My NS unit, 433 SAR travelled to Shoalwater Bay Training Area on the 16th OCt 2005 till 4th Nov 2005 for it's ATEC evaluation, which is an exam of some sort to see how proficient we are. SWBTA is somewhere in Queensland. This should be a pretty long post as it gonna cover 3 weeks of my life. Before I continue, I would like to request that no one links to all my entries on Wallabye 2005, and try not to show them to people I don't personally know. Would appreciate your cooperation. I don't know how the Army views NS men who blogs about their in camp and I sure don't wanna risk their wraith too much. Mr Miyagi seems to be doing fine with his army entries though.
Update: In case you did not notice, this entry and Miyagi's army entries were down for awhile due to some reasons.

We flew here on an SQ chartered flight. We were divided into 2 groups, an advance party, of which I am a part of, flew on the 16th. We were supposed to take over the equipments from the camp 1st b3fore the main body joins us 2 days later. Due to a limit in the plane capacity, there were less pp in the advance party than we were used to, and life is pretty hard for the 1st 2 days.

[Image: SQ Plane]

The flight brings us to Rockhampton Airport. Rockhampton is a small town, and Rockhampton Airport is a domestic airport with minimal frills.

[Image: Claiming luggage]

Our lugguage are unloaded onto the floor in rows, and we are supposed to walk around looking for ours. No conveyor belt.

[Image: Clearing customs]

Clearing the customs took quite a long time. The aussies were quite concerned about us bringing contraband stuffs in I guess. I passed through the customs without too much trouble. I would hate to unpack my big black kit bag for them to check the contents, I had enough problem putting all the items in in the 1st place...

[Image: Living quarters]

Our living quarters are gigantic tents shared by, erm..., alotta pp.

[Image: Living quaters]

This is what the inside looks like before the beds and stuffs were moved in.

[Image: Setting up safari bed]

Blacky and Father Ben setting up their safari bed.

[Image: Clothesline]

Clothesline appears pretty soon.

Who's that in the woods?
Oh shit. He's peeing!
Here he comes. Who is he?
Blacky!!!

[Image: Toilet cum bath room]

This is the outside of the toilet. There are 4 of these in the camp. All at the same place, beside each other.

[Image: Bath room]

This is the inside of the bath room. There are no cubicles. Everybody bathe together. There's no shower taps either. You see the little green bags hanging at the top, we are supposed to lower it, fill up a pail with water from the common tap and bring to the bag to fill it up. I normally use 2 pails of water to bathe. After filling the bag, we raise it up again and open the nozzle under the bag and viola!

Ok. That's it for now. Watch out for the rest of the wallabye trip logs. :)

Continue on Taking over equipment and stores