I've been working on the railroad

Gladstone, 550km north of Brisbane, is Queensland's largest port and busiest harbour. It is home to the world's largest alumina plant and is the site of major industries. Gladstone is situated between the Calliope River and the Boyne River. Both rivers lead into the deep water harbour off the shores of Port Curtis. The city of Gladstone is developed on hills overlooking the focal point of its economic development - the natural deepwater harbour.

It was in the year 1770 when Captain Cook first stepped onto a beautiful stretch of beach on the Central Queensland coast. Some wonder why he left and went back to rainy England.

Well after stepping on Barney Point beach, i didn’t go back to England myself (haven’t been there, don’t even know where it is). And i’ve seen many a rainy season in the Philippines. I don’t go to tourist areas anyway. I much prefer going to interesting places. Places such as railroads.

Someone kidded me years ago that I'll make a 'roads' scholar yet.
Many of the oil and gas companies involved in the exploration and production of coal seam gas in the inland Basins, have hundreds of kilometres of gas pipelines from those distant CQ gasfields to Gladstone. These companies and industries have gas liquefaction and export facilities on Curtis Island. I have worked on some of the gasfields and pipelines inland. I also did deliveries for Queensland Rail between 1997 and 2004, on their North Coast Line.

Now I’m back to do some more deliveries for them here in Gladstone, also on the NCL.

Gladstone is crucial to the Queensland government’s plan towards the public floating of its bulk coal rail company. QR's bulk haulage network, QR National, was split from the state-owned corporation and proposed to be privatised later this year. However, a $4.85 billion offer made by a consortium of the state's largest coal businesses to buy the rail lines is also under consideration.

That is the context of my assignment here – to deliver stuff. This is a critical stage of the QR asset sell-off by the state government.

I still had my loot of books and CDs for the Mount Mee trip all packed up, so on the day i caught a plane in Brisbane for the short one-hour flight to Gladstone. On arrival, my workmate who drove up earlier, picked me up from the Airport. We have bookings at a mid-city motel. Guess what it's called? And our hosts are the gracious Peta and Peter.
Being a cowboy (without a horse), I had to make do with spartan quarters. I’m not from Sparta but used to wear their foortwear :-)).

So for me a tiny room with two beds, two pillows, two women (on the TV), and two more bottles of wine.

I was hoping to meet some local birds, though i've heard it said 'be careful what you wish for'.

I got my wish not soon after. One time a little bird flew into my room chasing insects. I caught it at the corner of the glass window. It was too quick to smile for a photo. It was not unlike me an I-Chonglian coal miner. It was an Indian mynah.

Under blue skies. Under power lines.

Under grey skies. Over rail lines.

In sunshine, or in shadow. We worked all day-long.

Long hours. In the early morning, I can hear the captain (alarm) shouting. So up early at 5:00 o'clock, toil all day, then back at the other 5:00 o'clock. After dinner, it's paperwork until the 11th hour. Sometimes i burn the midnight candle.
That’s the routine. Everyday for five days.

I am thankful for some diversion. Like this little wonder. Lake Callemondah in the heart of Gladstone.

This lake is adjacent to our worksite. One day we had lunch on its banks. Some huge wild ducks live on this lake. And I mean huge. As big as pelicans! What thoughts must go through a Chonglian hunter’s mind here. Ahh all that prime pine-necked pikan. The lake used to be tidal but has been transformed into an artificial lake. Like Burnham in Baguio, it is also a recreation lake, but teeming with wildlife as fish and bird etc. It has been stocked with various species of anglers favourites. What thoughts must go through a Mainitao fisher’s mind here. Ahh all that inihaw.

Anyhow, the northcoastline crosses this watercourse at two points. One is at Auckland Creek. Under this crossing, a footpath has been constructed as part of the pathways around the lake. Another railway crossing is at Briffney Creek. Beside the railway bridge is a creek crossing where maintenance vehicles can drive in to do their business in the upkeep of the lake reserve. We delivered at these two creek crossings.

The main game of our assignment is at the railway coalyards in Callemondah, just north of the Airport in Clinton, west of Gladstone. These railyards are about 5km long and about 1km in breadth. The NCL runs along the guts of the yards.

So for a few days, we dodged coaltrains and rocket trains, steam trains and electric trains. The Rockhampton rocket flashed past us a few times. It was so quiet, you would have missed it had you blinked. The danger is ever present. So vigilance is the buzzword while working on the railways.

Sometimes we dodged rail lines and wasted time.

Some trains are only short engines, but you can get stuck waiting for a few coaltrains, kilometres long and going at 20kph.

And when they’re parked on the rails for days, and you need to be on the other side of them (only about 10 metres), you have to drive down the road a couple of kms and back to do so.

