Uluru

Alice Springs isn’t the biggest or liveliest town I have ever visited, but it is where our adventure to Uluru (or Ayers Rock) began. Myself and two friends from work, Steff and Clement, flew to Alice Springs and arrived into a small airport not unlike the one we fly into for work. The next day we were picked up bright and early for our 3 day organised tour out to the rock. There were about 15 people on the tour from all over the place (but mainly Germany) and we embarked on the 5 hour (yes 5 HOUR!!!!) drive out from Alice to Uluru through the flat, dry, fairly uninspiring outback where rain might not fall for years on end.

Steff, Clement and myself at Uluru

We arrived at the national park in time for a quick spot of lunch before driving straight out to Uluru where our tour guide took us on a quick walk, telling us some of the Aboriginal stories surrounding the rock and showing us some traditional Aboriginal art. Aboriginal boys, when they are ready to become men, do something called walkabout. If they return to their tribe after years of surviving on their own in the most hostile environment you can imagine, the Australian outback, they are initiated into the tribe as a man. Part of their initiation in the area surrounding Uluru involved climbing up and over the rock.

Ayers Rock

There are many traditional sacred sites around the rock, including parts solely for the use of men or women (known as men’s and women’s sites). You are not allowed to film or photograph these parts of the rock, which is why you only ever see one side of Uluru in photographs. Traditional Aboriginals will not have their photograph taken as they believe this will trap part of their soul when they move onto the next life, and you cannot publish the name of a deceased tribe member. You are able to climb up Uluru (and it’s not an easy climb, trust me!) however the local Aboriginals discourage this for many reasons including health, safety and cultural reasons. I did the walk around Uluru which took several hours. And yes, it really is just a pretty big rock.

Kata Tjuta

That evening we drove out to a viewpoint over Uluru to eat dinner and watch the sunset over the rock, which was pretty special. That night we camped out under the stars around the campfire in big, thick, waterproof sleeping bags called swags. It was surprisingly warm and comfortable despite the cold outside. The next morning we were up at 5am to catch the sunrise over Uluru, then after breakfast we headed onto the neighbouring rock formation called Kata Tjuta (also known as the Olgas). Both Uluru and Kata Tjuta were formed at the same time- both started life as huge basins (bowls in the ground) with a river flowing through them from the nearby mountains. In the first basin all the big, heavy rocks dropped out of the river, which eventually became Kata Tjuta. The second basin contained the finer sands and silts, and this formed Uluru. Both are made from the same rock but both have very different appearances. We did another long hike through the beautiful Kata Tjuta formation.

Looking over the edge at King's Canyon

The next day we visited King’s Canyon, Australia’s answer to the Grand Canyon. Again we were up bright and early to avoid the blistering heat of the midday sun, and hiked through the canyon for hours. I was pretty worn out by the end of it! We rounded off the tour with a visit to a camel farm. Did you know Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of camels- us Europeans thought they would do well in the desert? They did.

The next day we did a day tour to the nearby West MacDonnell ranges, which are a series of hills around Alice Springs. We spent the day driving along the ranges, seeing features along the way. Not quite as spectacular as Uluru but splendid nonetheless. Alice Springs itself is not all that lively, considering the volumes of people that pass through on their way to Uluru. It is named after the wife of the explorer who founded the town- a mission that took several attempts and many months in order to connect Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north.

 

Myself, Clement and Steff at Ormiston Gorge along the West MacDonnell Ranges

Perth



Ruth, myself and Anna on Christmas Eve

 The first day I arrived in Perth, it rained. And it has rained a lot since. But it has been sunny, and it is a great place to live. The house I live in is in a suburb called Carlisle- about 10 minutes away from the centre of town on the train, south of the Swan River. The house is enormous considering there are 3 of us living in it- myself, Anna and Ruth. I have the peasant’s quarters, so named because I had no job when we moved in and inherited most of my furniture from other people. Now I have a job and have splashed out on a bedside table. Last year we had a housewarming BBQ and we hosted Christmas dinner for us and a couple of friends and their family who were over here visiting.





