Silly Season Antics

We've completed another year of silly season antics. I honestly can’t recall such a full diary of events and invites in the countdown to Christmas. This year's party highlights started with a long lunch hosted by EO's Sydney Chapter at Taronga Zoo on 29 November. Here, we enjoyed a stunning sweeping floor-to-ceiling panorama of Sydney Harbour despite heavy rain most of the afternoon.  

A few days later, lunch was followed by an overnight excursion to Robertson in the Southern Highlights, about two hours south of Sydney.  Garry and I were there to celebrate the wedding of one of our staff at the heritage-listed Robertson Hotel. The service was an outdoor event that ultimately tested the limit for those wearing suits in the blazing Summer sun.  

On the way to Robertson, we stopped for lunch at the Press Shop cafe in Bowral. We both tried the pulled lamb salad on a beetroot hummus base. It was stunning.  So much so, that we revived the recipe for a Christmas party we hosted on our apartment balcony a week later. A dozen people joined us for a lengthy cocktail and finger food experience on our rooftop balcony before retreating indoors for dessert.

We've also hosted a leisurely lunch for staff and contractors at Mimi's in the Coogee Pavillon on 13 December. It's our third staff event there. Garry is somewhat infatuated with the venue. Afterwards, Garry, Mitch and I made our way to Bar Cleveland, up the road from our office. We encountered a group of friends at an outdoor table. We were joined by a long-standing, reputable champagne journalist who convinced each of us to order a bottle of champagne and embark upon a lengthy "tasting session". The rest as they say is history!

The following day, our apartment building hosted its annual resident Christmas BBQ. We made it down to the courtyard for a couple of hours to catch up with our neighbours, including Mark and Sue, who’d invited us for a festive lunch in their courtyard the previous weekend. 

We finished up our silly season antics on Thursday this week with my EO Forum's annual Christmas event. As the evening's organiser, I arranged a private seaplane scenic flight around Sydney Harbour followed by a leisurely banquet on the outdoor deck at The Empire Lounge. Our flight departure was delayed 15 minutes while waiting for one of our traffic-ensnared partners to arrive.  This resulted in some truly spectacular evening sunset images of the city's iconic bridge, one of which opens this post.

The flight took out from Rose Bay towards Manly, then through the heads and along the coast as far south as Bondi and Tamarama beaches. We then returned through the heads and made our way back up the harbour for a couple of dramatic sweeping turns in front of the bridge and opera house.

Last night we kicked off the first of three family events. We enjoyed a cocktail evening with all of Garry's cousins and their partners in Pitt Town.  We'll then repeat the cocktail experience on Christmas Eve with Zoe and Ben at their new home, before enjoying Christmas Day at Garry's sister's house.  We'll be well and truly ready for our two-week road trip to the Northern Rivers region starting 27 December.

More Kodak classics

It's been months since my last Kodak-era update. Regular blog readers will recall my long-term project to retrospectively publish posts on travel adventures enjoyed before this blog began. Since the last update, I've been hard at work capturing the following memories for posterity.

• Exploring Japan during the height of the Sakura season.
  
  
• A day trip to Kamakura, one of Japan's ancient capitals.
  
  
• My first road trip through the Outback, including time on the Murray River.
  
  
• A spontaneous vacation in Perth, my first visit to West Australia.

Next on my shortlist are posts about my first time in Seattle and San Francisco, along with more about the round-the-world ticket I booked to attend my brother's wedding in 1996. The image opening this post was taken during this trip. I've already captured my initial stopover in Southern Africa. In the months ahead, watch for posts exploring Prague and Berlin with my parents, followed by a wild time with friends in Hawaii. 

Go west young man

My first time in Perth was a spontaneous affair. In August 1991, IBM made me redundant. At the time, I was on a 12-month contract tasked with managing office supplies in the company's Kent Street tower. This building housed IBM’s Sydney-based industry sales teams. It's long since been converted into luxury apartments and renamed Observatory Tower.

My role involved ordering stationery, clearing photocopier paper jams, replacing fax machine thermal rolls and delivering mail to individual mail slots on each floor (these were the days when people still sent internal memos in yellow manilla envelopes sealed with string). My desk on the 18th floor was blessed with a panoramic view over Circular Quay and the Opera House, while windows at the opposite end of the floor delivered unrivalled views of the Harbour Bridge. As a recently settled migrant it was a breathtaking introduction to Sydney and its magnificent harbour.

In 1990-91, Australia was weathering “the recession we had to have.” Globally, IBM lost USD2.83 billion in 1991. At the time, this was one of the largest corporate losses in American history, while the Australian operation was its worst-performing subsidiary. I recall sitting in a sales meeting watching managers white-boarding missed sales targets at an alarming rate. Until then, the Australian subsidiary had always reported stable year-on-year growth.