The railways of Queensland and Australia are integral parts of the infrastructure that are needed to move Australia forward. When the steel rails are humming and trains are running, then the economy is booming and employment is rising.

There is a bit of uncertainty with the mining industry (including coal), as the debate of the merits of a mining tax take centre stage in the election campaign for this month’s federal vote. And pitted against the economic boom times is the much delayed action on climate change.
According to the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, Australia needs to do more on climate change and have an adequate mining tax. Stiglitz has credited the Labor-led government and its management of the economy saying the $42 billion fiscal stimulus package delivered in Australia staved off the worst of the global financial crisis. Many beneficiaries of the stimulus including myself, managed to keep their heads above water, by using the money given by the government to spend on some basic necessities (and some not-so-basic expenditures), during those hard times in 2008. Stiglitz stated his support for the federal government's proposed mining tax. He said that Labor carries the better economic credentials in leading the country again. But Stiglitz is less enamored by the coalition, saying the federal opposition had actually praised those responsible for the global financial crisis. He said the coalition’s economic ideas will tend to push Australia into financial downturn.
Of course the opposition of the big resource companies to increased tax, can lead them to suspend big projects that employ thousands of people. These companies are naturally allied to the conservatives.

So who is hostage to whom?
I am hostage to my job. It is hostage to the development industry, which is hostage to the economy.
I might just go and plant camote. Then I’ll only be hostage to lazy me.

Towards the end of our stay in Gladstone, I looked around the place a bit.
Gladstone is not just an industrial city pierced by gas pipelines and railway lines bearing oil and gas. The Gladstone region is a unique area of Queensland basking in a sub-tropical climate with islands, waterways and beaches on the doorstep of the Great Barrier Reef. The region has several impressive National Parks which add camping and 4-wheel driving to the adventures. One of the most impressive areas of Central Queensland is lush Carnarvon Gorge. Heron Island, on the Great barrier Reef just off the coast of Gladstone boasts some of the best scuba diving and snorkelling.

This dynamic, modern city basks in a sub-tropical climate with islands, waterways and beaches on the doorstep of the Great Barrier Reef providing year-round boating, fishing, swimming and surfing. A wide variety of restaurants and eateries cater to all tastes - from Australian tucker to Gladstone's famous mud crab and fresh seafood. Some of Australia's premier sailing events, the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race culminates in Gladstone.

Like I said before these tourist attractions are not for me. I'd rather visit the interesting places.
On our last day, on the way out of the site, we drive past Briffney creek in Lake Callemondah. This is stocked with barramundi and another 20 or so other species of fish.
I would not mind a bit of fishing...

booked for mountaineering

Life is a cycle of work and rest and everything else in between. And when one is in financial dire straits, the balance is heavily weighed in favour of work, that one can only try to relax from job to job and day to day. Isang kahig isang tuka.

A couple of weeks ago at work, i was booked to deliver to Ocean View, a hamlet on Mount Mee on the Moreton region hinterland of Queensland.

On the way there, i popped in on a bookfest at the Brisbane Convention and exhibition centre. The Lifeline Bookfest raises funds for counselling services for families. The Lifeline Bookfest is divided into three sections.

Within each section, books are divided into over 20 categories: Children's; Australiana; History; Reference; Humour and Oddities; Biography; Literature and Classics; Textbooks; Travel; Health; Science Fiction; Hardback Fiction; Art and Music; Paperback Fiction; Cooking; Computers; Religion; Foreign Language; Vehicles and War Craft; Hobbies; Sport; Gardening; Animals; Penguins and Pelicans; Economics; Sociology; Philosophy; and Science.
In addition to books, each section carries a range of magazines, stationary, videos, CDs, cassettes and records.

The event started in 1989, and i try to go every few years or so. This year had over 2 million books for sale.
There were piles of books everywhere in two halls, on all sorts of topics.

Sometimes you don’t know where to start.

I snapped a couple of photos and by the time i turned back to the fiction section, the lot had almost gone.

 

I quickly picked out from the leftovers, a half dozen mixture to while away the time up in Mount Mee. Lessing’s ‘The Golden Notebook’ is for my retirement bookshelf. Actually so will the rest of the pile. But maybe i can discard Baez’s autobio afterwards. The others will serve for the short sojourn to Ocean View.

I am not sure if I have read the novels before, but i’ll worry about that later. With these books you’re never sure. They often have the same plot and storyline. I don’t mind reading the Cromwell books again after a decade or so. These books might also accompany me to the port city Gladstone if the job there comes through. A good read and some good port wine is always a good combo.

