Karratha hadn’t prospered because of the oil; it had prospered because Dampier, a town next door had prospered exporting iron ore. That started forty years before and so the oil industry was a relative newcomer. There would be enormously long trains shifting iron ore from the large open cast mines inland; even in Dampier the rocks were red with natural rust. For me there were about a dozen or so installations offshore, nothing serious, ninety miles at the most.
The airport was a typical 2nd level airport. A single runway; a hardstanding fairly well populated with light aircraft, a small terminal building and a fire section and ATC complex; both empty. As in Kunnunura one had to broadcast ones intentions before taking off and joining the circuit. Despite the fact it had several 737 sized movements a day the fire cover consisted of the volunteer fire brigade in Karratha fourteen kilometres away equipped with a pickup and water dispense trailer. At least you had some fire support which is more than you had at Kunnunura.
I knew a fair number of people there; those that had worked in Aberdeen in the eighties plus British pilots who had been sent over to get the Australian arm going and had made the sensible decision to stay. Everybody, except me, was on two weeks on two off the only exception being the office and operations staff that lived locally. We lived in two bedroom detached houses, obviously designed for the job because each bedroom had its own en-suite facilities. Cooking was normally a joint effort much the same as in China. The company sent pilots to where they were needed so there was no guarantee that you would keep going to the same place. The result would be that various occupants would leave their surplus provisions in the larder until next time, if ever. A look though the larder of the house I was in suggested that the company was almost entirely Italian because in the cupboard was every known form of pasta going.
They had just opened a small mall in the centre of town so there was somewhere where you could do some decent shopping and get a coffee. There were a couple of bars and one establishment that good loosely be described as a brothel but Australia is more tolerant in that department. Despite being surrounded by parched bush one could not just charge into it with your pickup just for the hell of it. There was an area set aside for those who wanted to try and wreck their 4X4s. Property prices were eye-watering as is normal in Klondike areas. The town owned the building land and they would auction off parcels after the electricity, water and drainage infrastructure had been completed.
Once airborne you were presented with a kaleidoscope of colours. Another industry in Dampier is salt. This is obtained with very large evaporation pans of seawater of about one kilometre square. As the go through the process they change from deep blue to white and it the distance can be seen mountains of pristine salt. There were several offshore islands, deserted apart from the odd weekend chalet and between them the water was an incredibly deep blue.
I was there in January, the middle of summer, so the temperature was knocking on 40 degrees quite often. To cool down en-route one would climb up to a benign 25 degrees at 5000 ft. This brought into play an instrument that I have only seen in Australia; an Assigned Altitude Indicator. This was basically a manual veeder counter where you dialled in the altitude that you were supposed to be flying at. For example, if you were cleared down to 2,000 ft. you would set this on the instrument before you descended. Good idea? I thought it was a nuisance but when in Oz do as the Ozzies do.
The water was quite shallow around Dampier, when a fully loaded Very Large Ore Carrier was departing its single propeller would stir up the bottom even at high tide. All ships needed piloting and that included the LPG carriers. They are like tankers except that they have three or four huge golf balls on their deck which is used to transport Liquefied Petroleum Gas. They like the others had to come in at high tide and at times the high tide was at 05.00 or 17.00. Guess which one they wanted the pilot landed on.
It was very uncivilised getting up at 03.30 for a 04.45 take off; it was like working for RyanAir. You would look at the weather, pick up the pilot and launch into the gloom. Normally you were lucky and the LPG carrier would light up his tanks with floodlightsbut but sometime not which in case meant that his nav lights looked like every other Tom Dick or Harry’s nav lights. Some years previously a crew doing what I was doing were confidently approaching the helideck when there was a sudden bang and a splash and they were up to their backsides in water. They had flown into the sea without realising it. It is very easy to get disorientated at night so I used to approach crosswind so that I had the whole ship in sight, longways. It also meant that if things went pearshaped at the last moment I could fly through the helideck and out the other side.
I was contracted to be there for six weeks. As I have previously mentioned Australian flight and duty limitations were a complete mystery to me. However I did know enough to point out that as I was on a site for more than twenty eight days I was entitled to a day off, 36 hours, every seven days. We had stacks of cars on site so one day I travelled north and came upon Cossak.
Before somebody thought upon the idea of jamming a speck of sand in an oyster Cossack was an important Pearl fishing area. It was large enough to have a courthouse, school and stone built stores. The original police station is still used as a backpacker’s hotel. The decline of the pearl industry and the unsuitability of its coast line as a port saw it deteriorate until it was abandoned in the 1950s. The courthouse was a time capsule. Absolutely original and one could almost feel the atmosphere of some drunk being hauled up for causing wholesale mayhem the night before.
As my six weeks were coming to an end the word came from China that I was not needed as yet. I got on to the blower to Perth and suggested that I might be available for another six weeks. Within the hour another company roster had been written, printed and emailed to all stations.
I was now doing a twelve week stint at Karratha which in itself was a bit of a record. However with less than a week to go I was told that I was going to Broome for a few days.
I was a bit of a nuisance. I had just bought enough steaks to keep me going until I left so I was going to have to leave them behind. You cannot just travel north from Karratha to Broome; you have to go via Perth. So off I went on a Thursday, night stop in a hotel in Perth and flew up to Broome in the morning but too late to do a flight. Friday night was in the hotel and then on Saturday a flight to a rig 200 miles away to the north. The diversion was Truscott, as I have mentioned before. There was no flying on Sunday and on Monday I flew down to Perth ex contract to fly back to China. I had been halfway around Western Australia just to do a four hour flight.
When I got back to China I continued back to the UK and a month later I set out for Shekou. Just before I left I got a message to contact the base but it was too late so I did not get it until I arrived.
My company was pulling out of China……………………….