After 32 hours of connecting flights and layovers, my excitement was superseded by a strong desire for a shower and a mid-afternoon nap. However, my new employer had slightly different intentions for my first day in Australia. It was 9 am and check-in at the hotel wasn’t until noon so my instructions were to report at the GeoConsult main office immediately after leaving my bags at the hotel reception. A fellow university colleague of mine accompanied me as we attempted to orientate ourselves by walking up and down the sloping sidewalks of central Brisbane as we searched for the address of our new head office. Exhausted from the hills and the unanticipated burden of the unfamiliar sun, we then had to work a full 10-hour day at the office before engaging in the sanitary practices I was eagerly awaiting. The schedule for my first included obtaining a Queensland driver’s licence, which required me to immortalize my shoddy hair and jet-lagged expression on a laminated card that now serves as my standard means of everyday identification.

The honeymoon period naturally experienced when arriving in a beautiful new country was cut short in my case, as things didn’t slow down from day one. The standard minimum 10-hour workdays left very little time in the evenings to recover from jetlag and search for permanent accommodation, while weekends were consumed with first aid courses and other obligatory certifications. With a huge boom in the coal mining industry GeoConsult’s philosophy was to “strike while the iron is hot!” A major hiring campaign was recently initiated that would effectively double the company’s staff and take immediate advantage of the inflated demand for contracted geologists. The Australian labour shortage for geologists forced the company to advertise abroad and recruit graduate geologists from Canada and the UK. Getting the new recruits inducted and certified for fieldwork was the ambitious entrepreneur’s number one priority.

In just over two weeks all of the paperwork, training, and inductions were completed and I was given the privilege of driving GeoConsult’s new 4×4 on a 14-hour trek up the Queensland coast and into the outback where I would be working for 19 days straight. Driving on the left side of the road felt surprisingly natural, but to this day I still forget I need to get on to the right side of the vehicle if I want to find the driver’s seat.