Back to Bamaga

Bamaga-This time I was flying, all expenses paid, single man workers camp, kitchen air con, dinners provided and food allowance. .

Injinoo, the first job

The new boss hadn't given me much notice, less than a week, very little info on the job, and I was flying out at the end of a marathon week working two jobs 1.5hours apart sleeping in my truck on the rd side.  Had to find a place to park truck, Teagan who lives st Clifton beach in a town house complex said I can park it there, close(ish) to airport and secure.  Packed up camp and left James who had only just got back from Brisbane, borrowed a tool bag off Dan, gee  it's heavy but didn't get charged extra on the plane.. 

Our container arriving on the boat, interrupted the fishing. 

A very different view of the cape by plane,up in the air, gliding effortlessly over the 1000km journey, over rivers & rough roads. The building contractor picked us up from airport and took us to our accommodation, and showed us the three job sites on the way. Installing new airconds at Injinoo Umagico, & at the new Mapoon child care centers 27 units total.

Spent a lot of time sorting out our container, it came up on the boat, of course we packed the aircons for the first job right at the back, but my bottle of whisky was safe at the front hidden in a thick work sock. 

Roof Cavity

We are like air con fairies, sneaking around in your roof while they sleep, and in weekend, you wake up Monday and a nice air con is there.

Dripping sweat and I'm not even in the roof cavity yet. Learning new air con systems, under cealing and cassettes. 

Using giant, Makita hammer-drill: because I don't own one of these tools is the reason why I have a sore shoulder, cuts through core filled blocks like butter. A brand new expensive 28mm masonry bit helps. ( I love HILTI )

Injinoo: 

Trying to think of something funny about horse crossing & a zebra crossing.. there are a lot of horses here and they cross the road slowly, you have to give way to them. 

There are a lot of zebra crossings up here but they have no stripes because they are for horses, LOL 

Got an early Christmas present from the shipping man, wrapped in a tarp, a mechanical lifter, yuss, fist pump in the air, get a machine to do the heavy lifting not me. And a tarp to go camping! 

Caught up with the  giant man Timmakoi the mechanic who we met last time we were here.

Did some sight seeing at Jacky Jacky creek, the locals call it Cyprus creek, Jacky Jacky is the salty end full if crocs, can't swim there. 

Tried to go fishing at Injinoo River & Jacky Jacky Creek boat ramp by airport, no luck yet but I will keep trying. 

Loads of mangoes, but you gota beat the horses, dogs and flies. At least they don't go to waste. 

Had a fish at wharf, used a bait jig to get live bait, there are tonnes under the wharf but didn't get many, put them on as live bait &  hooked something big, couldn't stop it, Ripped line put for a few minutes then the line snapped. Second night only 2 sardines on jig, a man with cast net got heaps for us. Got a squid with my spear, spotted a few more Squid and a big Barra hovering around the pylons, Rob was first to drop his line in and he grabbed it, it fought well but it got off when he tried to lift it out of water, it's no take season for Barra as they are spawning.  We had Squid Calamari for smoko yummy lunch.

Job is going good, bloody hot, even hotter inside or on top of roof, sweat just flows off in streams, after an hour in the roof it looks like I've been swimming, wrinkles on my hands, but that's what we get paid to do. Learning lots of new types of air cons and tricks to install them. 

Sleeping in this little cubicle is hard, shut off from the world, I'm used to sleeping outside looking at the stars, listening to nature, everybody has got there air con running it's like trying to sleep inside a 1980s computer, I refuse to turn mine on, I need to acclimatise, can't be icy cold at night and roasted in or on the hot roof during day, plus I don't have one normally so don't want get used to it. And yes they are window rattlers so the control panel is either off or on. Not a nice split system like I install where you can control temp, humidity, fan, and they are virtually silent. 

Met an actual real life Pirate, due to his Pirate lifestyle I can't really embellish on the story but you will have to think about my location and fill in the blanks, what ever story you come up with, that's what this Pirate does. 

New Mapoon.

New Mapoon:

This ceilings at New Mapoon is smaller than the other two, can't even stand up. I invented a new exercise,it's called the 'cealing crawl', crawling along under and over obstacles on the tips of your fingers and toes with your arms & legs kept at a constant 900mm apart ( standard joist spacing ) in 45+ humid degrees, long sleeve work shirt, steel cap boots, and you must take at least 5 tools including Stanley knife, conduit cutters, zip ties, a tub of PVC glue and contact adhesive and of course duct tape. Lucky we had no saddles or I would have to carry them, screws and a drill too. Place two pieces of timber 900 apart and try it, works a lot of muscles. Oh and add fibreglass insulation and pitch black,  so yes quite a mission.

Supposed to be better fishing at wharf earlier in the morning or early afternoon, now we need to get down there at that time and catch some, the other workers throw them back and cone back to camp with nothing but stories so we will see. It's only 2 min drive, but hard to get there when you work all day and all week.

Late start today, Saturday, there is a funeral next door to new Mapoon Daycare Centre and we've been told it's disrespectful to work while that's going on right next door, so we planed to go fishing.
Rob got up at 4 on Saturday morning and went for a fish, lots of action a few strikes, but no fish, lots of middgie bites. I got up at 5am to go and thought he must be still asleep, so I lay back down till he showed up at 7am saying OH did you have a nice sleep, yea I did everyone turned their air con off and went to work, I slept in with my door open. 

Shipping yard at Seshia. 

Seshia jetty 

Amongst all this stuffing around I found a few things to do around camp. Naomi the cook and manager had a coconut grater for making coconut milk, cream, and oil, there are loads of coconuts up here, even a giant breed of coconuts so I've tried several methods of preparing the shredded coconut, managed to make coconut cream. Now I need to try to make oil, I have run out and the only jar I could find was $50, locally made in Saisei, apart from that they don't sell it up here, need it too make my morning bulletproof coffee: butter + coconut oil mixed with blender ( which I also borrowed off Naomi ), yum. 

The 2nd proof I was there photo. Cape York again

Up to the top, to Cape York again.
Had a fish, saw a bit of action but caught no fish. Had some lunch under the shade of the coconut palms and relaxed before heading back. 

Umajico:

On to the last job, looks like it will be the easiest one, but still a lot if work and still have work to do in the ceiling, where it's hot & cramped, so into the sauna again 

Umajico 

Went to Jacky Jacky creek or Cyprus creek as the locals call it. Perfect cool water nice and deep. Nice to go swimming and cool off. 

The cook has the odd weekend off, this only the 2nd time since the first weekend we were here, so the builder boss takes us to the takeaways / restaurant, there are only 2 things I can order rump or rib fillet steak, with chips & salad, they look at u strange if u ask for an egg, so this time I took my butter,chips are much better drowning in melted butter. If boss is paying why would you order anything else. Mmm rare rib fillet steak. 

More long hours over the weekend our second 85 hour week, trying to get it finished off before we head back to Cairns for the xmas break. 

Lunch break and a quick fish at Jacky Jacky boat ramp near Bamaga Airport. 

Perfect beach all to myself, first place we camped when we drove to Bamaga. 

The view from bald hill, we camped on either side of here last time. 

The view from the top. 

Rob having a crack at fishing off the tip, we were the only ones there. 

Had another fish in this cove just around from the tip. 

Yet another nice spot for lunch, Cape York car park. 

Han Solo's Dad was actually from Bamaga, he was frozen in carbonite too. 

Rained on our last day, Bloody hard too, for 15mins.