Where to next?

We have plenty of travel coming up in the months ahead. First, I’ll fly to Melbourne at the end of the month to set up our stand for another Australian Toy Fair. Then in April, Garry and I are flying to Bangkok to meet one of our largest suppliers. We last visited their factory in 2016 and haven’t seen them in person since they stopped exhibiting at Nurmberg in 2020.

We also have Matt and Shelley scheduled to visit in early April for a week. We’ll take them to the airport when they leave and depart for Bangkok shortly after. While they’re in town I’ve booked all of us in for an overnight stay at Taronga Zoo’s luxury Wildlife Retreat. I scored a great deal on rooms before Christmas, a 30% discount, which makes the whole experience way more affordable.

What a difference a decade makes

We’re back from another year walking the halls of Spielwarenmesse in Nuremberg. It’s hard to believe we’ve been going to Germany annually since 2016 (COVID hiatus aside). This year’s event was as busy as ever. According to our iPhone apps we’ve walked more than 75,000 steps over six days.

Sadly, we missed out on our First-class points upgrade when we came home this year. However, we did secure the first two bulkhead seats in Business that offer extra leg room, so all wasn’t lost. This year we caught a late flight from Frankfurt to London and stopped overnight before continuing to Sydney.

We made the most of our stopover with a day trip to Windsor. The day dawned with clear skies and sunshine making it ideal weather for an outdoor activity. We arrived in Windsor shortly after noon. We walked along the Thames before embarking on The Long Walk. This is an arrow-straight path extending from Windsor Castle to Snow Hill an elevated statue of George the Third on horseback 4.2 km away.

The walk took more than an hour each way. Thousands of people were out doing the same. The statue on Snow Hill was impressive up close. The monumental bronze statue, larger than life size, is about 7.9 metres high, and is mounted on a rugged stone plinth 8 metres high. The view from its base, looking back to the castle, is impressive, to say the least.

However, one sight continually captured our attention. Windsor Castle lies directly under the flight path for Heathrow's southern runway. As a result, low-flying passenger jets descend like clockwork over the northern end of The Long Walk every few minutes. The stream of aircraft was unrelenting. I've read that up to 37 flights an hour pass overhead. I'm surprised the Queen enjoyed staying at Windsor as much as she did.

Once we’d completed the walk, we decided to return to London. With an hour to fill before heading to Heathrow, we decided to try out Vagabond, a wine bar on the Grand Canal we’d spotted the previous week. Using the bar's unique self-vending wine wall, we toasted another successful business trip. We've returned home with two new brands and a greater appreciation for all we’ve achieved over the last decade.

We’ve developed some wonderful friendships with people from around the world. Our suppliers have become friends, and we regularly encounter people on the trade show floor and at the airport who treat us with enormous respect. We’ve certainly become known as established players in our own right.

This was evident on our final night in Nuremberg when we organized dinner for an eclectic group of industry colleagues. Our table included a supplier’s trade show team, distributors of similar brands and other industry contacts. Nations represented at dinner last night included Australia, The Netherlands, Canada, the UK, Belgium, and Italy (plus two expats, one from New Zealand and one from Ireland).

It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years this month since we met John Daniels, Artiwood’s former owner, and decided to buy his business. What a ride it's been!

London revisited

After living in London for five years and returning year after year on business we’ve pretty much done every iconic tourist experience there is. However, despite this legacy, we managed to find a few new things this year once London Toy Fair finished. We also took time out to relive a few favourite experiences.

As happened last year we were fortunate to enjoy several days of relatively fine weather. We made the most of it with a couple of memorable excursions. The first of these was a trip to Battersea Power Station on Friday afternoon.

Last year I took the Tube to Battersea to check out the recently redeveloped complex while Garry stayed home. This year Garry came with me. However, unlike last year, the crowds were gone. As a result, we secured last-minute walk-in tickets for the Lift 109 experience that takes you up one of the station’s 103-metre-high restored chimneys.

A circular lift enclosed by glass walls rises through the flue, before stopping at the top for an unrivalled view of the Thames and inner London. The view was impressive. We then made our way back to Embankment Station, where we exited for a stroll along the Thames to see another recently restored icon, Big Ben. Later that evening we ventured out to Little Venice to catch up with our friends Jonny and Martin for dinner.

The following day Garry and I decided to retrace our steps and took a 7.5 km walk along the Regent’s Canal from Paddington Basin through to Regents Park. Along the way, we took a brief detour to venture up Primrose Hill and admire the London skyline. It’s hard to believe we’ll celebrate the 20th anniversary of our relocation to London where Primrose Hill became part of our local neighbourhood.

That night we went into town to see a West End show. This year’s performance was Titanique, a hilarious send-up of Celine Dion and James Cameron’s Oscar-winning movie. We had seats in the centre of the theatre, just two rows back from the stage. We laughed non-stop.

We woke up on Sunday to dismal weather. Garry and I decided to make the most of things with a tour of the Churchill War Rooms at Whitehall. This is one of the few classic tourist attractions we’ve yet to experience. The museum comprises the Cabinet War Rooms, a historic underground complex that housed a British government command centre throughout the Second World War, and the Churchill Museum, a biographical museum exploring the life of Winston Churchill.

That night we finished our time in London with dinner and a show in Finsbury Park. Dinner was an awesome meal at Dotori, a highly acclaimed Japanese restaurant on the high street. We then had a front-row seat to see The Gift, a three-person production at the nearby Park Theatre. This comedy was another brilliant piece of live theatre.

