Country No.4

I first visited Australia in 1988. It became the fourth country on the list of those I’ve visited. I was flown to Sydney on 16 November by Procter & Gamble for a series of interviews after being shortlisted for its graduate intake program. At the time, I’d just finished the final exams required to complete my Bachelor of Management Studies at Waikato University. The US giant flew me and one other candidate across the Tasman to meet its senior executives and determine which of us would fill the single position on offer.

The company put us up in a hotel for three nights. We then endured two days of meetings, psychometric testing, and interviews at its Villawood campus in Western Sydney. I recall being taken for dinner at The Rocks one evening and enjoying a meal in one of the original sandstone buildings at Campbell Cove. It was quite the introduction to Sydney dining with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge as a backdrop.

I decided to extend my stay for another three nights at my own expense. I booked a homestay room with a couple living in Hunters Hill. I then spent my time exploring Sydney’s most iconic sights, including Bondi, Manly, and the recently opened Harbourside Mall at Darling Harbour. I also booked a day tour to Canberra and experienced my first taste of the Australian capital. I must admit that, given all this occurred in the pre-internet era, I don't know how on earth I managed to book a homestay.

Procter & Gamble offered me a sales role in New Zealand, rather than a graduate placement. I wasn’t surprised. During my final interview with the Managing Director, I expressed uncertainty about what I wanted to do with my career. At the time, I decided I’d be honest about my motivation on the basis that if they hired me, at least all parties knew where they stood.

However, I wasn’t interested in spruiking the benefits of soap and toothpaste to regional pharmacies. Instead, I flew home on 22 November, ready to spend a year working full-time on a friend’s dairy farm. My time on the farm ultimately set me on a path that saw me return to Australia 15 months later.

Little did I know that, as I flew into Sydney for a six-month training course in February 1990, my life would never be the same again. 33 years later, I never could have imagined that my graduate interview would become the first of hundreds of flights I’d eventually make in and out of Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport. This blog only captures a handful of them.

Sadly, I didn’t take any photos during my time in Sydney. As a result, I’ve scanned a few old photos of me at university to illustrate this post. I don’t see this guy spruiking acne cream anytime soon.

More retrospective adventures

Last month I kicked off a series of retrospective posts covering travel adventures that unfolded before this blog began. You'll find links to my first series of posts here.  Since then I've published another round of retrospective posts, including: 

• Garry and my first holiday together in Rome
  
  
• A day trip we took to Paris before moving to London
  
  
• Austria's spectacular Kaprun Hochgebirgsstauseen region
  
  
• A long weekend living it up at the Sheraton Mirage in Port Douglas
  
  
• My first experience with the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an
  
  
• Other highlights from our weekend in Xi'an
  
  
• Garry's first time in Beijing and Shanghai
  

Now that these posts are done, I need to think about how best to capture earlier travels documented by a stack of photo albums sitting in our home library. This is going to involve a lot of sorting and scanning. Until then, I hope you enjoy this latest series of adventures from two decades ago.

Step back in time

For five years this blog kept family and friends up to date with Garry and my exploits while living in London. However, in more recent times, it’s morphed into something more akin to a travel diary. In keeping with this transformation, I've decided the time has come to document some pre-London travel adventures. 

In recent weeks, I’ve published posts on a few vacations we enjoyed before the blog began.  Follow these links for my initial set of retrospective posts:

• A camper van road trip through New Zealand’s Northland
  
  
• Our first-ever cruise around Tahiti
  
  
• Exploring the islands of Hawaii
  
  
• A weekend in Chicago
  
  
• Reliving Kennedy's assassination in Dallas
  
  
• Houston and the Johnson Space Center
  
  
• The real Disneyland.
  

I’ll do my best to share more travel experiences in the months ahead including the first holiday Garry and I ever had together (in Rome), and our trip to see the Terracotta Warriors. These vacations are relatively easy to publish as the photos are all digital files.  

However, earlier adventures taken during the Kodak era are another matter. I have at least eight photo albums gathering dust in the household library, and storage tubs filled with photos. Their contents recall vacations I'd enjoyed before meeting Garry.  This includes my first African safari in 1996, a road trip down the Florida Keys the same year, and a Japanese rail holiday during the spectacular Sakura season in 1998. 

It’ll take some organizing to scan and upload hundreds of photographs. However, as these chemical memories slowly age, it’s probably an exercise well worth the effort. Watch this space.

UPDATE: 11 June

I've now added a post about our first vacation together in Rome. 

UPDATE: 18 June

I’ve now added a post about our first day-trip to Paris.