Platinum Paradise

Every so often Garry and I find ourselves scheduling a holiday in an unexpected location.  Our recent vacation in Fiji was no exception.  These Pacific islands were never on our radar.  However, after a few calculations, Garry discovered that he was only a modest long-haul flight away from achieving Qantas Platinum Frequent Flyer status for the first time in almost a decade.  I was also well on my way to achieving the same milestone.

Platinum status definitely has its perks.  The most popular of these is access to Qantas First Class lounges worldwide.  These are true havens of luxury that you can access regardless of your ticket’s cabin class. The Sydney lounge includes complimentary dining the equal of any inner city café and a small spa offering complimentary massages and beauty treatments.  It would be fair to say that in the past we’ve headed for the airport well ahead of schedule to simply enjoy everything the lounge has to offer.

Platinum status also improves your chance of a points upgrade, including Garry’s much loved First Class cabin on the A380.  You even get double the normal earning rate for points on each flight and thus quickly earn enough to fund your next points upgrade. However, the perk that makes me smile every time is access to the Business Lounge on domestic flights. Domestic flights are unappealing at the best of times so a decent lounge makes all the difference.

Anyway, Garry researched airfares and destinations before settling on flights to Fiji.  This soon became a proxy celebration for his forthcoming 50^th birthday, and ultimately my birthday as well once we’d booked a flight for mid-September. My milestone ticked over five days after we returned home from our Fiji vacation.

We eventually settled on a week ensconced at Sofitel on Denauru Island; just 20 minutes away from Nadi airport. We booked ourselves a room in the Waitui Beach Club section of the hotel.  This offered a secluded setting on the beachfront with an adults-only admission.  No screaming kids. Our booking included complimentary breakfast on the beach and a complimentary cocktail hour (including canapes) at 5:00pm every afternoon. 

For once our research was on the money.  The beach club turned out to be a hidden gem.  It was definitely the best on offer in the immediate area (where almost a dozen hotels and serviced apartments vied for business).  The staff were friendly and professional.  The pool area was picture perfect.  The facilities were clean and relatively new.  Even the décor and furnishings in our room were surprisingly fresh and sharp despite their apparent age.

Denarau Island was also a pleasant surprise.  The area proved to be a spotless, luxury enclave offering a golf course, water park, palm-fringed roads and a marina area with a selection of half decent (tourist-oriented) shops.  Unlike a resort in Bali (where chaos engulfs you as you pass through the resort gates), on Denarau, we could leave our hotel grounds and still find ourselves wandering a clean, quiet and immaculate tropical suburb.

We’d also booked a week that proved relatively quiet at the hotel. This meant we secured a favourite daybed location by the pool or along the high tide mark every day with ease.  Prior to our arrival was worried the week would drag and I’d find myself bored within days.  However, we soon slipped into a daily routine and the days simply flew by.

In the end, we hardly left the resort with the exception of a day trip mid-week to Malamala Island.  The island’s claim to fame is its self-titled claim of being the world’s first island beach club. We paid a little extra and booked ourselves a poolside daybed.  This gave us a “between the toe” view across the club’s sculped infinity pool towards a sun-baked Pacific Ocean horizon.  The island itself was wrapped by white sand beaches and ringed by a reef.  It also offered superb food, cocktails and the usual flurry of water sports activities.

Without a doubt, we’ll be returning to Fiji. Oh yes; and I ticked another country off my globe-trotting list.  Depending on your definition of a country that’s Number 67; or Number 70 if you count fleeting border excursions into North Korea, Paraguay and Zambia.

The forgotten ones

I learnt today that, Janet Elizabeth Armstrong, passed away recently. Jan, as she was commonly known, was the first wife of Neil Armstrong; whom we all remember as the first person in human history to walk on the moon.

After learning this news I feel compelled to offer a brief tribute. All too often the headline-grabbing achievements of modern heroes, sports stars and titans of industry involve a spouse or family members toiling silently in the background. Their tireless efforts ensure the bills are paid on time, the children are fed and clothed and the many chores of daily life continue unabated.

While Jan may have never walked on the moon, without doubt, her efforts on the home front freed her husband to focus on his deadly and dangerous career. I don't know about you, but I feel Jan deserves her moment in the sun. Here's a link to a tribute published by the Houston Chronicle in June.
 