So with my lootful of books I headed north, past the busy suburbia of northern Brisbane. Soon after I picked up my workmate, we were zooming merrily along the Bruce Highway when i slowed down for what i thought was a mobile camera van. It was a police speed trap and I would have been booked had i not slowed down.
Now that is one booking i did not want.
We took the turnoff  into the plains of Burpengary, Narangba, then through Morayfield and Caboolture.
It wasn't long before we hit the backroads and followed the Caboolture River to where it starts below Campbells Pocket. The River is only a short one (46km), but it provides enough for fishing enthusiasts. Fishers here have caught or seen salmon, bass, catfish, cod, grunter, catfish and yabbies.

We drove up the zigzagging winding narrow mostly dirt (with bitumen seal in some sections) Campbells Pocket road up to the hilly slopes, slowing down and pausing to catch some panoramic views over the vast expanse of Moreton region stretching from the hilly ranges to the islands and the pacific ocean.
Ocean View here we come.

We topped a rise and suddenly we join the main Mount Mee road at a tee-intersection. We sped past rolling green pasturelands and eucalypt forests. The tree-lined road continued all the way to our destination in Ocean View.

The job is pleasant enough. So for a couple of days we rambled around some lush rolling hills and took in some touring on the side.

On the second day, we took the southern approach from the lazy undulating hills of Samford valley and the flat pastures of Dayboro. The scenic countryside town of Dayboro has a bit of rustic hospitality with a historic bakery. We stopped for a serving of country baked sweets and brewed coffee from this town of yesteryear .

We then ascended up the beautiful winding hilly backroads to the heights of the D’Aguilar ranges in Ocean View, gateway to Mount Mee.

The job site is a rural retreat which offers camping and cabins to city dwellers. This mountain hideaway provides the chance of staying in an unpolluted country farm environment, even if just for a bed and breakfast package that many people look forward to. The place also has a function centre and bush honey retail outlet. Business decisions are now about to transform this unique destination into acreage blocks.

While delivering around the site, we chanced on some trees near the fences, with strange marks branded on their trunks.

Another tree had a kind of benched out hollow near its base. Our records show these trees to have been blazed and cut out during the early settlement of these homesteads dating back to the 1870s. The early settlers were attracted to the timber growth in this hilly range, especially the red cedar. The timber mills have been shut down and have not operated for nearly three decades. This has enabled the forests to regenerate and are now nature preserves. Some have reverted to rainforests of mostly eucalypt and hoop pines.

There's not too much excitement in those two days up in Ocean View. We did do some trekking over hill and dale and through creeks, gullies, muddy draws and some thick lantana. We also jumped a few barbed wire fences, thus tearing up some shirts and trousers. We also collected a few tonnes of cobbler's pegs (noxious weed).
On the second day, i sent my mate John to collect some gear we left on a hillside slope. I was heading the other way when i heard the what sounded like whooping and yelling, the war cry of a band i thought. Looking around i saw John jumping 10 feet up in the air, screaming and running down the hill quicker than a hare. He was puffing and very much excited but also sounded worried and scared.
'I found a black snake!' he said.
'Oh. Did you get bitten?' i asked very concerned.
'No mate. But the little fook scared me!'
Relieved, i said 'Settle down Johnny. You know the trick with snakes is to scare them back. Where i come from we threaten them by saying we like wriggly adobo, and that scares them away.'

John didn't seem convinced. He still had to pick up the gear.
I learned later that he had a cultural fear or phobia of snakes.

Seriously the red-bellied or spotted black snake of Queensland are among the most dangerous in the world. These are common to the east coast and southeast corner of Queensland. And Mount Mee is smack bang in the middle of these places.
I cautioned Johnny about the safety considerations of the job, and to make a lot of noise when walking through the tall grass and brush. He carried a stick with him from then on. Me i put my mobile phone on full volume and was playing 'Badlands' the tribute album to Springsteen's 'Nebraska', all the time. Johnny's musical taste is different to mine, but he saw that it worked because i did not spot a snake in the two days we were in the badlands of Mount Mee.
I commented to him 'maybe the snakes don't like my music either, because they leave me alone'. He just smiled and nodded.

We did our business up there in that beautiful corner of Mount Mee, delivering for two good days.

And on the way out we drove around the tourist roads away from the main drag, looking out over towards the Pacific to the east, and around to the green dense eucalypt cover of the great dividing range on the south.

I will be visiting these beautiful rolling hills again.

Life in the gasfields (gasfields pt. 4)

In the gasfields of Dalby Regional Council, you get to meet all sorts of people.
There are Architects, Cleaners, Cooks and Chefs, Cultural Heritage Officers, Engineers, Environmental Scientists, Excavator Operators, Geologists, Project Managers, Safety Officers, Site Supervisors and Foremen, Surveyors, Truck Drivers, Welders,  etc (oh and delivery boys too - almost forgot myself).