Perth city from King's Park



Perth is a massive city, divided into hundreds of suburbs, each big enough to be called a town. On the train it can take over 30 minutes to get from the outskirts of the city into the city centre. It is an odd place, a little backwards in some ways, like a lot of Australia. For example, most shops in Perth are not open on a Sunday- and 24 hour supermarkets are non-existent. You’d be lucky to find one that stays open until 9pm. The metro train system is designed specifically to irritate the commuter; you will often see your connecting train leaving the station a mere 20 seconds after you arrived train 3 platforms over with no hope of making the train on time. And you know your next train will be leaving in 30 minutes. Sometimes though Perth will astound you with something (nothing comes to mind right now) and you think ‘why on earth hasn’t anyone else thought of that yet?!!’.

  

The centre of the city often has street performers and has some very good shopping. Just a short walk away is the Swan River, running all the way out to the west to the coast. Perth is only about 20 minutes’ drive from the nearest beach, and has some spectacular beaches all in an easy drive (I say drive because you invariably need a car to get to anywhere you actually want to go to). Just down the road is the coastal town of Fremantle, which is a great place to go and eat and shop and just walk around. We often go and watch the many ships coming in to port- it recently hosted an international sailing competition like Cowes week.

The Pinnacles

 Over Christmas we did a bit of travelling around to see some more of the area. There’s Caversham Wildlife Park where we got to see all sorts of native Australian wildlife, and I saw my first kangaroos (I ate them before I got to see them, and very tasty they are too). We went to a beautiful park called Yanchep where there are wild kangaroos and I saw koalas for the first time. A few hours’ drive to the north is the Pinnacles national park, which are thought to be ancient fossilised trees or tree roots (nobody is quite sure), and the coastal town of Cervantes.

Feeding the 'roos at Caversham Wildlife Park

My favourite place in all of Australia so far though has to be Margaret River, 3 hours to the south. This is the premier wine growing region of Western Australia, and is very English countryside in its appearance. It is a beautiful part of the world, with sandy beaches, turquoise seas and plenty of wine and good places to eat. There are also caves and lighthouses to see. I have been twice so far with various friends, and can’t wait for my next trip down there (my wine cellar is getting a bit low!).

Sunset at Margaret River



Wine tasting in Margaret River

On the beach on Christmas Day



 

The Midas Touch

A drill rig: the tall vertical bit is the drill which pumps sample
into the big red thing where the offsider is collecting the
samples in green bags- one bag = 1m of drilled earth

Producing gold isn't quite as easy as having the Midas Touch- it takes several years of work to go from a bare stretch of land to an operating gold mine. Firstly, if an area looks like it might have some gold, you have to acquire a licence to explore that land (it doesn't mean you own the land, and means you are only allowed to do a certain amount of work on that land).

Next, you need to make a plan about where you are going to look for gold and why. Most of the time the land that we take on has already been previously explored by another company so there are historical datasets and reports that we can look through to see what they have found before. We use this, and the geophysical data we have along with fieldwork to compose proposals about what we want to do next to further explore the area. This could be a soil sampling program, further geophysical surveys or if you are pretty sure about an area, we would propose a drill program.

Out doing some fieldwork in the sunshine

Once you have chosen where you are going to look for gold, you have to get environmental and heritage clearances on that land to make sure there isn't any particular wildife of historic aboriginal sites that you will be disturbing by working there.

Depending on the size of the area the drill program could be 10 drill holes or it could be 100's, and there are multiple different types of drilling you can do depending on what the ground conditions are and what information you want to get from the drilling. The cheapest type of drilling cannot drill very deep and only produces rock chips, but it is good when you are first exploring an area to see what might be out there. Usually you don't hit the gold deposit using this type of drilling, but when gold is formed in the earth there are a lot of chemicals associated with it and from these chemicals you can judge where the gold may be at depth.

