Sitting in my room and watching 60 Minutes with the lead story on the booming times in the mines of Western Australia you realize you are part of something big. The text messages fly round the boys to make sure we are all watching a story on our industry that we are all part of. An industry that none of us thought we would ever be involved in if you rewind the clock back fours years to our university days. An industry that according to 60 Minutes in a $1000 a second industry and is going through "the best times there have ever been". We watch the story and see the drill rigs that we work on, the monster Cat DUMP trucks that still astound us with their size every time we see them, the 'local' we drink in and we realize it is a good time to be a young kiwi working in the mines of West Australia that are struggling to keep up with the demand of a booming China.
I am one of literally thousands of Kiwis currently based in or around Kalgoorlie, 700km east of Perth in Goldfields of Western Australia. I have now been here 3 and 1/2 months into what was originally going to be a 100 day challenge I had set myself. I was based in Wellington and was becoming frustrated with the lack of job opportunities and the amount of money I'd been offered. I had been introduced to the idea of working out here by a friend from school who along with four of his university friends had spent 6 months here last year. They were coming back and I decided this was the way to get some quick money together to begin my OE. The general consensus back home is that you need $10,000 to begin your OE so if you can save $200 a week this would take a year. I had been told that you can save that amount in 3 months here, so I thought why not. A couple of other friends based in Sydney had also decided to make the leap of faith and this further helped ease my fears. I quit my job, booked a flight and packed my bags with blind optimism that it would all work out. Having never really done a hard days labour in my life and not too many practical skills behind me I knew I was in for a testing time but I figured that if my Grandfather can go to war for 5 years as a young man, I can manage 100 days in the mines.
Arriving in Kambalda, 50km south of Kalgoorlie everthing went like clockwork. I arrived late on a Sunday night, went down to the yard on a Monday morning to apply for a job, had a medical and signed a million forms that afternoon, completed the necessary mine site inductions on Tuesday and Wednesday and was out working on a drill rig on the Thursday. How life had changed so dramatically in the space of a week. By easter break 3 weeks later I had had just one day off and completed a 78 hour week in the process. I had hardly had time to take it all in. I was lucky in the fact that when I started there was 5 mates already here and within a month that number had swelled to 13. So here we were 13 guys from NZ all connected through each other through school or university working for the same exploration company, staying at the same camp and all working long, hard hours.
Everyone has their own reason to be here but the underlying fact is that money talks and we are in place we saving money is easily done. We are saving between $900 and $1300 a week as all food and accommodation is paid for by our company at the cost of $70 a night per head.
My friend is helping fellow kiwis and Aussies into the industry please contact him for more information regarding unskilled, no experience needed mining jobs or entry level mining jobs in Australia at his site http://www.getajobinthemines.co.nz
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Phillip_Olear
http://EzineArticles.com/?Mining-Employment-Information-Australia---Your-Unskilled-Mining-Job-in-Australia-is-Waiting-For-You&id=1296312