Months earlier IBM Australia had celebrated a record increase in sales to AUD1.7 billion and an after-tax profit of $135 million. The once unstoppable subsidiary subsequently announced losses of more than $300 million in 1991, on a staggering 30% drop in revenue, to about $1.2 billion. Understandably my contract was terminated early. Although, to my surprise, IBM paid out its full residual value.

This is the first and only time I’ve ever been made redundant. I recall collecting my final paycheck from the mailroom on a Friday evening. On a whim, I walked over the Sydney Harbour Bridge to clear my head, and catch the train home from Milton’s Point. 

As the sun loomed low in the sky, I reflected on the harsh reality of finding work amid an increasingly dire recession. I needed to decide my fate. Would I stay in Australia, having arrived just nine months earlier? Or was it time to throw in the towel and return to New Zealand? I recall vividly how vulnerable I felt. 

I needn’t have worried. My time at IBM reflected positively on me and my resume. Within a week I’d secure a job as a desktop researcher at International Data Corporation (IDC), a reputable industry analyst firm. It confirmed my appointment on a Wednesday with a start date for the following Monday. I decided to use the intervening period to go travelling. Otherwise, it’d be 18 months or more since finishing my travels in Europe before I’d have time off again.

I walked into a local travel agency and told them I had five days of leave to fill. Where could I go? And could I schedule any travel that maximised my time away? Within an hour we’d booked me on an afternoon flight to Perth, returning overnight on Sunday, arriving in Sydney early Monday morning ready to start work. I returned home, packed my bag, updated my flat mates and headed for the airport. By Wednesday evening I was checking into a hostel in Perth. 

I spent the next five days exploring the best the city had to offer. I caught a one-way ferry cruise down the Swan River to Fremantle and spent an afternoon exploring this pioneering seaside town. This was just a few years after Australia had won the America’s Cup, so the port area had been completely rejuvenated.  Along the way I ticked off its colonial highlights including the Round House, a 19th Century prison, and the nearby Whalers Tunnel. 

I also took a cruise upriver to the Houghton winery where I discovered the delights of its Tawny Port. I recall guests participated in a wine tasting as we cruised, followed by lunch and a further tasting at the winery’s riverside cellar door. It would be fair to say that we returned to the city a little worse for wear.

Keen to see as much as possible, I hired a car and drove up to the Pinnacles at Nambung National Park. This incredible natural phenomenon lies about 190km or 2.5 hours north of Perth. The Pinnacles are amazing natural limestone structures, formed approximately 25,000 to 30,000 years ago after the sea receded and left deposits of seashells. Over time, coastal winds removed the surrounding sand, leaving the pillars exposed to the elements. The resulting pinnacles range in height and dimension - some stand as high as 3.5 metres.

Back then you could drive around these towering structures by following a designated touring route. I recall taking photos of them and my car dwarfed by more than one impressive pinnacle. I also drove to the coast near Cervantes to check out the area’s soaring white sand dunes. On my way home I visited the renowned Scarborough Beach to watch the sun setting over the Indian Ocean. It was a truly memorable day trip.

I also spent time exploring Kings Park and taking in its iconic view of Perth Water, a wide sweeping inland bay on the Swan River in central Perth. It’s the scene that opens this blog post. As for other sights in Perth, I’m unsure what else I saw on that trip. For example, did I visit the Perth Mint? I imagine I did as back then I always tried to tick off every major tourist sight listed for any location I visited.

The overnight flight to Sydney was uneventful, and all too brief. I recall shaving in the airport bathroom in Sydney and changing into my smart casual work clothes before heading to North Sydney. This was the start of what ultimately became a 21-year career in the technology industry. I've been back to Perth at least twice since, once in 2009 and again for business in March 2014.

NOTE: 3 December

I’ve yet to find any photos I took during this trip other than the image that opens this post.  For now, I’ve illustrated it with images taken from the web.

Marsupial moments

I’ve just returned from my EO Forum’s annual overnight mini-retreat. Regular readers will recall that last year the group flew a hot air balloon in Melbourne, and visited Canberra in 2022. This year we stayed overnight on the Gold Coast.

I organised this year’s mini-retreat. As always, I was determined to deliver a memorable event. You’ll recall I organised our main annual retreat in Wellington in March last year. As I’ve blogged before, EO is big on developing the “whole person”. As a result, a great retreat needs to include people presenting on commercial topics, as well as people offering unique, or eclectic, perspectives on life. We also try to schedule a “once in a lifetime” experience.

