Emerald, Tieri and Rolleston
So, I’m into month 2 here in Australia and I will be spending a significant amount of it away from home. Over the course of November I am set to visit 4 mine sites and one shared services centre in 5 different towns across 2 states. I’m pretty much going to be away during the week and back in Sydney on the weekends for the next month. While being away from Sydney is not ideal, given that I was finally just getting settled, the experience so far has actually been quite interesting, so I thought I would discuss it.
Trip One: Sydney->Brisbane->Emerald->Tieri->Emerald->Sydney
My first trip away was one week long; up to Northern Queensland for 5 days for work at 2 coal mines. I left Sydney Sunday evening and arrived up in Brisbane around 9pm. Its a tough trip because to get to the northern mine site you have to get a very very early flight out of Brisbane on Monday morning... which means we had to spend the night at an airport hotel in Brisbane.
I was up at the horrendous hour of 4:30am Monday morning to get a 5:45am flight to Emerald. I think this is one of the few times I’ve ever seen 4:30am sober; usually if I’m up at that time, I’m stumbling around outside of some bar somewhere. The flight was actually quite interesting. It was me, my 2 colleagues and 80 miners (all in uniform). No matter what mine they work on (and there are a lot of big ones in that region; Rio Tinto, Xstrata, etc), the uniform is the same - navy and neon yellow. The only difference is the patch on the chest that says which mine they belong too.
We arrived in the lovely town of Emerald and drove about an hour north to the tiny mining town of Tieri. The entire town was built by the mining company. We stopped at a terrible “cafe” on the way up for breakfast. The woman behind the counter seemed really fascinated with me; she wanted to know where my accent is from. She then asked me if I was there on vacation..... which seems like a strange question given that I don’t think anyone has ever been to Tieri on vacation.
We spent 3 days at the mine site in Tieri. I didn’t get to go down underground, but apparently will get to next time I come up. Despite not actually going down, I ended up covered in coal pretty much anytime I stepped outside; coal on my hands, elbows, face, etc. It’s just in the air and on everything you touch outside.
The town of Tieri was interesting. There are no hotels so we stayed in a house owned by the mining company for out of town visitors. There were 3 of us (me and 2 guys) and only one bathroom. Not ideal living conditions, but the house itself was nice enough. Better than some sketch motel.
Monday night we went to the only pub in town.... it was super ghetto. You would think that a pub in a mining town would be bumping, but it was dead. We were pretty much the only people there. Tuesday night we went for dinner with the client. They took us to a little cafe in the “shopping centre” which looked like a little nothing of a place. Looked like the sort of place you might get a mediocre sandwich from at lunch. The food turned out to be fantastic. I had an excellent steak from Tasmania. Would have never guessed that in this tiny town, there would be a good restaurant.
Breakfast was served every day in the mess hall. I’m pretty sure I was the only female who has been in there all month. Its a full buffet breakfast; bacon, eggs, toast, cereal, etc. We sat and ate amongst the miners. There is a kitchen attached to the hall where you can make a bagged lunch. I made myself a sandwich and salad in the kitchen amongst 5 large miners (in uniform). It was definitely an interesting experience.
Thursday and Friday were spent at site number two in the town of Rolleston. Compared to Rolleston, Tieri seemed like New York. Accommodation in Rolleston was not available, so we were stuck staying in Emerald and commuting 1.5 hours each way both days. At first this seemed like a huge inconvenience... until I my colleagues told me about what it was like to stay in Rolleston.... then I realized staying in Emerald was like staying in paradise. Had we stayed in Rolleston we would have been staying at the camp... which was literally containers turned into bedrooms. The windows are sawed out holes in the sides of the containers and the bathroom is right in the room with your bed. All meals are served at the mess hall.
We stayed at two different motels in Emerald on the two different nights. I’ll tell you, owning a motel in Emerald would not be a bad business. We paid $218 per room for the first night, and the place was a dive. When we checked in, the receptionist asked if we wanted a glass of milk, which I thought was an unusual offering. Not unexpected though... the people in the small towns are so quirky. One thing a lot of them seem to do is say “yous”... like “how yous doing?” or “would yous like a glass of milk?” It was driving my colleague Nick (who is an Aussie) crazy. “YOU is the plural of YOU.” I also tried ordering sunny side up eggs at one restaurant. If she didn’t understand what I meant, she should have asked; instead I got hard poached. Didnt think sunny side up was that tough of a request
The Rolleston site is opencut, so different than the other mine. Upon arriving I had to do a safety lesson and watch a bunch of short videos. My colleague had already been on site before, so he got to skip it. I understand the need to take safety seriously on a mine site, but we had a couple instances where someone told us off for the stupidest stuff. Like on the Thursday, we had parked the car outside the office and were waiting for our last colleague to come out and this guy came over and told us off like we were 5 year olds. Apparently safety rules say you need to reverse stall park (and we pulled in front first). When I pointed out that there was no sign that said that, and that it wasn’t mentioned in my safety induction, he told me it should have been obvious, because most of the other cars in the lot were reversed stall parked. Then the next morning, he came through the office and said “did we park correctly this morning?” Such a jerk. I don’t understand what is safer about reverse stall parking, other than that it’s easier to pull out after.
Friday afternoon we drove an hour and a half back to Emerald and then I had an hour flight to Brisbane and an hour flight to Sydney. The whole trip took nearly 6 hours, so it was actually a long day of travel. I kept my self occupied with the free alcohol they served on both flights.