Using the information from your first pass of drilling and you have a better idea of where the gold is, you can do a second phase of drilling which still gives rock chips but can go deeper and gives you more information about the bedrock. With all drill holes, samples are sent off to the labs to test for gold and other key chemicals that could indcate gold. While you are drilling, you keep a log of what rock types there are, any structures you see and whether the rocks have been altered by chemicals.

Me and Vaughan on a visit to the Kalgoorlie "superpit"- the pit that keeps Kalgoorlie in business! It produces
850,000 oz gold every year, which at $1400/oz is some serios money! The bucket that I am standing on is one that's used to shift all that ore!

If it looks like you have a really good gold deposit then you can use diamond drilling (which means the drill bits have industrial diamonds in them for strength). Diamond drilling produces a cylinder of rock that can be 100's of metres long (not all in one piece though!). From this you can clearly see the structures in the rock and the areas where the rocks have been altered- often you need both to find gold. However this is the most expensive kind of drilling, so you only use it when you know you have something good!

A field trip in January to learn about the local geology- 8 cars
in a row!

This whole exploration process in itself can take years and cost $100,000's, and sometimes the area you target just doesn't have enough gold in it and so it gets thrown out. But if you find a deposit that is big enough to mine, you pass that area onto the resource development team, who spend many months doing further modelling and drilling to define exactly where the gold is.

 

When the directors are happy that the target is going to make enough money, they will give the OK to mine it. At Integra we currently have 2 open pit mines (meaning we dig a big hole to get the gold out) and we have just started our 1st underground mine, and we have several more targets that are almot ready to mine.

Workin' in a gold mine....

My shift starts with a leisurely 4.30am ride to the airport on a Thursday morning, where my commute to work begins via Qantas jet. My office... the Australian outback!



Working hard (or hardly working) in the office

 I live and work at Mt Monger Station, previously a farm, which is about a 40 minute drive from the nearest town called Kalgoorlie. It's a bit of a one-horse town (it comes with its own high street of wild west-styled buildings) but as far as mining towns go it's pretty good. The offices we are based in are essentially portacabins- metal boxes which are much like an oven in the 40 degree summer heat and a fridge/freezer during the depths of winter. Currently it's a bit crowded and sometimes I'm allowed a desk (but rarely a working computer).

My main job is as the company geophysicist (in training), which means that I coordinate all upcoming geophysics surveys for all the different projects here. Geophysical surveys measure energy (either from a natural source like an earthquake or a man-made source like an electrical probe) that travels through the ground, and from that energy we can interpret what we think the ground looks like beneath the surface. This helps the project geologists as often they cannot tell what rock types are beneath the surface unless they drill it, which is usually more expensive than doing a geophysics survey. This also means I am looking after $100,000's worth of surveys (no biggy!).



Collecting rock samples for analysis in the field



When I am not pretending to be a geophysicist, I help out the geologists with their work. There are 4 exploration projects currently, each with 2 geologists, and each project looks after 10-15 different targets in which they are looking for an economic gold deposit. We use lots of different techniques to find gold, including doing soil samples, undertaking geophysical surveys, and completing drill programs to identify structures and rock bodies that hold gold. Quite often the gold is not visible in the rocks, but is mixed with other chemicals so we actually need to look for a large number of signals to see if there is gold!



The area in which we are searching for gold is called the goldfields, so there is gold pretty much everywhere. However there are a lot of factors that dictate whether or not we dig that gold up. For example, we might find a large pot of gold in the middle of nowhere, but if there is not a place to process the gold nearby then we would have to set up all the infrastructure and the mill to actually produce the gold. We would only do that if there was so much gold that we could still make a profit.



Summer thunderstorms



That, in a nutshell, is what I do as an exploration geologist working for a gold mining company. It is fun and exciting and terrifying all at the same time, and every day is new and different and long. But the enormous outback storms and the friendly resident lizard Frank and the fact I don't have to cook or clean for myself makes the 70 hour working week worthwhile!

