The world has undoubtedly changed over the last few months since the emergence of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Our lives are truly unpredictable at the moment; there is no telling what is around the corner, how current circumstances will change nor to some degree what our lives will be like ‘afterwards’. As you know, sadly, the… Read More »
Sunday. We leave today. There are a couple of hours to fil before we head to the airport, so we opt for a good walk before the 24hrs of flying. We end up at the ANZAC memorial; beautiful, and then we follow on to the promenade where we get a view of the Opera House,… Read More »
Thursday we (they) have another great day ‘on the tools’. I have one team manning our distribution points; care packages, feed and fodder, and the tool library. Now I know many towns have a tool library in the UK, but never was such a concept so important to a community; this is not about helping… Read More »
Wednesday. When I woke this morning I thought the hard yards of the previous couple of days would pay off and I would get into a rhythm (and decent amount of sleep). We have a great job lined up today, I get all the teams down to the renowned Buchan Caves to help open the… Read More »
The alarm goes off, and I hit snooze. But I can’t do it, so I’m up straight away and into my second home (the Ops room). Well it’s probably my first home, as I’m in there about 16 hrs a day. Friday is crazy busy. I get the folks out on the ground to get… Read More »
Tired just doesn’t do it. Absolutely exhausted comes close. Its actually now Saturday night, just touched down in Sydney before our flight back to UK tomorrow afternoon. It was an early start this morning; I was at the Feed store for 6 getting a tractor driving lesson and then by 7 I had loaded a… Read More »
Early start for our move to phase 2. We all get bussed to the airport. Again, its emotional as we go to the gate. We have a short fight to Melbourne, then pick up a ‘yute’ and drive 4 hours up country. It was only 400km, but you get a feel for the size and… Read More »
Last day of phase; tomorrow we will be moving on to phase 2 in Gibbsland, Victoria. The day gets off to a really gnarly start as we mix up our comms, then we get the wrong equipment in the wrong ‘ute’ for the job we are tasked with. So, we reset, and repack and get… Read More »
It’s another big day. Today we deploy all our resources: 24 onto another property that tragically, was totally destroyed. Again its highly emotional, this time there are no artefacts or keepsakes to recover, just utter devastation to clear and once again help the owners with their journey. He clearly tried to fight the fire, remnants… Read More »
After work today a few of us started comparing war wounds, and a female colleague is now known as ‘Tasha’ – she always comes back to camp with a thin layer of dust and ash running across her upper lip. Many others feel like we are part of a self-harm rehab group as we have… Read More »