Next week is Brisbane. I have been writing down some of the more interesting Sydney things that have been happening over the past few weeks... I’ll post that sometime soon.
Trip One: Sydney->Brisbane->Emerald->Tieri->Emerald->Sydney
My first trip away was one week long; up to Northern Queensland for 5 days for work at 2 coal mines. I left Sydney Sunday evening and arrived up in Brisbane around 9pm. Its a tough trip because to get to the northern mine site you have to get a very very early flight out of Brisbane on Monday morning... which means we had to spend the night at an airport hotel in Brisbane.
I was up at the horrendous hour of 4:30am Monday morning to get a 5:45am flight to Emerald. I think this is one of the few times I’ve ever seen 4:30am sober; usually if I’m up at that time, I’m stumbling around outside of some bar somewhere. The flight was actually quite interesting. It was me, my 2 colleagues and 80 miners (all in uniform). No matter what mine they work on (and there are a lot of big ones in that region; Rio Tinto, Xstrata, etc), the uniform is the same - navy and neon yellow. The only difference is the patch on the chest that says which mine they belong too.
We arrived in the lovely town of Emerald and drove about an hour north to the tiny mining town of Tieri. The entire town was built by the mining company. We stopped at a terrible “cafe” on the way up for breakfast. The woman behind the counter seemed really fascinated with me; she wanted to know where my accent is from. She then asked me if I was there on vacation..... which seems like a strange question given that I don’t think anyone has ever been to Tieri on vacation.
We spent 3 days at the mine site in Tieri. I didn’t get to go down underground, but apparently will get to next time I come up. Despite not actually going down, I ended up covered in coal pretty much anytime I stepped outside; coal on my hands, elbows, face, etc. It’s just in the air and on everything you touch outside.
The town of Tieri was interesting. There are no hotels so we stayed in a house owned by the mining company for out of town visitors. There were 3 of us (me and 2 guys) and only one bathroom. Not ideal living conditions, but the house itself was nice enough. Better than some sketch motel.
Monday night we went to the only pub in town.... it was super ghetto. You would think that a pub in a mining town would be bumping, but it was dead. We were pretty much the only people there. Tuesday night we went for dinner with the client. They took us to a little cafe in the “shopping centre” which looked like a little nothing of a place. Looked like the sort of place you might get a mediocre sandwich from at lunch. The food turned out to be fantastic. I had an excellent steak from Tasmania. Would have never guessed that in this tiny town, there would be a good restaurant.
Breakfast was served every day in the mess hall. I’m pretty sure I was the only female who has been in there all month. Its a full buffet breakfast; bacon, eggs, toast, cereal, etc. We sat and ate amongst the miners. There is a kitchen attached to the hall where you can make a bagged lunch. I made myself a sandwich and salad in the kitchen amongst 5 large miners (in uniform). It was definitely an interesting experience.
Thursday and Friday were spent at site number two in the town of Rolleston. Compared to Rolleston, Tieri seemed like New York. Accommodation in Rolleston was not available, so we were stuck staying in Emerald and commuting 1.5 hours each way both days. At first this seemed like a huge inconvenience... until I my colleagues told me about what it was like to stay in Rolleston.... then I realized staying in Emerald was like staying in paradise. Had we stayed in Rolleston we would have been staying at the camp... which was literally containers turned into bedrooms. The windows are sawed out holes in the sides of the containers and the bathroom is right in the room with your bed. All meals are served at the mess hall.
We stayed at two different motels in Emerald on the two different nights. I’ll tell you, owning a motel in Emerald would not be a bad business. We paid $218 per room for the first night, and the place was a dive. When we checked in, the receptionist asked if we wanted a glass of milk, which I thought was an unusual offering. Not unexpected though... the people in the small towns are so quirky. One thing a lot of them seem to do is say “yous”... like “how yous doing?” or “would yous like a glass of milk?” It was driving my colleague Nick (who is an Aussie) crazy. “YOU is the plural of YOU.” I also tried ordering sunny side up eggs at one restaurant. If she didn’t understand what I meant, she should have asked; instead I got hard poached. Didnt think sunny side up was that tough of a request
The Rolleston site is opencut, so different than the other mine. Upon arriving I had to do a safety lesson and watch a bunch of short videos. My colleague had already been on site before, so he got to skip it. I understand the need to take safety seriously on a mine site, but we had a couple instances where someone told us off for the stupidest stuff. Like on the Thursday, we had parked the car outside the office and were waiting for our last colleague to come out and this guy came over and told us off like we were 5 year olds. Apparently safety rules say you need to reverse stall park (and we pulled in front first). When I pointed out that there was no sign that said that, and that it wasn’t mentioned in my safety induction, he told me it should have been obvious, because most of the other cars in the lot were reversed stall parked. Then the next morning, he came through the office and said “did we park correctly this morning?” Such a jerk. I don’t understand what is safer about reverse stall parking, other than that it’s easier to pull out after.
Friday afternoon we drove an hour and a half back to Emerald and then I had an hour flight to Brisbane and an hour flight to Sydney. The whole trip took nearly 6 hours, so it was actually a long day of travel. I kept my self occupied with the free alcohol they served on both flights.
Next week is Brisbane. I have been writing down some of the more interesting Sydney things that have been happening over the past few weeks... I’ll post that sometime soon.
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