This year I booked us into spectacular Sky Apartments at Peppers Broadbeach. Here we hosted a presentation by an old friend, Liz, who transformed her business from a physical operation employing more than 40 people to an entirely virtual organization that doesn’t maintain a single physical office.

Later that evening her husband, Adam, joined us to share his experience running their company, as well as inspiring the team with stories about their tree-change lifestyle living on a hobby farm near Ballina. Garry and I will be spending four days with them after Christmas.

We then spent Thursday afternoon at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary where we touched and held a koala while enjoying beer and wine with a light charcuterie board. The photos we received were spectacular. This is the first time I’ve ever held a koala. They’re heavier than they look! The little fella I held was at least 10kg or more.

Many years ago I got a few photos of me with koalas in the wild. It was Easter 1990. Three of us drove to Portland to spend the long weekend with a friend, Dean, on his family farm. While there we ventured out to nearby Mount Richmond National Park in search of koalas. We eventually came across one high in a tree. We climbed the tree and briefly touched it. However, if truth be told, the poor animal kept climbing to the tree's highest point to escape us. 

We subsequently encountered a second animal sitting half along a sturdy horizontally extended tree limb devoid of vegetation. The koala was very subdued. One at a time, we gingerly shuffled out onto the limb, sat next to it, put our arm around it briefly, took photos, and left it in peace. In hindsight, the animal was probably deeply unwell, or near death, as its exposed location, lack of fear and immobility were very abnormal.

We finished our afternoon on the Gold Coast with leisurely drinks on the outdoor patio at Burleigh Pavillon. Our corner table overlooked the arcing white sands of Burleigh Beach. We then relocated for dinner in a private dining space at Social Eating in Broadbeach. Garry and I ate there when we visited the Gold Coast last year.  Although the food this time wasn't as impressive.

We held our normal monthly business review meeting on Friday morning, followed by a leisurely lunch at Miss Moneypenny, a local institution. I ordered the truffle and mushroom risotto, which was mouth-wateringly good. Then, it was straight to the airport for our flight home.

Yesterday’s weather in Queensland was horrendous. The rain absolutely bucketed down. More than once the minivan taking us to the airport had to gingerly weave its way around or through localized flooding. Flights were also chronically delayed. Although, by sheer luck, our Jetstar flight was on time. All this was in stark contrast to the glorious weather we enjoyed flying in and out of Sydney.

However, everything I hate about Jetstar was borne out by my experience at the boarding gate. They weighed my hand luggage, declared it 4kg overweight and promptly hit me up for a $75 “gate upgrade charge”. Had I checked in my bag they'd have charged me nothing. Same bag, same weight, but loaded differently on the aircraft.

As the years pass, my love for Qantas slowly erodes. Year after year the airline quietly eliminates or downgrades benefits for Platinum frequent flyers while maintaining a Machiavellian Chinese Wall between its full-service airline and budget offshoot.

It’s happy to consolidate Jetstar’s performance as part of its annual results, while completely negating any frequent flyer benefits for Platinum members by declaring Jetstar “another airline”.  For example, my booking - completed on the Qantas website - included a Qantas-branded flight to the Gold Coast. This wouldn’t gall me as much if it wasn’t simultaneously pulling Qantas-branded aircraft off routes and replacing them with Jetstar alternatives.

Friends for life

Garry and I joined two long-standing friends, Jon and Colm, for dinner last night. We kicked off the evening with cocktails at Bobbie’s, a new subterranean bar in Double Bay before venturing upstairs for dinner at Neil Perry’s new Cantonese restaurant, Song Bird.

We last caught up as a quartet in July 2022, and before that, we enjoyed leisurely Sunday cocktails at the Beresford Hotel in 2019. However, we’ve had a couple of meals alone with Jon in the intervening years. Garry and I entertained Jon at Margaret, Neil Perry’s flagship restaurant, earlier this year, and an evening at Rockpool in Melbourne last year.

Our meal in 2022 was a leisurely lunch at Nour, followed by cocktails at the Dolphin Hotel. Jon succinctly describes this post-COVID reunion as “The best seven-hour lunch we’ve ever enjoyed”. Nour really was awesome. The restaurant gave us a large circular table next to full-length picture windows overlooking its rear garden wall. Above is us at the Dolphin.

Jon has the dubious distinction of being one of my longest-standing friendships in Australia. More than 30 years ago we met at a mutual friend’s housewarming party. Since then, our friendship has endured through good times and bad. Along the way, we’ve always been there for each other as we’ve battled some of our darkest moments, met our respective partners, got married (Jon and Colm in December 2002) and relocated across the globe (Garry and I to London, Jon and Colm to Vancouver).

