Neil's Donger!!

Arrhhh....now I have your attention, let me tell you about Newman and Neil's work.

Neil works in Newman - which is a 1hour 40 minute plane ride from Perth or about 12-15 hours in the car. This is what the the typical scenery is like. It's all Red Dirt and Neil said it's quite bland and boring. The Red Dirt is called Ocher and is like a paint pigment. It stains everything - cards, diggers, your boots & clothes too.

This pic shows a 200 tonne dump truck going up one of the mine roads.

This is Neil's Donger - which is what they call their sleeping quarters. It's in one of big camps that all the mine workers stay in. Neils room is on the far right. Each room is about 5m x 5m and includes an en suite, fridge and TV. For meals they go to the Mess Hall. All meals are supplied. It sounds like they are well fed too.

This is the Iron Ore Train that is heading for Port Headland. These trains go daily from the mine and are approximately 112 carriages long. There is about 100 tonne of Iron Ore per carriage which is equal to about $185K per carriage. That's alot of $$$$!! After all costs are paid it = about 4 million $$ per train. Neil said this is a small sized operation and there are about 34 other operations running around Australia.

The digger Neil operates is bigger than the one we had in NZ. Here he is doing Rehab work - which means he is pulling the old drill pads back to the original contour of the land.