fourcorners

I know, and here it's been the hottest week I can remember, it's been 39+ since last Thursday or so! 40C today, then we're in Perth tomorrow for a few hours at 29C, then 3C when we arrive at Manchester at 7am!

1 day left!

12 days in Australia left!

3 and a half months, more or less. Can't wait to book our flights!

I'm hoping we'll be leaving around the same time, where we'll end up I don't know yet....

Yes, will certainly be interesting whichever way it works out! Although the way work is going I could happily jump on a plane this evening.

My OH has just applied for a job in the UK, we knew it might be coming up, a little sooner than expected but I'm not complaining. Makes me wonder now will our daughter be born here or there....

Haven't had a wombat on here yet. One of my colleagues and his girlfriend run a wildlife rehab centre. They were brought 'Wandy' last year as a baby. They didn't intend to keep her here as wombats don't generally hang out this way, they're normally found further east. The centre that was going to take her in couldn't at the last minute so she's stayed at Coolgardie. She goes out in the car, sleeps in the bed, gets grumpy and has a tendency to bite! And this is Eric, an emu who has been terrorising our new mill construction area. He's been a bit of a nuisance so he was captured (which as you can see wasn't too much of a struggle!). He was then taken to Coolgardie to the wildlife sanctuary but promptly jumped the fence and 48 hours later was back at the construction site, a distance of over 30km. He has since been re-captured and put in a pen to help him settle down. There's another fairly tame emu called Archie there so we hope they'll become friends (although we don't know what sex either of them are). All started when we had drill rigs on site before the construction commenced, and Eric hung around the drill rig. The drillers fed him ferrero rochers and Shapes. Despite us telling contractors not to feed him they still did, no wonder he hung around!

Hopefully about 1 year for us, barring any strange events!

We used Wridgeways when we first moved from Kalgoorlie to Vancouver, and we found them to be excellent. I think it depends on which depot and which lot of packers you get, ours were really friendly and helpful. Chess were the Australian movers when we moved from the UK to Kalgoorlie 2 years ago. We had used Britannia on the UK side who were really good - packed everything really well, very appreciative of some nice coffees (we had to use up all our tassimo discs!), and we all sat down together at lunch time to watch Bargain Hunt! Chess on the other hand had misread our address and thought we were in Perth, so they were put out when they realised they had to come out to Kalgoorlie and decided to do it all in one day. Suffice to say they didn't have time to unpack or remove any packaging except for one kitchen box. And from that box they managed to lose two small items, one a lid for a handmade garlic pot and the other the flat base for a flan tin. I think it was because they were small items and they didn't check through all the paper in the box. I was pretty annoyed about this even though they were pretty low value things. To think they made it all the way to Kal to get thrown away at the last moment! Anyway, everything else arrived in perfect condition. Chess were actually fairly accommodating when we picked the motorbike up from their depot in Perth, and they had unpacked that well it didn't have a mark on it, but that's probably more due to the good packing and care taken by Britannia in the UK. We've never used Pickfords, always found them to be far too expensive compared to other quotes.

Wendee, it's talking about the same brands. Everyone knows different brands will taste differently, but people may be intrigued to know that Cadbury's in the UK tastes batter than Australian Cadbury's (in my opinion anyway). I do wish you would stop trying to pick arguments.

Ireland would be nice, saw a job recently for a Resource Geo in Northern Ireland for Dalradian Resources, and thought if that came up in 2 or 3 years I would be on it like a shot! Applying for chartership this year so that should open a few more doors in the future. Not so critical now as we're not listed at the moment, which is an interesting position to be in. I've always reckoned Greenland would be really interesting. Just love the thought of glaciers receding and revealing beautiful big massive sulphide zones! Sorry, totally off track from the original post! But yeah, lets just say that in a few years if the right job or opportunity comes up in Europe, it will be an easy choice for me to make.

Comes down to other factors though, as well as taking into account salary (and I've just had a $15k payrise thanks very much!), we also took into account both being able to work in the same town on residential rosters, but for different companies. So we get to see each other every day, but we don't have all our eggs in one basket, which I'm thankful about at the moment. My company is doing very well and looking to expand next year (one of the only ones in Kal that is), whereas my OH's company is taking more drastic cost-cutting measures and aren't hiring anyone, not even replacements. We had to balance earning potential against liveability. Going anywhere else would invariably involve FIFO, which has it's own costs and ain't no good if you're thinking of having a family any time soon. For a couple where both halves are in the mining industry, living somewhere like Kal allows us to be together but also progress our careers. We also don't need more money than what we're earning right now, only greed would make us want FIFO jobs for more money. One of our incomes goes back to the UK and is paying off our mortgage. in 12 to 15 months time I'll hopefully be writing a post in PIO saying we've just paid off our house in Cornwall after 4 years of owning it (first time buyers). No-one I know in the UK could ever dream of doing that and for that reason alone I'm incredibly grateful for our earning potential in Australia. All my friends back home are on their 25 year mortgages and they'll take 25 years to pay them off. I have a friend working in Mali as a Senior Geotechnical Engineer. He counts down the weeks to go in terms of burgers. Every sunday they have burgers, so on Facebook I see comments like '4 burgers to go'. Having experienced something similar, I don't envy that.