Jon has taught me much about life. For example, his friendship helped me understand my mother’s personality and what she valued most. He’s also taught me true friendship is often an endurance race, not a sprint. I've learned that factors sustaining the relationship morph and evolve over time. Here's to many more decades of growing older together.

Mount Steel

I’ve written very little about the history of my neighbourhood in Sydney. As I read old blog posts, I’m struck by the fact that I’ve researched and written more about the history of our local area in London. How curious that so much of our daily life is considered dull and taken for granted.

I’d like to address the imbalance with a post about Mount Steel, a 60-metre-high tree-clad hill visible from our apartment. I was surprised to learn recently that this verdant mount is one of four prominent sandhills that once marked the southern boundary of colonial Sydney: Mount Steel, Mount Renny, Mount Lang and Constitution Hill. In fact, not far from the base of Mount Steel, stands a battered stone pillar marking the nineteenth century city limits.

Over time, all four sandhills were modified, or removed completely as the demand for park space grew. Mount Lang was removed to create the grassed parking zone opposite the Horden Pavillion, and Constitution Hill was flattened to form sections of the golf course behind the Supa Centre and the western fringe of Randwick Racecourse.

Today, only Mount Steel and Mount Renny remain. However, Mount Renny’s summit was flattened into a broad plateau in the 1920s to house the Moore Park Golf Club House and car park. As a result, Mount Steel, the tallest of the four original sandhills, remains the least altered. It was named after Alexander Steel in 1869. He was a Sydney Council Alderman who served from 1860-1870 and 1872-1874.

Mount Steel offers some stunning panoramic views of the city skyline. It reminds me of a similar view of London that we once enjoyed from Primrose Hill. Over the years it’s become a popular spot for people to sit and reflect or watch athletic types doing hill sprints on its northern flank. I also recall my friend Brendan using it to observe Comet McNaught in 2007.

Incredibly, Mount Steel has hosted all manner of athletic endeavours over the years. I discovered that in the late nineteenth century, it served as a training ground for professional, amateur, and " would-be” circus and vaudeville acrobats. Apparently, numerous athletes, young and old, would gather on Sunday mornings to train. Their training sessions were regularly watched by curious local onlookers.

From the 1970s to 1993, a grass ski centre operated on Mount Steel. A portable tow rope pulled skiers up the hill. They then skied down to the oval below on special grass skis or snowboards. The slope was reported to be ideal for both beginners and experienced skiers. It was 110 metres long and had a smooth beginners’ area and bumpy spots for the more adventurous.

More recently, the city council completed a crushed sandstone pathway partway up Mount Steel to improve access to its summit. The path replaces a dirt track joggers and dog walkers had carved out over the years from the base of a footbridge that spans South Dowling Street. It’s hard to imagine this landscaped mound was once a scrappy tussock-covered sandhill.

Broken Hill and back

Here's the last of three posts I've published about a Kodak-era road trip into the Australian outback. This post covers my time in Broken Hill, a place I'd dreamed of visiting as a child. My friend Enda and I spent two days exploring this iconic outback town in 2003.

After stopping for the night in White Cliff, it was on to Broken Hill. Along the way, we stopped to adjust our watches to Central Time, 30 minutes behind the rest of the state. Naturally, I couldn’t resist a classic tourist photo while passing into the new time zone.

Broken Hill was every bit as rugged and special as the mesmerising 35mm documentary film that inspired me as a child. As all good tourists do, we stayed at the Palace Hotel and booked ourselves into the hotel’s world-renowned Priscilla Suite. This unorthodoxly decorated room was made famous by the 1994 hit movie, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

 

The room’s walls and ceiling are covered in murals depicting classic Australian landscapes of streams, red dirt and gum trees. The halls and stairway leading up to the room are covered in more of these extraordinary hand-painted murals. An Indigenous artist from Port Augusta by the name of Gordon Waye painted much of what you see over several years.

However, despite its exotic decor, the room was fitted out in what could only be described as classic country pub sheek. In one corner sat a tiny TV on a varnished wooden shelf, floral duvets adored the bed, the floor boards creaked with every step, and an odd freestanding wash basin was installed midway along the wall. Thanks to a double-height ceiling, and a pair of balcony doors, the room did feel abnormally generous for pub accommodation.

We ate dinner in the bistro downstairs, then retired to our room. We sat outside for a while on the classic under cover wraparound balcony, soaking in the outback air. However, the temperature dropped quickly after dark from the mid-20s to about 18C so we soon called it a night. Bizarrely, we visited Broken Hill during a brief cool period. Daytime temperatures hovered around the mid to high twenties while we were there rather than the normal mid to high thirties earlier in the week.

