I called in to the hospital to pick up my paperwork and the flat information and ended up being thrown a whole lot of papers to sign to qualify for different bits of extra money - if you want to earn good money nurses and midwives rural WA is the place to come!
The hospital seems to pretty much run on 'ring in' staff - I think the majority of midwives on maternity are temporary staff so I should have no problems fitting in! The hospital layout is a bit weird - they have open corridors running round the middle of the hospital and the wards run off these - so to take a woman from birth suite to theatre for example, she gets pushed out the back of delivery suite in to the open corridor (has a roof but sides open to the elements) and through another door in to theatre! They are doing up parts of the hospital at the moment, a new emergency department and palliative care ward is nearly ready to be opened and looks very modern.
We were pleasantly surprised with the flat - we are in a block of 8 one bedroom units but we have the one on the end so Chip has a nice area to run around in - thats when we get the weeds mowed and get rid of the 'biddy bids' which are plentiful. Its only round the corner from work so I will easily be able to walk that in 10 minutes, and just a couple of minutes in the other direction is a dog park for Chip! We have already met a few locals with their dogs who were very friendly and Mal already has a couple of contacts for work.
The caravan is parked up in a storage facility and it was a bit sad to leave her there - it really does feel like our home. We have had to go back each day and get extra stuff that we need - its so much easier to just be in the van with everything on hand! At least we can easily swing by and hook her up and head off for a short trip in between work which is something we couldn't do easily when we have been all set up in a campground.
Kalgoorlie itself is a lovely town - very affluent (I read in the local info given to me by the hospital that average age is 30, lots more men than women, average household income over $1700 per week), very white and very pretty so not at all like the impression you get off the TV program Kalgoorlie Cops! Everyone seems so friendly and willing to give you info on jobs etc - I guess most have been in the same boat themselves at one time. There are loads of shops but as we found out today, most of them are closed on a Sunday - very surprising!!! The weather is just glorious and its so nice to be in tshirts and shorts again - being a dry heat is great too.
Here are some photos of around Kalgoorlie, the super pit mine, and our flat
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| around Main Street area |
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| the pub made famous in 'Kalgoorlie Cops' |
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| the huge machinery down the bottom look like match box size |
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| the Hospital |
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| our flat |
Told ya it wasn't like the tv show. What did you think of the superpit ?
ReplyDeleteyeah pretty amazing....would be great to see it from the air though
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