Tour around a large FIFO camp that was used during the construction phase of one of Australia’s largest gas plants to accommodate 2000 FIFO workers.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

– Welcome to this week’s episode of FIT4FIFO where we’ll be taking you for a tour around a FIFO camp so you can see what facilities some FIFO camps have to offer. If you missed Mike Demeky from New Zealand or Brad the Plumber on his very first job in our last two episodes, you can find them on our YouTube channel. Though for now, let’s go check out this FIFO camp.

So what you see here is I’m exiting from the second floor of a construction FIFO camp. It’s quite large as you can see. I think there’s about 2,000 men at its full capacity. Up here on the left, you’ll see, I’ll pan around, you’ll see a barbecue area, a common area, where FIFO workers can relax in the afternoons and cook barbecues if the camp provides meat which some camps do. It’s always good for the team morale.

Up on the right-hand side here, and I enter into another laundry. You’ll see there’s also inside the laundry, there’s a breathalyzer, which is quite common for people who drink beer or alcohol in the evenings. They can check themselves the next day to make sure they’re under the limit. Here’s an ironing board, an iron, which is always generally offered at camp. Quite common. As I was saying, this camp is very large and for one of the biggest construction sites in Australia for large project up north in Queensland which is now complete. Here we’ve got a bus stop which is where people board in the mornings and hop off in the afternoons. It was only a five minute trip to the construction site. Different jobs vary, generally, it’s nowhere longer than an hour.

On the right-hand side here, you see a turn style, which is scanned in and out so the company can actually keep tabs on where you are. On the right up here, you’ll see golf nets so you can bring golf clubs in to hit. Cricket nets. A 25-meter lap pool just here. Now, all these facilities aren’t very common, as I said, this is one of only a few camps. Here’s a beach volleyball court that they had at this camp. Tennis courts. A rebound soccer court here. And we’ve got more combination down at this end of the site, as you can see it’s very large. It’s built to accommodate a lot of people. Now we’re gonna go through the gyms. Most camps do have a gym. Generally, it’s only one or two for the larger camps but because this camp’s so large, there’s actually five I believe. Well, there was five at its peak.

Here’s a general weights room. You just have to excuse the film work. The settings that I had were quite average so, ya it gets a little bit dizzy. Here’s a full-size barbecue, sorry full-size basketball court rather. Gym 2. Just the cardio. Generally, you’ll have the weights and the cardio all in the same room but as I was saying, this is larger. Gym 3, another cardio room I believe.

There’s also a women’s gym attached for ladies only which I think is great for girls that don’t feel comfortable training in a room full of men because as you can imagine there’s, on some of these jobs, 80%-90% I suppose that are men. So the gyms are full of guys training away. This is a, I think it’s a boxing room/martial arts. As you can see that all the gyms are air conditioned as well so they’re always quite comfortable. These are construction camps as well. Here’s the basketball court again. More common areas here on the right. I think that was actually a physio on site.

Here’s more combination on your right. And up here, the most popular area in the camp, was the wet mess, also known as the bar. This one was quite, they had a big screen so they used to play all the sport each weekend and whenever it was on. You’ve got pool tables and also ping pong tables. These rooms are open 24 hours a day or they were rather. I think that’s so important. On the left here is a music crew which is also not something that you’d generally find in a camp. And finally, we have the dining hall, which you’ll see in one of our next episodes. Thank you.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that tour of a FIFO camp. If you want to check out some of our other tours, make sure you go to our YouTube channel. Next week we’ve got Darren, who at 35 years old decided to go back to school and start another trade. If you’ve got any comments, questions, or feedback about this week’s episode, please leave them in the comments box below. Don’t forget to subscribe and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. We’ll see you next week.

– At 34, I did an apprenticeship as a… Get up at 5:30 and I’m normally in my room probably nine o’clock. Yeah, that’s what it’s all about.