Just another brick in the wall

Our building is currently in the midst of a major capital works program.  This work includes repainting the exterior, inspecting and repairing the facade and fixing water penetration leaks across the building. Our building is eight stories high. Access to its facade has involved the installation of a series of swing stages supported by temporary scaffolding rigs.

Regular readers will know that we have a rooftop apartment in the building. As a result, we've had rigging assembled, disassembled, relocated and re-assembled on our northern balcony and apartment roof continuously since March this year.  We've also enjoyed mind-numbing bouts of drilling and pounding.  At times this has made working from our home office a rather stressful affair.

In recent weeks the works have moved to the southeastern corner of the building.  We've been waiting for this work to start for some time as it also involves extensive facade repairs designed to finally fix a persistent water penetration problem we've been tackling in the apartment for almost three years. The leak has progressively damaged carpet and wardrobe fittings in our main bedroom.  It's become a regular event to pull back the carpet in our main bedroom and distribute towels to mop up the water that's slowly leaking in.

To date, the building has completed five separate projects designed to plug the leak.  Each has progressively reduced the flow of water into our apartment.  However, until now nothing has completely sealed the building.  Although, on a positive note, the water membranes surrounding the perimeter of the apartment has progressively replaced.  This should give us several decades of trouble-free living.

The latest attempt to finally plug the leak has been more comprehensive then we'd anticipated.  Builders and engineers have opened up several sections of our southern wall, repaired its cavity and rebuilt troublesome sections. Fingers crossed we'll finally see an end to our much-despited towel mopping entertainment.  We'll then be able to start making plans for some long-anticipated renovations.

UPDATE: 3 November 2018
I'm delighted to report that the recent works have left us high and dry for the first time in years. Despite a week of heavy and unrelenting rain in late-October not a drop of water made its way into the apartment. Hooray!

Standing room only

In November this year, I’ll celebrate the 30^th anniversary of my first visit to Australia. I arrived in Sydney in 1988 courtesy of Procter & Gamble.  It flew me across the Tasman as one of two short-listed candidates for an annual university graduate recruitment program.  I spent a week attending meetings and enjoying the city’s popular tourist highlights. However, I ultimately decided that a career promoting toothpaste and laundry detergent wasn’t the life for me.

Two years later, in 1990, a simple quirk of fate found me back in Sydney with credit card debt to repay after months of backpacking in Europe. At the time logic dictated that a Summer job earning Australian dollars would clear my New Zealand dollar debt faster than a job in New Zealand.  I ultimately settled here and have never looked back.

Compared to regional New Zealand, Sydney was an exciting and dynamic city.  At the time Australia’s population had just passed 17 million people while Sydney, its largest city, had reached 3.5 million.  New Zealand’s entire population at the time was a mere 3.3 million. However, despite its size, I found it easy to drive around inner Sydney and a parking space could be found with relative ease in the CBD. Decades later Australia’s population has grown in extraordinary leaps and bounds.

Last week the Australian Bureau of Statistics' official population counter ticked over 25 million.  Greater Sydney’s population also passed the 5 million mark.  It’s staggering to think that since I've arrived in Australia another 8 million people have joined me here.  The largest single factor driving the increase is net migration.  An astonishing 33% of the population were born overseas including more than half a million Kiwis.

The strain of rapid population growth can be seen everywhere you go.  Sydney’s major roads slow to a crawl during peak hours and its trains are regularly filled to overflowing.  In our local area, thousands of new apartments have been built with thousands more under construction. The area between our apartment and airport is on track to become Australia's most densely populated district within three years.  

The resulting influx of residents has resulted in traffic chaos in rush hour.  Queues block the pavement at every bus stop and even during the weekend local trips regularly involve navigating your way through a perpetual traffic jam. It, therefore, comes as no surprise to hear that Sydney, and the state of New South Wales, are in the midst of a massive infrastructure boom.  

Two new rail lines and three motorways are under construction. Another rail line and four motorways are now in the final stages of planning. Between Sydney and Brisbane the notorious Pacific Highway is being converted to a dual carriageway. Currently, about 81% of the 657-kilometre route between Hexham and the Queensland border are now a four-lane divided road. An upgrade of the remaining section is scheduled for completion in 2020.

The 25 million population milestone is prompting a national debate about the nation’s high rate of migration.  On current trends, by mid-century Australia’s population could pass 40 million.  Some argue that this is too many, or at least, too many in too short a time frame.  Personally, I support a higher population. 