Cape Town

The view from atop Table Mountain

The next day was a day of goodbyes, as most of the group flew back to their homelands or off on other adventures. I was lucky that not only were 6 or 7 of the group spending a few extra days in Cape Town like me, but 2 of them were also staying at the same hostel as me. Despite the torrential rain of the morning, the afternoon turned out to be gloriously sunny and clear, giving me and a few of the others the opportunity to go up Table Mountain. We would have climbed up, but we realised that at 3pm, with a 2 hour hike up and no cable car back down, we should probably just take the cable car up!

The views from the top were fantastic, and we were so lucky because the next few days it was too windy and rainy to even see the top of the mountain- the locals call the clouds that cover the mountain the ‘tablecloth’. We could see for miles around, down to Cape Point and all across the city. And of course, what better way to finish a nice day trip out than with a cup of tea and a slice of cake in the tearoom at the top.

Later in the evening we met up with everyone that was staying in Cape Town for an Ethiopian meal. We all sat around these little tables, and when the food came it was presented on a huge pancake for us to share and we ate with our fingers.

A Stellenbosh winery

I had pre-booked some day tours as I had no idea that anyone else would be staying in Cape Town with me, and so on the Saturday I went on a wine tour. We had a great tour guide called Ferne who took us to 4 different wineries in the Stellenboch region. The first was voted the most green in SA for its sustainable practices and use of renewable energies. The second was also on olive oil producer, so we got to taste a few of their varieties of oil. At the third we had lunch, which I imagine would be Michelin starred if the Michelin man knew about it! The last winery also did goats cheese tastings alongside their wines, which funnily enough were named ‘Goats do Roam’ after the famous Cote du Rhone wines of France.

By the end of the day, me and the two Irish lads (who were actually getting on a flight later that night, and were drunk before we even started the 9am tour!) were more than a little merry! Unfortunately due to the amount drunk, I then bought myself 3 bottles of wine which I then had 2 days to drink before leaving for Australia.

African penguins at
Boulder Beach

Sunday was an early start to go on a tour down the coast to Cape Point, the most south-westerly point of Africa. Our first stop of the day was Camps Bay where a few people took a boat trip to see some seals, but I opted to take a walk around the harbour and enjoy the sunshine. Next we headed down to Boulder Beach where a large colony of African penguins reside. These penguins didn’t actually reside on this beach until the mid-80’s when a naval base was established in nearby Simonstown and they restricted fishing activity in the area. The penguin colony has grown massively since then, and they are everywhere (even breaking into local back gardens to use the swimming pools!).

Attempting to not fall off with the cross winds on the
 peninsula!

From Boulder Beach we headed on down to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point to explore the end of the Cape Peninsula. From Cape Point, we were all set up with bikes and let loose on the roads (I had actually forgotten I had booked a bicycle tour which was interesting!) with the challenge of getting back to the information centre where we had lunch. It was actually a lot of fun, especially with my roommate who was on the tour too having not ridden a bike for about 20 years! We even chose to do a bit extra as we were having such a laugh!

By the time Monday rolled around there were only 3 of us left, and the only big thing we had left to do was Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was interred for most of his 27 years in prison. The island has been used as a prison of sorts for hundreds of years, right from when the Dutch and German invaders first landed, with a brief stint as an insane asylum and leper colony, and finally as a prison for political prisoners and black men during the apartheid era up until

View of Table Mountain from
Robben Island

I really enjoyed Cape Town, and felt very safe there- probably as a result of the FIFA World Cup being held there last year. There was a noticeable police presence, and even at weekends it didn’t look like there was too much trouble from weekend revellers! I would definiteley recommend Cape Town, but next time I would like to spend more time exploring the surrounding areas and countryside.

Goodbye Namibia, hello South Africa!

Orange River

Firstly we had to officially leave Namibia, before driving a few hundred metres through no-mans land to cross the border into South Africa. I did worry a little when our  passports were taken for inspection by the police, but we all got through in the end. We drove a short distance down the road from the border to our next stop at Orange River. This river essentially marks the border between South Africa and Namibia- you could throw a stone back into Namibia it was that close!

