Mark_Murphy Meanderings

Well despite the unusually wet weather in Cairns I have arrived in Tabubil PNG for my second term of training at the OkTedi mine. I left Melbourne at 10am on Sunday the 29th for a quick trip to cairns by 1.30pm - Wrong!! First we stopped in Townsville to refuel in anticipation of doing laps around Cairns as the weather was n't good over Cairns. We arrived at Cairns at about 2.30pm and tried to land twice afetr doing many circles hoping the rain would decrease. The last effort at landing included a period of wheels down only to pull out at the last 500metres and head back to Brisbane. There we were sent off to Motels for the night - first to one that had closed its kitchen and that had been overbooked. Another taxi ride to the Holiday Inn and finally a room at 10pm. I had organised a 7am flight to Cairns on the Monday morning so it was up at 5am to get to the Airport on time. After boarding the plane at Cairns we sat on the tarmac for another hour before we could get clearance to take off - as per usual I went to sleep. Woke up as we took off and landed at Horne Island to refuel about 2 hours later. We then took off to Tabubil and took a detour around the rain on the lowlands. This enabled us to fly over Kiunga which is the river port that supports the town of Tabubil and from where the gold/copper are sent out for processing. believe it or not but we landed in a hot and sunny Tabubil! It was good to be back and catch up with the staff at the training centre. I even made it to the Hash Harriers Club for the 6pm walk around Tabubil followed by a few SP beers and dinner - felt good to be back! The new group are a good mix and should be fun to train - I have set them up with better computer skills this time so lets see what happens this time around. i have caught up with a few of the last group and they are rapt to see me back. they all have stories of how they have used their Cert IV skills to improve their sections etc. FANTASTIC I reckon. We have fired thru the the pre-assessment stage and have already got stuck into the program - I want to get thru the first bit so we can spend a good amount of time on the Final presentations and work hard on the Assessment Validation unit - This is critical to what they do here in PNG. Next week the local Training Council will be here for a review of several local training packages and I have been invited to attend the meetings so that will be intersesting to say the least. This time around it will be a proper Mark_Murphy Meandering as Jayne will be here on the 12/13th of September to start a TAA class of her own - perhaps Tabubil and PNG will never be the same but it will be great to have her here with me. She is only staying two weeks and I will stay on to finish her group. as we both like to tag teach it will be interesting for the two groups while she is here. Jayne has also secured a new job as a compliance officer for Journey management in Geelong who do Truck licensing, Civil construction and Civil equipment operator training. They have been very supportive of her coming to PNG and from the meetings I have had with them I am sure Jayne will have a good time working for them. I am hoping to continue with the overseas training in 2011 both here and Malaysia and possibly India - watch this space. bye for now. Gerard.