Over the last decade, a high migration rate has offset the impact of an ageing population as the average Australian lives longer.  It’s also helped sustain a quarter century of uninterrupted economic growth.  This performance recently became the world's longest recession-free growth period for any developed economy in modern times. 

While living in the UK we also saw first-hand the benefits of a larger economy. Regular readers of this blog may recall that shortly after we arrived in London, the UK’s population passed 60 million for the first time.  A larger population increased the availability of all manner of goods, funded an impressive array of infrastructure and supported a bewildering array of cultural experiences including London’s famous West End theatre district.

Golden Moments

We've returned from a week of business meetings in San Francisco. In the weekend we took some time out to explore the Marin Headlands. The weather played its part with blue skies and sunshine. We even had an impromptu show by the local Coast Guard putting out to sea.  Here's a few visual highlights.

Finally here's a panorama I've stitched together using my favourite software application.  This tool is amazing.

Filling in the gaps

A weekend in Benbow gave Garry and I an opportunity to drive a section of California’s Route 1 coastal highway we missed during our West Coast Road Trip in 2012. At the time our itinerary had taken us inland to see Yosemite National Park.  We’ve now filled in the missing gap by driving from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach, then turning north through the idyllic town of Port Reyes Station and onwards to Bodega Bay.

We stopped overnight in Gualala before heading north through Port Arena, Mendocino, Fort Bragg and the rugged, isolated coastal town of Westport. Along the way we several stops to soak in the scenery and uncover some fascinating local history.  Highlights included watching sea lions frolicking in the surf at Goat Rock State Beach on the mouth of the Russian River, a whirlwind tour of a restored Russian Fort and climbing the historic lighthouse at Port Arena.

Fort Ross was a fascinating stop.  The State Park here preserves North America’s southernmost Russian settlement.  The Fort Ross Colony was founded in 1812 by members of the Russian-American Company.  Much of its initial infrastructure was built with the help of Alaskan Alutiiq natives.  The Russians eventually gave up on their colonial dreams and sold the settlement to an American, John Sutter in December 1841.

The Russians built numerous Redwood structures including a wooden stockade containing two cannon-fortified blockhouses, workshops and barracks.  A well in the centre of the fort provided water.  Today only one of the original structures remains.  However, the State Park has meticulously rebuilt replica structures that faithfully recreate the fort for modern visitors.   Garry and I arrived 20 minutes before the complex closed.  However friendly park staff allowed us to spend an additional 15 minutes inside the stockade before it was finally locked for the night.

The Port Arena Lighthouse was equally enjoyable.  We spent more than an hour soaking in dramatic coastal views and climbing the lighthouse itself.  Today’s 100-foot concrete tower is not the original lighthouse. The site’s first brick and mortar structure was damaged beyond repair in the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.  However, the original spiral cast-iron staircase was preserved and still provides access to the lighthouse’s lantern room.

We also enjoyed a leisurely hour wandering the streets of picturesque Mendocino.  Its iconic village streetscape is popular with Hollywood producers; and was the location for television’s popular “Murder She Wrote” detective series.  Garry and I couldn’t resist selecting a gift box of handmade chocolates from a local artisan store.

However, nothing can beat a classic country breakfast in Queenie's Roadhouse Cafe in Elk.  This tiny hole in the wall in the middle of nowhere certainly lives up to its impressive TripAdvisor ranking. The menu was a roadhouse classic and the staff were as friendly and hospitable as those in any Hollywood blockbuster.

Perhaps the most unexpected highlight was the remote and desolate coast north of Rockport.  It’s here that the road turns inland to avoid steep cliffs formed by the western slopes of California's King Range. We briefly stopped to enjoy the view and were delighted to discover the area’s wildflowers in full bloom. It's no surprise to learn that this desolate stretch marks the start of an undeveloped coastline known simply as the Lost Coast.

Avenue of the Giants

The Coast Redwoods of northern California are world’s tallest trees. The current record holder, Hyperion, towers more than 115 metres and one of dozens that exceed 100 metres in height.  Coast Redwoods grow in a narrow strip of land on the Pacific west coast covering an area approximately 750km in length that stretches inland between 8 and 75kms.