And even better, after the cold, damp few days we had had in Namibia we drove into glorious sunshine. The campsite was beautiful- right next to the river and a short distance from the bar (even better!). Some of us chose to go canoeing down the river in the afternoon in double inflatable canoes. I shared with my tentmate Emma, and at first we were absolutely useless! I think we probably did double the distance of everyone else zig-zagging from one side of the river to the other! But eventually we mastered the steering and were chasing the others, having splash wars along the way. It was certainly hard work, and the amount of flies around inspired us to paddle even fater!

An excellent playground

Awaiting us when we landed back at the camp site was a beautiful spit-roasted lamb and other dishes all cooked in a traditional South African style. We feasted until we could eat no more, drank until we could drink no more, and went back to our tent to find the resident dogs (who had spent the whole afternoon digging up stones on the beach) residing in it!!!

The next day was our final full day as a group, and we spent almost all of it on the bus. It was a looong drive down from Orange River to Cape Town, but it was so different to driving through Namibia. As soon as we crossed the border into South Africa it was so much greener, and at times you could be forgiven for thinking you were looking out at rolling English hills and farmland. 

Driving down to Cape Town

We could tell as soon as we were on the approach to Cape Town, as Table Mountain loomed into view in front of us. The city really is sprawled out right across the base of the mountain and all over the sand flats surrounding it. When we got into the city, we were told that we had been upgraded and were going to be staying in a much nicer hotel. We went out as a group for a final meal at Mama Africas, where I tried a delicious traditional Cape Malay South African dish called Bobotie, which consists of minced beef and ostrich meat in a sweet and spicy gravy, topped with egg custard (like an African version of sheperd’s pie!). 

Namib Desert, Sossuvlei and Fish River Canyon

Sunrise over the desert

This was by far the most beautiful part of the whole trip, and my favourite part of Namibia. We drove south from Swakopmund to the Namib Desert, through yet more fantastic and desolate scenery. We spent 2 nights in the desert, which is hyper-arid and experiences less than 10cm per year. So of course while we were there it chucked it down- in the middle of the dry season!!! And on the day that I had to cook and wash up!

On the first morning we woke up at (literally) the crack of dawn to drive down to the enormous sand dunes so that we could hike up the 300m high Dune 45 to see the sunrise over the desert. The dunes are all numbered because they don’t move- the winds are equally strong in both directions. It was strange that as we were driving we weren’t surrounded by sand like you would expect in the desert, but we drove between enormous sand dunes. 

At the top of the dune

A gruelling climb to the top

Overnight the wind had wiped away the footprints of the previous day, so we climbed a seemingly untouched dune. At first we all set off at speed, but the climb quickly became really tough. Imagine walking on a sandy beach that’s a 30cm wide ledge at a slope of 35 degrees. It was a bit hairy, but on the way back down I realised that even if I had fallen off the edge, it would have been a soft landing at least! It was pretty chilly and windy, but well worth the early start and the climb- as you can see, it was spectacular! And even better, breakfast was waiting for us when we got back down.

Deadvlei

After brekkie we headed over to Sossuvlei,  which is where the water in the desert collects creating an oasis in the middle of the sand dunes. More incredible however is Deadvlei. This was once the location of the water collecting and so a number of trees have grown there- when the waters moved to what is now Sossuvlei, the trees without a water source died and have been preserved by the hyper-arid desert conditions. I could have spent hours photographing all the trees, and learnt quite a lot about my camera while I was there.

Fish River Canyon

The next day we drove south to our next and final stop in Namibia, Fish River Canyon. The Fish River is the longest river in Namibia, and over time has formed a spectacular canyon which in parts is 550m deep. We took a short walk along the edge of the canyon, and at the end we were greeted with a cheese and wine dinner ready for sunset over the canyon. It was a lovely way to say farewell to Namibia.