Unfortunately today ended up being a bit of a wasted day… the rain just got heavy and more constant as the day progressed!

A few spikes did get driven, until the spiker broke (nothing major but it does need that bit to work, that parts now on order, but we’ll switch back to the other spikes tomorrow to get it happening)

A few more spikes were started, however the rain did put pay to that too. But at least the boys found another turtle, it’s that time of year when they’re out and about, we’ve seen quite a few of late.

So after a long morning tea, a call was made to the mechanical department to see if they had any indoor jobs for us and by sheer fluke, they needed some extra hands to assemble some pallet racking.

This is inside the new workshop at Castlemaine. After a bit of head scratching, we quickly worked out how they go together.

The workshop comes with its own scissor lift, which turned out very useful in assembling the racking.

We managed to string this job out into several hours of work, mainly to avoid having to go back out into the rain… Once completed however, we did call it a day.

Tomorrow, as the weather is potentially a little iffy, we will meet at Maldon at 8am, where we’ll plan our day according to the weather, there is a few options so we should be right to achieve something.

Lots more sleeper plates inserted today, around 0.5kms worth.

Of the plates inserted most have been tamped and all of those have been drilled. Spikes have been dropped out with a few started.

We’ll be continuing this on Thursday, when hopefully we’ll get all the remaining plates under, tamped up and drilled, leaving only the actual spike driving to go, which should be quite a straight forward exercise.

Thursday’s gang will meet at Maldon at 7.45am or out on site (near the gas pipeline) from around 8.15am.

We will be working tomorrow, as there isn’t actually all that much rain forecast.

Well meet at Maldon at 8am, then head out to the Gas Pipeline to insert more sleeper plates, drill and spike etc… from 8.30am.

The track in from the Muckleford end is quite rough after the rain, we’d recommend coming the long way in through Sawmill Rd (the gate will be open)

We got very lucky with the weather today. Just a hint of rain as the last battery went flat.

We’ve drilled and stood spikes for just over 1 km, a fair effort for a small crew of 5!

We got to test a creation of John’s, a slide hammer for starting spikes. And despite it being a bit heavy after the first km, it certainly beats the hell out of bending over and starting each one with a hammer!

We’re now well into Curve 11, with really only one days worth of drilling to go to get to the end of the job, plus a few more days to get everything ready for drilling.

Next week’s weather is looking interesting, so check back on Monday for details of Tuesday.