The following morning, we packed our bags and headed for Heathrow for another week of meetings at the annual Spielwarenmesse trade show in Nuremberg.

Moroccan scrub down

Our final day in Marrakesh was spent pampering ourselves at a traditional Moroccan Hammam. These spa venues are everywhere. In the West, they’re what we'd typically call Turkish Baths. Garry and I booked a classic hammam session followed by an hour-long massage. 

Two young women managed our hammam experience in a private treatment room clad in dark blue ceramic tiles from floor to ceiling. What followed was a steamy flurry of showers, scrubs, buckets of water, and plenty of giggling. The venue gave us a pair of disposal shorts for the session, which proved invaluable as we were repeatedly whisked from a heated tiled treatment bench (cushioned by a nylon-clad foam pad) to a shower and back.

A typical hammam session starts with a general wash-down in a tiled room, followed by a steam room sauna. The experience continues with a rigorous exfoliation scrub, plus a head-to-toe mineral clay treatment. Finally, everything is rinsed off and you’re given a final argan oil rubdown. The layers of skin we watched flowing down the drain after our exfoliating scrub was alarming, to say the least.

Our massages proved equally therapeutic. While they weren’t exceptionally firm, we both fell asleep during the session. I guess you know you’re relaxed when your own snoring wakes you mid-treatment.

We then returned to our favourite rooftop bar at Shtatto for a late lunch and a final look across the jumbled medina rooftops. The Atlas Mountains gave us a final showing despite the ubiquitous desert haze. It was the perfect way to finish a truly memorable experience. Although I must admit I think I’m finally showing my age. The dirt, chaos and ramshackle sights were a little exhausting at times. The novelty of adventure travel seems to have worn thin after all these years.

Our flight back to London passed without incident. Although we almost caught the wrong train from Gatwick into town. We finally made it into our Paddington-based Airbnb shortly before midnight. Garry found this venue a few months back. It was a recently renovated flat spread over four levels on a triangular footprint less than 500 metres from Paddington Station and a similar distance from Edgware Road in the opposite direction. 

When we opened a curtain the following morning, we discovered it sat directly over the District Line tube tracks. The track briefly passed through an open cut before disappearing under our building and passing under Praed Street. However, triple-glazed windows ensured that a little muted rumbling was all we noticed whenever trains passed below us.

Unfortunately, Garry woke in poor health. He spent the next three days in bed with a fever while I made the daily trek to Olympia for the London Toy Fair. I met with suppliers, walked the halls, and renewed old acquaintances. One supplier, Indigo Jamm, also took me for dinner one evening.

Skoura

Skoura was something special. This historic fertile oasis is home to more than 24,000 people. It’s filled with immense palm groves nestled among the confluence of several rivers and streams descending from the central High Altas mountains. These ultimately converge into the nearby Dadès River. During our visit, most of its gravel stream beds were dry and dusty.

We stayed the night in a boutique hotel, enjoying a spectacular sunset from its rooftop balcony. The following morning, we were met by a local guide who took us on a rambling 3km walk through the oasis as far as Amridil Kasbah, a local icon. The sun rose as we walked, our guide pointing out quirky facets of daily life in the desert.

For example, he explained how the land is divided into family plots, each plot is given access to water that’s diverted down irrigation channels once every two weeks. He talked about his own family plot where they grow barley. Others grow corn, beans and alfalfa (feed for the animals). Almost everyone grows and harvests dates.

Amridil Kasbah, a beautifully restored, fortified castle, was another highlight. It’s considered among the most impressive kasbahs of its kind in Morocco and once featured on the Moroccan 50 dirham note. It’s still owned by a wealthy local family who live in part of the complex. Our guide took us through the public areas, which we had almost completely to ourselves for almost an hour.

Incredibly, the entire structure is built from rammed earth or mud brick, with ceilings supported by locally sourced cedar timber, and a roof thatched using bamboo and palm. During our tour, we were shown the wooden forms used to construct its massive walls and geometric towers. The view from every doorway and around every corner was simply breathtaking. I’ll let my photos tell the story. 

From Skoura we made our way back to the city of Ouarzazate. Here we briefly stopped to admire the exterior of Kasbah Taourirt, used as the USA embassy in Yemen for the movie “Rules of Engagement” and for some scenes of Star Wars. Unfortunately, it’s currently closed for renovations following the 2023 earthquake. However, its external facade is an impressive sight.

Ouarzazate is home to the Moroccan film industry. Two massive film studios sit on its outskirts. We took a guided tour through several sound stages at Atlas Studios. This includes fake villages that have appeared in movies like Black Hawk Down, Star Wars and more. We also saw a set used to film the final season of Prison Break and sound stages used to film Egyptian, Chinese and Mongolian locations. It’s surreal to pass through a door and encounter Cleopatra’s temple, then turn a corner and discover a forest of scaffolding holding it all in place.

We then spent three hours driving back through the Atlas Mountains to Marrakesh. To celebrate our final night in Morocco, we shouted ourselves to a slap-up dinner at Nomad, a top-rated North African fusion restaurant in the heart of the medina. Alcohol is hard to find in this Muslim nation. Hence, we decided to try the mocktail float with our meal, a series of five colourful juice drinks. Garry and I agreed the Orange, Carrot, Ginger and Tumeric shot was best, followed closely by the Avocado, Orange, Dates, Mint and Verbena shot.