For us the first time we left Australia was because we used to get very bored. We lived (and now live again) in the outback, and it does get exceedingly boring some weekends. Feels like it's all about work and we work long hours. Plus don't get as much time off as in the UK, which makes holidaying a bit tricky as there is always the battle between going back to the UK for a holiday (and pressure from family to do so) or exploring a bit more down here. The second time round, we're back in the outback, but made choices this time round to combat the boredom a bit more. We have a nicer house with a nicer garden, so it's a nicer environment to be bored in! Plus we have invested in hobbies that we can do here. OH bought a chainsaw and that keeps him busy when summer cools down a little. I do lots of crafts and stuff I can do inside when it's baking hot outside. I do lots of cooking and baking but have to limit that as its not so good for the waistline! I think others, in our shoes, would not find our lifestyle that boring, but I think we are nomads at heart and struggle to stay in one spot for too long. Some folks are happy sitting in front of the tv most nights but that does our heads in! I miss the UK every day. Not just family and friends but the landscape, lack of flies, lack of red dirt, the sea (we lived in Cornwall), the huge variety of things to do outside all year round, healthcare system (I have yet to find a doctor here that I think really cares about people). But, having said all that, right now the money makes up for those things. One day it won't be and we will move back home. I don't regret either move out here, Australia has given us a huge amount in terms of our career development and cash in the bank, and we love the opportunity to live in other countries and hopefully do a bit more travelling here. At the end of the day if we decided tonight that we want to move back, we could put steps in motion tomorrow, and be back within a few months. Knowing that we have that option open to us has actually helped me settle more. I don't feel trapped, and I know that the option is there should we need it. Meanwhile, we shall continue to enjoy the adventure, even if it is sometimes a bit dull!

Oo where were you in the Arctic Circle? I worked for a couple of weeks for Newmont at Hope Bay. That was monotonous as hell hence me scarpering off to a more interesting project. I think mine production can be pretty boring but I'm now a Resource Geo which is pretty cushy, although later this year I'll be applying for Competent Person status and will sign off all the resource for our company, eek! Which is a hell of a lot more responsible than any miners position, but I'll still be earning a lot less than even a jumbo operator. Hope they give me a decent pay rise... Also the monotony is why I went for a residential job when we moved to Oz. I'd had enough of FIFO! But those of us on a 5/2 residential roster end up working 6 hours more per fortnight than the miners, and 10 hours more per fortnight than the production geos and engineers. Ah well! But then again whilst geo's have the potential to earn far more over their career, you still don't come across many geos in the 40's or 50's. Particularly not in Oz. Our Exploration Manager is 32 years old, and thinks he knows it all unfortunately. I heard that in the last mining crash all the geo's went to be taxi drivers in Perth and never wanted to come back when it started picking up again!

$75k is about right for truckies/nippers just starting underground. This is still a lot of money for someone with no experience! Our miners work 7 days on, 7 days off then 7 nights on, 7 days off, they have it pretty cushy. We are advertising for truckies right now but only looking for people already living in Kal with truckie experience. Our graduate geologist started last year on $80k. Her wage will progress more slowly than a miners, and she has a 4 year Masters degree for which she is $100k in debt. So $75k for a job with no prior experience and no qualifications is pretty good in my book! The big money comes later on when you're an experienced miner using the more technical machinery like the twin boom jumbo or long hole blasthole rig. Unfortunately, and this is life, but even in mining booms you can't expect companies to ship whole families across the world who are unskilled. For unskilled positions they're going to try and hire from as close to home as possible. Our company will only relocate technical staff, and even then try and hire locally if possible. It's taken me 10 years (4 years of university and 6 years working) to get to the position I'm in.

The standard personal import scheme allows you to import one vehicle in your name. You might be able to transfer the vehicle to your wife/partner if they have been on the insurance for it and had regular use for the 12 months before import. Under the personal import scheme you can't sell the vehicle during the first year it is in Australia. Iron Chef might know of other ways to do things though.....

Hi David, Unless the VW camper is older than 1989 you would really struggle to import it if you haven't owned it for 12 months. The only other way is to get a letter of compliance - we tried that with our motorbike and Suzuki Australia couldn't help us. We owned the bike for 11.5 months prior to us flying but they approved the importation, so there is a little leeway. Lauren

Has anyone had any success using the 'Letter of Compliance' method of importing a motorbike? As my other half will miss out on the 12 months of ownership by a measly 1 week! We have been making enquiries with Suzuki Australia to try and get a letter of compliance from them. Went round in a couple of circles and ended up speaking to the same gal at Suzuki, who will be trying to help us. I can't imagine that a GSX-R750 made for the Australian market is much different to one made for the UK market??

That's fairly comprehensive. But there is another way. When I worked there from 2006-2008 in Kalgoorlie we hired any old person off the streets to be an underground sampler. We had hairdressers, pet shop workers, waitresses etc. We gave them all the training, including general Barrick induction, mine induction, underground induction, underground driving training, lots of H&S courses, fork lift tickets. They usually stayed a sampler (back then it was around $55k) for about 6-9 months then they all went on to drive the trucks in the mine (50 t Toro's). Then they were suddenly miners earning $70-80k. And we would have to start from scratch again training another sampler (I usually did all the training). We would only take on people who were living in town and ready to start. Mainly, we hired women as men always thought sampling was beneath them. They would usually only hire truck drivers if they had truck experience, but our samplers already knew the mine layout, comms systems etc, and ladies make excellent truck drivers. But I don't know why you'd want to drive a truck, I would have slit my wrists on the first shift!