Mount Isa

It’s Friday and Urs calls me into the office. He informs em that I have to go to Mt Isa on Monday, installing the Switchboard I have been wiring. He hands me my airline ticket and tells me to be at the airport at 9.00 am on Monday Morning. Where’s Mt Isa, I ask.  Up North, he says.

And how long will I be in Mt Isa? I ask. As long as it takes, he replies.

I go home and look at a map.  The distance from Brisbane to Mt Isa is from Thun to Stockholm, and here he is handing me an airline ticket for such a distance. Back in Switzerland, we would have planned such a trip for weeks beforehand, and would have had many sleepless nights.

I go home and pack my bag. Ben will have to take me to the airport on Monday morning. I am trying to impress the girls upstairs but can’t, they tell me oh, you’re going bush. Hey, everyone, Willie is going bush on Monday. It’s taken for granted. What a strange country.

Monday morning I get to the airport nice and early. Ben is more excited than me; he knows he gets to drive my car home and presumably while I’m gone.

The mining town of Mount Isa

I’m being met in Mt Isa by Bill Bowman, the sheetmetal foreman in his ute. He takes me to the mine’s accommodation building in town. It’s very hot, the ute is not air conditioned and Bill tells me it’s normal such high temperatures. He also tells me to get changed into work clothes he waits in the ute, then we drive into the mine complex to the new building. The plant room where the new switchboard is going is even hotter than outside. Within no time I'm soaking wet with perspiration. But it's lunch time and the hooter goes off. We walk down to the mess and cue up for lunch. The mess has ceiling fans that blow hot air around. Hot air from the hot climate and from the hot kitchen. At least they have cold water.

I meet the other Carrier workers, mostly sheetmetal workers and a couple of pipe fitters. I’m the only electrician.