Shopping

I'm back in Mossley for 2 weeks R&R, which haven't been the best two weeks as I picked up some sort of tummy bug on my way out of Conakry.  Still... time to catch up and get a few things done.

One of those things was to pick up some more clothes to wear on site, as we're still waiting for proper uniforms to come through.  So naturally I headed to Primark.

Primark is a place that seems to defy the laws of economics.  For example, I picked up several t-shirts for £1 each.  How do they grow the cotton, process it, ship it to the factory in China, make the t-shirt, ship it to the UK, stock it and sell it for one pound and still make money?  I don't know, but I'm still going to take advantage of it.

It's a massive store over 3 levels and so it's usually absolutely packed.  If I want to practice my French I just go there - the place is a revelation to the French girls who normally have to pay a fortune for clothes back home.  The queue for the changing rooms is generally about 50 m long.  Fortunately with prices like this you don't need to try anything on!  Last time I bought  jeans (£6) I simply picked up two different sizes and skipped the queues.  Well, at least the changing queue.... still had to face up to the payment queue.  I've seriously considered trying to pay someone at the front of the queue to swap places with me - the place is full of kids with little money (clearly, they queue up to try things on) so that could work.  Or bribing the security guards.  Or something.

Fortunately now it's summer holidays in Britain and so it wasn't too bad yesterday... in and out in no time with a huge bag of clothes for about £30.

Now let's contrast that to getting a visa to visit Nigeria, something I'm currently investigating.  Nigerian embassy in Canberra charges $20.  Nigerian Embassy in London charges £20.  Clearly that's one to add to my "it's way more expensive in the UK list".

Finally on the topic of weird pricing regimes - how come it is more expensive to fly Dubai-Brisbane than Paris-Dubai-Brisbane????

On the move again

So, it's back on the move again.  And this time even further south than Sicily.  When I left home, I started in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, then moved to Manchester, then spent 8 months in Sicilia, and now I'm working in Guinea.  Before you know it I'll have crossed the equator!  In fact, despite being a little north of the equator still, on clear night I could see the Southern Cross, larger and lower than I've ever seen it before.  It brought a wee lump to my throat.

Rio Tinto are trying to develop a new iron ore mine in south-eastern corner of the kidney bean that is Guinea, in West Africa.

At the moment they've just got a geology camp there, supporting the drill rigs that are taking samples to build up knowledge of the ore body.  The camp has grown out of what was once literally a camp, a few geologists in tents with shovels.  Then things looked promising in this area, so they decided to put down concrete pads for the tents, then build huts, and gradually the place grew into a conglomerate of odd buildings.  I've gone out to help sort out a few of the inevitable growing pains.

I spent several mornings trying to get decent photos of the spectacular sunrise coming up through the sea of mist rising from the valley.  Unfortunately as you can I'll never be much of a photographer.... these pictures don't go close to capturing the beauty.  I'll try harder next rotation..

Simandou is (sorry, was) an almost completely untouched part of the world, with a Class A forest reserve and the camp sits about half way up the mountain Pic de Fon, which you can see shrouded in mist in the background of this next picture. 

It also shows the main road through the camp, with that tell-tale red dirt so reminiscent of my time in the Pilbara.  I'm doing a 4 week on, 2 week off "FIFO" (fly in, fly out) rotation, and those 4 weeks on were not only hard work but also something of a health camp.  You can see in the distance the accommodation blocks and by this stage I've not yet made it down to my office.  By the time I went up and down to the mess for lunch, up to the rooms to get changed, down to the gym (way over the other side), back up for a shower, maybe back down for a drink at the bar, over to the mess for dinner.... I reckon I covered about 5 km a day!

Every day except for Sunday starts with Flag, where every one gathers round for the raising of the Guinean nation flag and a few announcements.  I'd love to take a photo of that but I was a bit worried about offending somebody, as the protocols are reasonably strict.  Still, maybe I'll work up the courage next time.

(This means that Sundays are a special kind of sleep-in bliss.... Flag is at 07:00).

This is more or less the view from my office, looking out over the Construction group's carpark.  I do like the way they've marked out the bays :). 

We're some 700 km from the capital city of Conakry, in one of the poorest countries in the world, so somethings are a little hard to come by.  Still, I hear it's much better than it was.  One of the geologists who has been there for years still can't quite believe the luxury of ice cream at dinner.  We have a couple of bars, two gyms, and plans for various other leisure facilities...

We are, however, lacking a lawnmower for the football field, meaning it gets cut with a whipper snipper.

Some nights, rather than go to the gym, I go for a walk up to the "Pit".  Obviously it's still a very intact mountain rather than  open cut mine at this stage, but we're getting ready early!

The walk up the hill takes (me) about half an hour and it's well worth it for the views and the tranquillity.  As you go up past the helicopters, the noise (not that much really) and lights of the camp recede behind you and all you hear are the chirping of some very, very big insects and very small birds and the breeze through the long grass. 

The valley down below is more wooded but there are still quite a few trees up the mountain.  Everything is lush green as we're at the start of the rainy season.  On this evening's stroll I managed to get absolutely soaking wet!  The lightning display nature put on for as the sun disappeared was well worth it though.

Coming back to the camp I tried once more to get a picture of the valley with limited success.