More Stories to Come Soon

JB has arrived in Brisbane and we are headed to Cairns for lots of adventures tomorrow. More stories to come…

A St Patrick’s Day to Remember

Work in the office was quite slow this week, although we finally made it out to the field on Friday! We got to go to the Brisbane airport! We went out to check on the CPT rig and get site orientations before heading out to observe some drilling on Monday. We watched planes take off and land right next to us! We also had very exciting St Patrick’s Day! Unescorted by an Aussie, Jill and I decided to hit the town on a lively night. The night was full of surprises: a live band, a quick assault by a VERY drunk guy, I got punched in the head (it was a mistake and he apologized), drinks bought for both Jill and I by a true Irishman, and a fancy dinner bought for us by an Aussie bloke! The night (and the next day) was a success filled with laughter and fun! I am excited to get behind my first Australian drill rig on Monday after waiting for more than 4 weeks.

AAAHHHH!!!

I just saw my very first, honest and true ring tailed opossum! I actually almost felt it! I was taking my nightly run on the trail along the Brisbane River, when I came to a narrow section in the trail. As I was running along the left side (just like the cars) the railing was about elbow height. I was running along, minding my own business when I was startled by a figure just off my elbow. I ran past it and caught a glimmer in its eye. I stopped turned around and realized that an opossum was just sitting there on the railing. Two local gals walked up soon behind me and confirmed my suspicions! It was much cutter than the opossums we have in Woodinville! I have a second reason for my screams today… my hubbie is coming for a visit! Our drilling has been postponed until the 6th of April, so what a better a time than for a ‘holiday’ (ie: vacation)! He will be here a little less than a week, so I have a lot of planning to do. Better go and work in it!

Lighthouses

The weekend was filled with wind, rain, more wind, and two lighthouses. Jill and I rented a car and successfully drove to Fingal Holiday Park on Friday night. After arriving afterhours in the dark, we successfully checked in and set up our tent on the grassy lawn with about 10 other campers in a 40 campsite area. The sleeping, however, was not as successful, the wind blew so hard that I thought we might end up like Dorothy and get blown into the sky. We awoke to a beautiful day that continued to be windy. It didn’t end up like the perfect beach day as we had hoped for so we headed to Byron Bay. A cute little hippy town at the most easterly point of Australia mainland. At the most eastern point was a large lighthouse with lots of walking trails all the way to the beachfront. Sunday ended up being just as stormy, so we headed back to Brisbane the scenic way while stopping to admire the Fingal Head Lighthouse with the well-formed columnar basalts. We also saw dolphins playing in the waves while visiting both lighthouses! We drove in and out of extremely heavy rain storms, but made it back to Brisbane safely.

South Beach

Well is it Friday at lunch time and it is almost time to head out for another weekend adventure! Jill and I are heading to the beach (Fingal Holiday Park) for a weekend of camping, surfing, snorkeling, and of course relaxing. We are picking up our rental car in a few short hours. The week has gone by quickly! I have been running and biking all over Brisbane. I even went on a run towards the top of Mount Coot-Tha (photo at the top of this blog). I didn’t quite make it to the top, but I will next time. I also went for a swim this morning at South Bank in a man-made sandy beach “pool”. It was amazing! The water was warm and clear, the sun was shining, and it was of course warm. Now all we need is for this perfect warm and sunny weather to continue through the weekend. As for work, it has been kind of boring in the office doing busy work. Our fieldwork has been postponed as the flood waters are taking their time receding. The hope is to be out in the bush drilling in two weeks, but only Mother Nature has control our future for that.

Leeches, wallabies, leeches, leeches, and more leeches

Jill and I met up with a guy from work, Shaw, on Friday after work to head down to the Green Mountain section of Lamington National Forest for a weekend of camping and adventure. After a three hour drive with the last hour of the drive through extremely narrow and windy roads, we finally arrived at the beautiful campsite. The campsite had about 20 level, gravel pads for tent set-up. There were three other tents in the entire place, so we got a great site. We woke up to a beautiful view of the valley with wallabies all around us. They are so cute! We decided on a 20.6 km (12.8 mile) hike through waterfalls and lookout points. The weather didn’t do us any favors because it rained throughout our entire hike. And the rain brought out the leeches by the millions! About 20 minutes into the hike we realized that we were covered in leeches. About an hour later, after almost turning back, we realized that Skin-So-Soft was doing the trick. Lucky for us, the leeches hated it! We continued to find them throughout the next morning, but you could feel when their fangs went into your skin, so I don’t think we lost too much blood. It may have been raining in the rainforest, but the temperature was still pretty high and kept us warm throughout the adventure. Sunday morning we decided we had enough of the leeches and headed for the beaches of the Gold Coast. It was hot and party sunny. The sand was soft, the waves were big, and water was warm (about 80 degrees). We had a wonderful weekend and can’t wait for our next adventure!

Strange Words

G’day Mate! Since arriving in Australia I have heard a variety of new words. Some of the words are uncommon to me while others are just comical slang words. Yesterday Jill and I learned two words with the same meaning: Budgerigar smugglers and TD. Know what they are? The other one that is similar is: toggs.

Well, the rain continues, but I was able to get in a short bike ride this morning before heading into the office. The bike trails run along the river bank, it is beautiful! I will have to bring my camera on my next ride. Jill and I are planning for our weekend of fun adventures in the Lamington National Forest. A fellow from the office has offered to drive and accompany us. Should be quite the adventure. Cheers!

Less Rain More Humidity

The rain was gone and the high humidity was back for my morning run along the Brisbane River. Instead of finishing being soaking wet with rain, I was soaking wet with sweat once again. There has been a lot of talk on the news about flooding all over Australia. The rain has also caused a delay in our field work; the actual real reason I am here in Australia. Our drilling has been pushed back two weeks but we have been asked to help out with the geohazard reconnaissance. Basically this means we will be walking the pipeline alignment looking for things like erosion, landslides, etc. We are hoping not to have any more rain so that the roads can dry out and we can go out to site on Monday. The soils here have a very high clay content which causes the roads to be very slick and boggy when wet, which is the reason there is not field work when it rains. A crazy concept for us Seattleites. Can you imagine if we didn’t work in the rain? I reckon that’s all for now.

Kangaroo and Bats

After being in Brisbane for over a week, I have decided to start my own blog. My goal is for my posts to be short & sweet but often. To sum up my first week, it was awesome and humid. After traveling over the Pacific Ocean overnight for 13 hours in first class, I was well rested and ready to start my adventures in Australia. I have traveled to Australia to work for Golder with a fellow co-worker, Jill. Another co-worker that transferred to the Brisbane office 1.5 years back, Mitch picked Jill and me up from the airport. He was awesome and showed us all around Brisbane for the first weekend. We visited South Bank, the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, and viewed Brisbane from the top of Mt Coot-Tha. The sanctuary introduced us to all of the animals, good and bad, that we will see here. The kangaroo was the softest animal! The first week in the office was a bunch of training, but yesterday changed. We went out to a 4-wheel drive training class and ripped it up! It was a blast and we saw our first wild kangaroo. Unfortunately the kangaroo was along the side of the road… sad. Jill and I ventured out on a run/walk last night and saw a lot of bats. When I say bats, I mean big bats! Batman sized bats! Yikes! I hope to only ever see those flying far away. That’s it for now. Cheers!