Friday - Heading Back to Land

Friday morning. I can't believe I got up all week without an alarm clock. I'm not talking 9AM, more like 5:30 - 6:00 AM. I wrapped things up Friday morning. I packed up this laptop as soon as I was done checking my email that morning. I was on the first helicopter off the rig that morning. Unfortunately it was Saturday afternoon before I get back to Singapore. I spent Friday night in Perth. It wasa b usy week. I created all the drawings that I needed to and they are in for engineering review. Any last minute changes I can do back in S'pore.

I was really curious about Barrow Island. From Perth, I had to fly to Barrow Island then take a helicopter from there to the rig. At the airport in Perth they check the bottom of your shoes for any dirt you might be bringing in from somewhere else. They even looked at the new flip-flops I bought to wear on the rig. . .they still had the tags on them. There were signs all over the place about what you couldn't bring with you. I was only allowed 10kg (about 22 lbs) of luggage. When you are carrying workboots with you that doesn't leave much else. Anyway, the island was really small, you could see the whole island from the air. The only thing there was pumping stations and huge termite mounds. There were small shrubs too. The water was beautiful. At the small airport there you couldn't leave and walk to the beach or anything, you had to stay right there. Anyway, I was wondering what was so special about this place so today I did some checking on the internet and found a couple of sites that had some information I thought I would share with y'all: Barrow Island Story 1, Barrow Island Story 2 and Barrow Island Story 3 .

Flying back from Barrow Island to Australia I sat next to the window. The ground below was a redish-brown color. The only places where plants were growing was in the valleys. From the air it looked like the valleys were blood vessels and veins. Here is a picture I found online that kinda shows what it looked like:


I would like to go back to Australia, but definately with the rest of the family on vacation. The city of Perth was nice. There were a lot of unique shops and pubs. I wish I would have had a little more time to spend there.