4 down one to go

Trying to fit in some downtime with the late night shifts, but it is starting to get tiring. But not as tiring as the production team who are having to work long days getting everything set up and sorted both before and after. Mind you they get paid for it, and they get a lift at the end where we have to queue for the buses and are at the behest of the timetabling for the local buses. (Had almost an hour wait last night for a local bus, having already walked around 1 1/2 miles to get to the nearest stop. So much for adding buses to the timetable)

Anyhooooo.

Shifts have been fun. We have a great team of 5 (the 6th person never appeared) and the guys from the Great Big Event company we are working with are really good fun to work with.
We do get a lot of downtime between moving the screens out, waiting with them and then moving them back, until the next final that needs them, so for us there's a lot of hanging around, but hey, we are right along the side of the athletic track so we get to watch a lot of the action.

We start shift with 2 screens North and 2 Screens South, and usually part way through the evening we have to move one of the South screens to the North side so we can set them up in a 3 to look good for announcing the athletes.

One of the evenings, we had taken the North screens quite a way onto field of play to the long jump runway, so we had to wheel them off to the South before competition started. This meant we then had 3 screens to move back to the North side.
The only way to do this is to head out and around the spectator seating, so ideally with an escort to stop people walking out in front, or coming out of the seating access.
pushing these things is not as hard as trying to steer them and pull them at the same time, I think I've had a pretty good workout while here. With that and all the walking and the hills.

We have had a few visitors too in our breakout area, Kathy Freeman (Track Athlete) came in to see us and also Anna Mears (Track Cyclist). Rumour was Usain Bolt might make an appearance, and I just missed him after he presented the 200m women's final medal last night as we were waiting at the wrong exit from the track (I think he was there for the Men's but there was an issue with the result and I believe the English runner Hughes got disqualified from Gold position and it was being appealed, so that ceremony got pulled)

Last shift tonight, so winding down then ready to come home. I've been out here 2 weeks now, just one more week until I am back in my own bed. But first a few days free then also in Brisbane before flying home.
So on downtime so far, have managed to walk the length of the coast from Southport to Broadbeach, (Half of that twice)

Seen loads of Borobi Sculptures (Borobi is the games mascot) and generally tried lots of touristy stuff, like Koala cuddling and visiting the Q1 building, the highest in Australia. Though I'm sure there are loads of things we haven't done that we'll realise once home.

So will leave you with the pictures of shifts and Koalas