A little on what's been happening...

We went back to work in mid March but we were doing an EM survey near Emerald, QLD and I was without internet access for the duration.

EM survey. (The phone has a "sepia" setting LOL)

We then mobilised to Cannington. On the way we went very close to a "confluence"

Confluence, about 2km across a paddock from here. No time to go looking though :(

Cannington had some rain while we were at Cobar (that was why we were at Cobar) and there was still plenty of water about.
We arrived at Cannington and found out that they didn't have room for us again so we had to stay at Walkabout Creek Hotel again.

Two of our workers, Mason and Daniel, were new to Cannington site so they had to have a one day induction.

The next day while Phil, Mason and Les began setting up the line Daniel and I went to set the remote up at Percol Plains but couldn't get to where we had put it on previous occasions as the river was flowing with no way to cross it. We found an alternate location as far from the road as we could get (the river runs parallel to the road) and about 800m from the river. The ground was a bit boggy but seemed OK.

New dog box location. Nice spot for a cuppa.

Daniel and I then went to set up our network (400m long with a set of mags buried at the end and a repeater box at 200m). We also found out that the ground was a little soft in places.

Almost got stuck.

We managed to get everything set up and got several days readings.

Then the transmitter that controls the current we put into the ground failed and we had to do a bit of repair work replacing a control switch...

Then the VR or "Voltage Regulator" that controls the voltage from the generator into the transmitter was playing up and we ended up replacing a circuit board in it...

Then Mason disappeared... and so did one of our vehicles. We found out late that night that he decided to go to Mt Isa. (about 3 hrs drive away)

We spent the next day awaiting his return and getting grilled by BHP as several things arose from that incident. Namely driving at night, leaving site without permission... little things like that :)

Mason got back, then left again (ie quit)

Then the transmitter failed again, big time, and we waited 2 days for a replacement from Brisbane to arrive (with a new worker as courier). We weren't idle though, we spent those 2 days out in the field preparing the next line to be read...

Then it rained...

for 3 days!!

Well, it rained during the night but was dry during the day. We tried to get the network up and running even though it was soaked and access around the paddocks was getting harder all the time as the water levels were rising...

There's a cable here somewhere..

After a couple of soggy days spent in steel capped gumboots we went out to assess the damage at the remote, which was at Percol Plains.


Which we renamed "Lake Percol"

Hope there's no crocs in there...

Whoa, my office now has water views.

The generator after the water had gone down a bit.
There was only an inch sticking out at one point.

We had to get the network out of the water and attempt to dry out all the gear. The mags were ok, the ground there wasn't under but the repeater was another story. We followed the lan cable through waist deep water, if we dropped the cable we had to go back to the start as there was no chance of finding it again under the water. We got to the repeater at 200m and lifted it out of the water (it was under about 2 foot of water). We then noticed more of our gear that was stored under the dogbox, oil containers, storage cases etc all floating around. We collected all that we could find and took it back to dry land.
We then followed the next lan cable (from where the repeater was) to find the mags, unfortunately the water was soon over 3 metres deep!! Ever tried swimming with steel capped gumboots on???? I reckon it should be an event at the next Olympics.
Anyhow, we swam accross the deep bit with a bit of difficulty and ended up on land, the mags were fine so we dug them up and carried them around Lake Percol to our vehicle (parked on the tar road rather sensibly).

With the remote all packed up it was time to collect all the equipment from the main line (about 13km of networked gear). We had made the tracks a little rough driving over them the previous couple of days and things were deteriorating rapidly.

D'oh, stuck. Snatch strap please...

Oops, stuck again.

Stuck, even worse this time.
And there it stayed for 3 days :)

Coming out of the paddock after 3 days stuck in the mud.

Is there a carlover's around here???

We ended up having to get all the gear out on foot. I worked out that we walked over 20km carrying the gear over flowing creeks, though mud that sucked the gumboots off your feet and looked very much like the chocolate mousse they serve at the mine...

Thankfully that was the end of that stint, well almost, we had to do a one day defensive driving course in Brisbane on the way home.

D'oh.
Been a while since I got the chance to post some updates, more on that soon in the meantime here's some pics from the end of the Cobar job.

Now that's a boat.

A bower bird's nest.

More soon.