitting. This house had a large hot tub outside so we spent a good couple of hours sat drinking in it and chatting.

The following weekend and it was Sheila's time for a leaving party. Sheila worked in the kitchen. I didn't get to speak to her all that much but she seemed like a really nice person. Here's Vicky teaching her how to shake her booty.

Shake it

Me and the landlord

I bumped into Nicole who was an American and she was in charge of the globe houses so sort of our landlord. There's a few people that wouldn't say nice things about her but I always got along well with her. I'd always yell at her when she was in the bar drunk which was quite often.

Chilling in the pool again

As August progressed and it began to warm up, the pool around the Corbett house became bearable and so began a ritual of hanging out there for the day. Especially when I became friends with two of the new arrivals Megan and Kate. Both English. Well Megan claims she is Scottish but she also claims she is black so I didn't really believe her! I found that blue inflatable sofa out on the street!

Me, Megan and Kate

Wedding

Oh the wedding. It was quite amazing in all the wrong ways. This was the first time the Tambrey have done a wedding so Sarah was quite stressed. We made the place look as nice as we could and to be fair it did look good once you dimmed the lights. I had to carry the cake from the office into the function room which was one of the most nerve racking things I've ever done. Imagine if I dropped it!

I got to work in the function that night which is always a treat to get off the main bar on a Saturday. I was looking forward to it. Weddings are usually quite fun. Not this one. I felt like I was at a wake! It wasn't that everyone was miserable but no one was exactly cheery. The groom didn't drink and it might be that his whole side of the family was the same. You don't need to be drunk to enjoy yourself though.

I think what capped it for me was the Father of the Bride speech. Imagine this in a monotone voice:

"I just want to thank everyone for coming. I want to welcome (the groom) to the family and I hope you enjoy your lives together."

That was literally it!!! I burst out laughing in disbelief at the back of the room. This was then followed by a load of giggling women, who were embarrassed to be on the microphone, whispering a brief congratulations. It was painful to watch.

Willy and Megan

A major event in August was the staff party. The one and only staff event that we had in the 6 months I was here and I have it on good authority it had been a lot longer than that since the last one. So many good stories to tell here.

Magan and Giuseppe

Giuseppe! I almost forgot him. Well, I tried quite hard to. He was this French guy who thought everything was "Crazy!" He was crazy! I found it so frustrating the way he would float around the floor not doing any work. No one else could get away with it. I suppose I have to give him credit that he managed to do it for so long and wasn't sacked. It was a regular occurrence I would be asked "Have you seen Giuseppe" and I wouldn't have seen him for about an hour. I took this picture because he had quite the way of creeping onto girls and Megan was quite weirded out by this!

Anyway the staff party. This is the only staff party I've ever been to where I did not get a least one free drink. We did get a bit of a BBQ but as I was working in a bar I expected to get at least one free drink. Danny, the GM, seemed to think he was being generous with giving us a 10% discount on drinks at the bottleshop.

The night was completely without a freebie though. Some prizes were given out for various things like Best Dressed etc. I won best nickname. No one in my life has ever called me 'shaggy'. Danny mentioned about a week before this that I looked like Shaggy off Scooby Doo but that's it. Then suddenly I'm winning best nickname for it. Since then Shaggy as a nickname I've had to become used to.

The staff!

Once everyone had arrived we sat and watched the most horrendous power point presentation I've ever witnessed. It was all very business like with "amusing" videos of work place type situations. It was all business and corporate speak that has absolutely no place in a bar. It would have been ok if it had been over quickly but it dragged on thanks to many, MANY, technical mishaps. We were kept entertained during this by Cory.

Originally from Tassie, Cory has lived all over Australia including Karratha, It was his very first day in the job and as he was back in town he had met up with some old friends and had been drinking all day. He was, therefore, quite drunk by now and kept heckling Danny which we all found quietly hilarious and incredible awkward. He didn't really know what to do about it and just carried on.

The presentation finished with us watching various CCTV clips of fails that had happened in the bar plus a few videos from when they put a fake snake in the bottleshop. I thought Ricky's reaction was the best when he jumped out of his skin but a lot of people seemed to think my reaction was the best. I was pushing the trolley to get so more stock and I saw it. I immediately thought it was fake but for some reason I thought I would give it a little prod with the trolley. Little did I know I would be publicly humiliated for this!

Quinn, Kate and Vicky

There was a few party games like this one eating a biscuit whilst downing a beer and the one where you try and get a biscuit from your head to your mouth without using your hands.

Eat the bickies

Beer time

After that it was time to drink. We weren't allowed to stay past 1 o'clock so we had to go find somewhere else to drink. Before that though there was a bit of fighting. For some reason Alice and Cassie decided to take on chief bouncer Ray in some judo type moves. I saw Cassie covered in bruises a couple of days later.

