Life in Canga

Gosh, it's September already (happy Father's Day Dad).  Where did August go?  Well it dissapeared under a big workload at Canga and a flying visit home with a quick side trip to Paris and Biarritz.

There's been a safety audit here on site which has taken up a big chunk of my time at work.  Now it's finally over and although still busy, there's time to breath at least.

Every day on camp except Sundays, we start at 7am with Flag.  There's a lovely solemn raising of the Guinean flag followed by the morning's announcements and/or safety topics.  7am is just a leeettle on the difficult side, but I'm pretty well adjusted now.

From there it's off to day's work, which is usually a mix of trying to get on top of some things interspersed with a thousand little things, often bizarre, which pop up during the day.  But one of the best things here is that everything is done for me - it's very hard going home and having to do my own laundry, cooking, cleaning etc!

Not that I was home for long last time, just a couple of days then off to a meeting in Paris.  While I was there I tried to go and vote at the Australian embassy but unfortunately I was a day late (they were shut on the Saturday).  Still, made for a great time cycling around the empty streets of Paris on a balmy August morning with a friend from Newcastle.  He pointed out that the embassy wasn't that difficult to find.... just look for the big poster advertising the outback.

And why were the streets of Paris all empty?  Well, everyone else was in Biarritz.  I had a few days spare and so I decided to go to the beach somewhere.  The Mediterrean really doesn't do much for me because the sea's just a giant bathtub and I prefer waves with my sand.  So I went down to the Atlantic. 

I wasn't the only person with that idea as you can see from the photo!  I hadn't really planned it at all... just jumped on a train and then noticed how many other people were getting on the same train!  I got to Biarritz, caught the bus into the tourist centre and found that there were exactly 0 rooms available.  Fortunately I found something perfectly adequate in the end so I didn't have to sleep on the beach.

And it certainly wasn't as bad as it looked.  Particularly in the morning I was able to find lovely stretches of beach and waves to play in.  The whole coastline was beautiful, and so I also spent hours walking.

I think that Biarritz was a favourite Edwardian era desitination for the Brits and you can tell from the architecture (ok, and also from all of the royally named hotels and streets!).

And then it was back to Guinea.  I finally had the chance to get out of the camp and up to Mt Oueleba, from which I took this photo of Pic de Fon.  Both mountains are going to be mined which is a bit of a pity because they are spectacularly beautiful.