In the Nangram Gasfields, there are larrikins or characters that define a memorable work experience.

Joey here in these photos, is one such character.
We met people with names such as Nitro, Wilko, Tuckerbox, Bullfrog, Dickie, Dibley, Goldie, Blewie and others.
Most nicknames are oftentimes to do with Surnames such as Wilko might be short for Wilkinson.
Goldie however is named for his love of a certain brew of beer, of which he drinks 17 bottles each night.
He still blows a zero Blood Alcohol reading the next morning!

Dickie is short for Richard but one time he was otherwise engaged and could not answer a radio call.

The caller kept radio-ing and asking "does anyone know where Dick is?"

Dickie himself got on the radio to acknowledge the caller and said: "Dickie is dangling between your legs."

They're good for a laugh these pipeliners.

They are also good blokes.

Many of them are family men and women, sacrificing weeks and sometimes months away from their loved ones to make a living.

Pipeliners are all kinds of people as the cross-section of their occupations above shows.

They come from all around Australia.

Cranky Andy is a highly skilled excavator operator from Tasmania.

Many are also recent arrivals in Australia. There are at least three Irishmen in the crews we met. They happen to be excavator operators as well.

Others of the pipeliners hail from the Americas. All the continents around the world are actually represented out here in the gasfields west of Dalby. A multinational effort. The UN at work. let the gas fields burn.

Back at camp, we say hello to Kristie, a young Kiwi girl who assists in running the day-to-day operations of the camp.
I asked her if she'll miss me when I'm gone and she started to say:
To tell the truth, i really couldn't care less....
I interrupted and said to her:
No, just lie to me and say: 'Please don't leave. I need you so bad.'

We had a good laugh. At least she's a good sport.

The photos above are just some light-hearted hot air...

To see more adventures - echidna escapes dusty track, storms never last, Gowrie Mountain – western downs, down the Toowoomba range, cruisin’ the Warrego highway, Mt Crosby Road, Gap Creek Road, etc

see long may you run ooops! deleted by youtube... sorry.

the locals of the crossroads (gasfields pt. 3)

Meet some of the locals of nangram.

The site of a gas pipeline project i am involved in covers part of the locality of 'The Crossroads' and the adjoining locality. Our work camp is in the Crossroads but our work site is about 40km away in the gasfields of Nangram.

ms maggie magpie surveys the landscape and sets the scene for a tour of the wildlife of the western Downs of Queensland.

Many of the amazing wildife in the Dalby region includes numerous species of birds.

A couple of unidentified greyish dark-brown birds look for food scraps at a gravelly workyard carpark.

This is a plains turkey on the prowl and always wary of the big noisy beasts driven by two-legged creatures.

Bush turkeys or plains turkeys are fair-sized birds but very shy.

we next encounter an echidna crossing a sandy track. it scurried along as quick as its short tiny legs could go.

Once off the road it was quick to locate shelter and put up all his defences to a perceived danger.
Anya ngata ti raman ti adobong echidna? I’ll never never know.

It finally came to a stop at a fallen tree and curled up into a ball. its quills on full defensive.

One can’t have photos of wildlife in Australia without a kangaroo. So here’s skippy in the only patch of green for miles and miles – a homestead yard.

we encountered skippy early one morning looking for some fresh grass to nibble on for breakfast. as most of the photos here show, the landscape is a dreary desolate grey and brown.

This bearded dragon somehow found itself in a trench and would not have been able to get out by itself. When we found it, it looked spunky at first but quickly got tired from trying to get away. It may be starting to weaken from thirst and hunger.

One of the cultural heritage officers rescued it and set it back towards the bushes.

I was very privileged to witness a spectacular air show put on by a flock of birds one warm spring day near the end of October.

There’s a few families of emus around here. This emu mum and her four chicks were quick to put distance between themselves and someone thinking of pinikpikan. And so they should!

Pairs of adults would be seen searching for food in the grassy plains around after sunup and before sundown.

Goannas too are seemingly everywhere here in 'the crossroads'.

One time i was standing on a bank of a very dry condamine river, trying to increase the water level by contributing some of my bodily fluid to it, when i heard a bit of rustling behind me.

My tired mind realised it can’t be the leaves rustling because there was hardly any wind all day.

I turned around and saw this goanna crawling out of its hole.

I'm not sure who was more startled, but it blinked first and quickly scampered away.

Sayang. Awan ti para etag.

Here are some goannas i managed to creep close to.

go anna! nice pose .

This one must have relations from Mainit. It is good at climbing trees.

if that bloke on the excavator wasn't watching...

some lizard adobo would have been on the menu that night.

maybe next time. i know where it lives. it can climb but it cannot hide...

such is life eh froggy?

yeah. that's the way it goes.