While in Broken Hill we took time out to visit the Line of Lode Miners Memorial built on a ridge of mine tailing that towers over the town. Mining has claimed more than 800 lives over the years at Broken Hill, and the dramatic arching memorial is a poignant monument to them all. After viewing it you can sit on the Big Bench nearby and reflect on the lives lost. This colossal red seat is two and a half times the size of a regular bench.

We also took a mine tour which saw us don hard hats, enter an open cage and descend in into the depths of an abandoned mine. We were told that it continues to be maintained in working condition for the benefit of tourists. The tour gave us an excellent insight into the lives of miners and the risks they manage every day. We learned that the Line of Lode is one of the world’s largest bodies of ore, containing the silver, lead and zinc that's made fortunes in this remote outback city.

The following day we toured the Flying Doctors base and visited the town’s quirky monument to the lives of bandsmen lost in the sinking of the Titanic. Even though none of the bandsmen were Australian, their memorial in Stuart Park was completed less than two years after the disaster, in December 1912. It was a poignant reminder that tragic events impact every generation, each with its own 9/11 moment.

We then ventured out to the ghost town of Silverton. Once a booming silver mining town, its abandoned buildings and their restored facades are now renowned for starring in iconic Aussie films like Mad Max 2 and The Adventures of Priscilla. Most of the town's buildings are long gone.  However, a handful of lovingly restored structures dot an otherwise barren, gently sloping plateau. It's one of the oddest places I've ever visited in Australia.

After visiting Silverton, we drove to the nearby Mundi Mundi Lookout. Although back then it was called the Edge of the World, for good reason, as it sits on the rim of the Barrier Ranges. Beyond the hills the road winds down to a plateau that stretches to the horizon in an unbroken plain of barren red dirt. You really do feel like you’re standing at the edge of the world with eternity unfolding before you. I’ve since requested that a portion of my ashes be scattered here when I die.

From Broken Hill, it was onward to the Murray River. We drove into Wentworth and made our way to the confluence of the Darling and Murry Rivers in time to witness a spectacular sunset. Even now, decades later, I still consider the photo we took as one of my all-time favourites. We then stopped for the night in Mildura. 

The following morning, we booked ourselves a river cruise on the Paddle Steamer (PS) Melbourne. This vessel started life in Koondrook on the River Murray in 1912. Built for the Victorian Government as a work boat, the Melbourne was once fitted with a huge winch that was used for hauling fallen trees and snags from the river. This kept the main channel open throughout the year for other boats. 

The PS Melbourne was restored and converted for the tourist trade in 1996. Today it’s licensed to carry 300 passengers. Incredibly, as a flat bottom boat, it can safely navigate in water only four feet deep. However, our tour spent a relaxing two hours in much deeper channels sailing down through Mildura's Lock 11 and back. Along the way we passed the Melbourne’s sister ship, the Rothbury MV. 

Afterwards, we drove out of town to the local Yabbi farm where an enthusiastic farmhand gave a private tour. It was fascinating to learn how these freshwater crayfish are cultivated. They take two years to reach a commercial size of at least 10-15cm. The secret to optimal growth is to keep the water at a constant temperature between 23C to 25C year-round. Sadly, the farm at Gol Gol has long since disappeared.  I looked for it to no avail when Garry returned to Mildura in 2021.

From Mildura we drove directly to Wagga Wagga, stopping briefly in Hay and Narrandera to stretch our legs. This was easily our longest scheduled drive, taking more than six hours and covering more than 550km. However, Wagga was little more than an overnight pitstop on our way to Canberra.

The next morning we carried on to the ACT, stopping briefly in Gundagai to check out the famous Dog on a Tucker Box statue. This was my second visit to Gundagai. I'd first stopped here while driving to Portland, Victoria for an Easter weekend break in 1990.

Canberra was our final overnight stop. Enda and I did the usual tourist thing, visiting Parliament and venturing up Mount Ainslie to marvel at the city’s carefully planned layout. We then drove back to Sydney via Goulburn and its iconic Big Merino. In six days we’d driven more than 2,700km and ticked off many of New South Wales’s most iconic outback experiences.

I’ve never been back to Broken Hill. However, I am keen to return and drive north to Tibooburra. This remote town near the Queensland border has always captured my imagination. It regularly reports the state’s hottest daily temperatures. Hence, I’m dying to see what's out there. Tibooburra is also close to Camerons Corner, a roadhouse that sits on the tripartite border point for South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales. Watch this space!