The largest and tallest surviving population of trees can be found in Humboldt County in Northern California.  Most are now protected within the Humboldt Redwoods State Park.  Within the park a former Route 101 highway provides visitors with ready access to many of its tallest trees.  A four-lane freeway by-pass, opened in 1960, saw this wonderfully scenic route aptly renamed the Avenue of the Giants.  Its 51km length takes motorist through one towering groves of trees after another.  In places the road narrows and weaves to accommodate the trunks of mature trees along its verge.

Garry and I spent a weekend exploring the area earlier this month while on a business trip to San Francisco.  We based ourselves at the Benbow Historic Inn situated on a picturesque bend of the South Fork Eel River. We stayed in one of the Inn’s original rooms that included an expansive private balcony overlooking the hotel’s landscaped grounds, an old stone arch bridge and the river’s crystal clear waters.

The Redwood groves are truly magical.  Nothing can prepare you for the majesty of these unique trees or the wonderfully serene and relatively open forest that surrounds them.  Highlights of our visit included the Founder’s Grove where the 112 metre long Dyerville Giant rests after falling in 1991. Nearby the Founder’s Tree still stands at almost 100 metres.  We also did the inevitable tourist thing and drove our car through the impressive Shrine Drive-Thru Tree near Myers Flats.

However, the most impressive grove we visited would have to have been the Tall Trees Grove on Mattole Road, a side road that winds for miles through the State Park’s densest concentration of mature trees.  The Tall Tree Grove was filled with dozens of mature fallen trees that were simply breath-taking in size and scope.  The grove is also home to the Giant Tree whose girth exceeds a staggering 16 metres in circumference. (Oh yes – it’s also the world’s 18^th tallest tree.

The last line of defence

Last Saturday Garry and I visited the Nike Missile Defence Museum. I’d stumbled across this unique site by chance during a Google search a few months earlier. I was surprised to learn that until 1974 the San Francisco region has been surrounded by a defensive ring of nuclear missile batteries.

The museum, located on the Marin Headlands, tells the story of hundreds of similar sites that once protected cities throughout the USA from the threat of nuclear-armed Soviet bombers. In recent years, declassified records have revealed that the Soviets had made plans to explode at least one 40 megatons nuclear weapon in front of Alcatraz; just below the surface of San Francisco Bay.

The resulting fallout of contaminated water and debris was designed to render the entire region uninhabitable for more than a century. The strategic value of such an act is clear when you learn that the Bay Area is the only significant sheltered harbour on the US west coast for more than 1000 kilometres.

The Nike-Ajax, and its successor the nuclear-capable Nike-Hercules, were medium range antiaircraft missiles. Guided by a complex system of radars and tracking computers, they had ranges of up to 37 miles (Ajax) and 87 miles (Hercules) and could shoot down planes travelling at two to three times the speed of sound. Nike-Hercules could achieve supersonic speeds within a couple of seconds of launch and reach its target in less than a minute.

We learnt that the Nike system was not only the most expensive missile system ever deployed, it was also the most widespread (300 sites in 30 states) and longest-lived (25 years nationwide). Around the Bay Area alone 12 permanent launch sites and their associated control, housing, and command sites were constructed.

However, after an investment of US$1.16 billion this defensive network was ultimately decommissioned as Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) ICBM missiles superseded the role of long-range bombers. ICBMs could fly at altitudes and speeds beyond which defensive missiles could reach, effectively leaving them without targets to hit. The Nike missile system was declared obsolete by 1974 and the last missiles were taken out of service in 1979.

The Nike Missile Defence Museum was created to preserve a lasting record of this period. It’s the last surviving site of its kind. We were lucky enough to visit on a day when former army veterans were conducting on-site tours. It was fascinating to hear their stories about maintaining the missiles, preparing them for launch and living with the ever-present threat of nuclear Armageddon.  It was also rather terrifying to learn that a 19-year-old Army recruit was ultimately responsible for pushing the button.

Our veteran guides explained that, in the San Francisco area, the Nike antiaircraft defences oeprated at a continual high state of readiness from 1954 and through to the implementation of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) in 1974. This state of readiness meant that one or more Nike batteries in the Bay Area were always ready to launch missiles with three minutes of positively identify an incoming Soviet bomber more than 150 miles away.

Our tour of the site took us into a range of facilities that included the ordinance shed where nuclear weapons were installed in each missile, into one of two underground bunkers where six missiles were stored and into the mobile radar tracking and missile firing control centre. However, the highlight of the tour was watching a missile being raised from the underground bunker on a hydraulic lift and then erected into a vertical position for launch. Despite its age, the technology remains impressive!