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.