sittin' in the mornin' sun

Hey world

I thought I would start this off with one of the more unusual/difficult jobs I have been a part of during precamp. On senior side there is a thin dock – that is never used by the way. It is mainly there because we own the part of the lake but if we didn’t have something there we might lose it or something like that I don’t know exact reasons behind it but at the end of the day its there! Or at least it should be. Camp was hit with quite the storm – I think – which dislodged the dock and had it no longer in its usual place. Im not sure if it magically floated there or was put there – the later being the more likely – but it was somehow around near the main dock which is on junior side. As everyone was given their morning jobs a crew was given the job of swimming it back around to where it was suppose to be and put it back on the supports that were still in the water dockless. I wasn’t initially on this crew but neither was half of the people that were involved in getting it back into place. Swimming it around, easy done. Putting it back into place, not so easy! In the end 3 or 4 crews combined and it took roughly 15 guys and one woman – which lets face it, she worked harder than we did and probably is the only reason it got into place – to put it where it is now. Its not perfect, definitely still unusable given its half under water :S… but its there! And we can once again claim it as our own.

So yeah things are a bit different lately. It is currently less than 24 hours till our numbers dramatically grow! However it will not be an invasion like previous years given precamp is already 70+ people strong instead of the usual 40ish. Unfortunately people are still getting injured or sick lately which is not ideal but for now anything involving me is only minor with a sore shoulder and fending off a little bit of a cold. Unless you count sunburn because yesterday being the fantastic day it was led to me laying on the dock for longer than I should of and now my back is so so red. Once again ill put the blame on mum for that :)

The only reason it has taken so long to get to this next part is due to the dock story distracting me. So as I mentioned in a previous post we went bowling!! I feel like this deserves a bit of a build up so stay with me for a moment… last time I spoke of bowling I had dared to hope for a seemingly impossible dream that involved a repeat of my previous bowling efforts and getting a few strikes in a row… I am pleased to type this out to inform you that… I managed to get 3 strikes in a row! woooo!!!!! Even with the build up I gave it and all that, sadly my score was not so spectacular. I won in our group but there was plenty better than me. After bowling we tried our hand a some mini golf cause its at the same place so why not. Overall it was a very successful night out and I think everyone who went had a great time which is the main thing. Last night was our last night out as precamp which was spent watching a movie. when I think about my first year when a big group of us went to see toy story 3 I think it is a dramatic change that this year our last outing to the movies was to see Prometheus… parts of the movie were… well… different.. but even with me feeling slightly violated by what the worm thingys were doing to the people it was still a good scifi movie.

That really does it for this update. A short one I know but I think its fair enough given the long drawn out posts of recent times. Hope all is well in your world where ever that is!

Take care all

shot shot shot shot shot shot

Hey world,

I don’t think ive ever had so much interest in these write ups that I do. Im only basing this on the messaging ive been getting requesting more which is awesome but the lack of internet access really does cripple the idea of being able to update every time I want to. That said I will be sure to try my best to keep things up to date and im glad people are reading them.

Very rarely do I ever feel like I am in Melbourne when im here at camp but the speed in which weather goes from good to bad and bad into good, it really has had that feel to it lately. The main difference is when it gets cold here its not so much a little cold but a lot cold. I realise that I am like a human heater and the cold very rarely has any impact on me, but the past few night certainly have taken longer than usual to get used to, which for anyone who knows how I treat the ‘cold’ at home will appreciate how cold it really has been getting.

Trying to form a cocoon with my blankets at night is not the only thing the weather is having an impact on. It has slowed down precamp to the point that I think people have been feeling a little pressure throughout the staff. It is less than a week till we have 150-200 people arrive (the rest of the staff) for orientation and at the start of today there was still a lot of work to be done on cabins, still only 4/15 tennis courts done due to the rain making it impossible, and still all the seemingly minor things that add up to make the place look like we have too much work to do and so little time. The saving grace that we have is that precamp staff numbers are out of control with it getting close to 60 now – I think  - and they are all willing to do what it takes to get the job done. By the end of today there was great progress from what I could tell with the cabins and now the tennis courts are up to roughly 10 or 11 done. I have no idea how they did so many so fast but kudos to them. Usually I would be part of this, and be in a great deal of pain thanks to the courts if the first few sessions of it are anything to go by, but so far ive been needed elsewhere.

My job has been much the same with me driving the truck – ute – around camp with my list of jobs plus what ever else everyone thinks up as the day goes on. The main job they have me doing is supplying the wood needed to the two construction areas. This would be all well and good but the wood is located at the back of the barn, which is right at the very back and furthest point from anything at camp. Construction site one is chief row, which is front right area of camp. And construction site two is lower quad – which is the right left area of camp. Even with the truck this isn’t a small camp when everything is spread out, so keeping the supply high enough to meet demand can be challenging sometimes especially when little side jobs are thought of as im making the trips back and forth.

While it may sound like im complaining I assure you that if given the choice between truck or tennis courts I would definitely pick the truck. Given how tedious the courts can be I think I’d choose stepping on a nail over doing them some days actually. Today I did discovered the down side to carrying long awkward planks of wood around all day though. It was about half way through the afternoon session when I realised that I had scratches all over my wrists and the inside of my forearms from trying to manoeuvre the wood which I hoped wouldn’t raise any concerns. As it turns out im not the only one and by comparison the others have it much worse than I do.

new day…

I realised that what I had been writing was much more informative and that usually means its boring so left the rest of this blog to a new day. Obviously I upload it all at once and you didn’t need to know that but I don’t care.

So in a recent night out to the rig – near by bar – it would appear the run I had of not drinking at camp was broken. While im sure there is some of you out there that are sad you missed this given the occasional effort to get me drinking in past years, it just goes on the list of reasons you should of come back. In celebration of an upcoming birthday there was shots to be taken. 20 mins and 5 shots of ** later I made my sister proud with drunken text messages, which some may already know about thanks to her telling the world about them via facebook. While I admit I did it I still wont take full responsibility since it was the biggest night of the summer.

In a completely unrelated note, I think im running out of animals left in this area to see this year already. So far ive seen carlos, or at least a close relative if its not carlos himself, a deer, snake, bald eagle and of course, endless spiders and chipmunks. The deer ran out in front of us while we were driving back to camp, which was a bit of a shock in the dark, but I think the snake popping up near my shoe before I noticed it took me by the biggest surprise. All I wanted was to get more planks of wood and got a little more than I bargained for.

Animal kingdom aside things have been going really well, a lot of work got done today and im fairly certain that we are on track in time for orientation to start on Tuesday. There has been talk of a staff bowling night, which if its anything like last years will be amazing fun. Personally I hope to replicate the form I showed at my end of season bowling night for work that took place before flying out to here. Another run of 3 or 4 strikes in a row would definitely go down nicely! The likelihood of this happening obviously is not as high as id like it to be but hey I need to have something to aim for!

After the long write up from last time it is only natural that this one could not live up to the length and craziness that it consisted of. In my defence there really hasn’t been anything out of ordinary going on here lately its just been work by day and movies or relax by night. Overall I think people are of the mind set that, with orientation around the corner, this could be some of the last time we have left to be able to sit back and take it easy. And they would be right. Orientation can get quite busy and the excitement of new people usually causes a fair bit of excitement, but it has nothing on the start of camp. There isn’t much that can make life busier than kids everywhere you look and working from wake up through to 9pm everyday. But there is a lot to get through before that. For now its just get the jobs done and continue to love life doing what I do.

Take care all

^^my arm healing from the damage the wood has been doing^^