Fight

The hill is on fire

During one midweek day shift I noticed that the hill was on fire. There was big black ring on the side of the hill with flames around the outside. I pointed this out to a few people but no one seemed to all that bothered about the bushfire. I continued to spread slowly throughout the day to the point where most of the hill was black. Then I think the fire serviced put it out before it reached the houses.

We're drunk selfie

Another week and another night out. Mercedes nearly makes into that photo above. He doesn't seem to be in any photos. He's a young Kiwi that works in the kitchen and I got along with him really well. I always chatted to him when I walked through the kitchen and he would always put aside a parmi for me if there was one going spare. Legend! He's got some moves on the dancefloor too.

Drunk group photo

This I think was my favourite time in Karratha. I wasn't too fed up yet and we had a good group with the new people. Megan and Kate were awesome and I got along really well with the newly arrived Katie too. She was an actual Scottish person, not pretending, like Megan.

Karratha: Life in the Desert

July 2015

Into the second month in Karratha and the novelty of being back in work was wearing off. At least I had made it on to the bar by now which is much more of what I'm used too even if that does mean handing out waters to be big drunk miners and listen to people moan that they have to wait half an hour between shots. It was nice to be settled somewhere for the first time in a while and to make some new friends. I had got to know everyone quite well by now, just in time for everyone to leave.

The hill looking good in the sun

Within a few days of each other Hayley, Anji and Bella all left. This was just after Beki and Hayden had gone too. That's a good chunk of the team gone. I felt like I just got to know them and then they left. It meant that those that remained got more hours which was good but that also meant I had very few people around for my birthday.

Birthday drinks

I had planned to make my return trip to Karijini but as the people had left who I had planned to go with I decided not to go. I wouldn't have been able to get the time off either as there was very few staff at this point. Instead I opted for drinks around the Corbett house. It was a bit of a chilly day. Look at me wearing a jumper in Karratha! Mental! The pool was really cold so we didn't go in that either. I'm not really one for sitting around drinking, I'd rather be doing something but there isn't much to be done around here.

Bobbi's birthday

A week later it was Bobbi's birthday and we did exactly the same thing! I think we both found it a bit frustrating that the core of the group had gone and we hadn't quite found their replacements yet. Both our birthdays could have been awesome but we were in all in mourning.

When I went to bed this beastie was on my window.

Good evening

The next morning I woke up and the ground was wet. Apparently water had fallen from the sky in like these droplet type things. Really weird. I think you call it rain. It was the first rain I'd seen since I arrived 8 weeks previous. I thought that was a shockingly long time without rain but it was nothing.

Rain

This was the last time I saw significant rainfall in Karratha. I still had over 4 months left and it didn't rain once in that time. There was one night it was spitting a bit and I got really over excited but that was it. I really missed the rain by the end. I'm English, if I don't get raining on I dry up. Karratha was to remain hot and dry for the remainder of my stay.

When you try to fit 4 people and a bike in a car

At the end of July we lost another couple of staff. The German 'lesbians' moved on as well. They weren't actual lesbians. Everyone just thought they were because they were so touchy with each other. Them leaving was a good excuse for a rare staff photo.

Current crew

Point Sampson

At the end of the month a chose to get out of town on my day off. I drove over to Point Sampson which is about a 40 minute drive from Karratha. The beaches here are much nicer. I saw an octopus whilst I was paddling which was very exciting!

Squidly

Colourful rocks

I went around to Honeymoon Cove which is probably the nicest spot in the area. The jagged rocks are quite colourful and the water would be nice to swim in if it were a bit warmer. Its only 25C outside. Far to cold to be getting wet!

Honeymoon Cove

The Indian Ocean

Sharp rocks

It was just about to leave this very pleasant beach when I came across a rotting turtle that was really stinking. Not so pleasant.

Ew

Next stop on my exciting adventure out of town was to Cossack which immediately became my favourite place in this whole area. The lookout out gave 360 degree views of the beach and the river estuary. It really was spectacular. I vowed to return to this place before I left but I left it too long and the flies and multiplied by a billion which made it impossible to get out of the car without wanting to self harm.

Nearly like Whitsundays

End of the river

Just before I headed back to the bright lights of K city I stopped off at Wyndam for a touristy pick with the huge truck that was parked just outside of the town.

Got myself a massive truck

I drove back to town and the next day I was back at work. I really needed a good night out by this point. I hadn't been out for a very long time thanks to some weird hip injury I managed to give myself and I was starting to go a little crazy. That drought was about to end. Spectacularly.