Beachside reunion

My former CEO at Text 100, Aedhmar, was in town this week. I took time out, along with a few former colleagues, to reconnect and reminisce over old times. I last saw Aedhmar in January 2017 when Garry and I stayed over for dinner while on business in New York.

Our reunion involved two separate events. A group of current, and former, employees came together over lunch last Sunday at The Winery, one of my favourite venues in Surry Hills. The following day a smaller group of senior ex-Texties caught up again for a leisurely lunch at Matt Moran’s beachside restaurant, North Bondi Fish.

Five of us held court at a table on the balcony overlooking Bondi Beach from 1:00pm until well into the evening. Several partners, including Garry, eventually joined us for dinner as it was clear we weren’t going anywhere fast. Aedhmar claims she’s never had a long lunch morph into a dinner event.

It was a wonderful afternoon of love and laughter. I’m reminded once again how fortunate I was to spend almost 15 years of my career working at Text 100. The culture and camaraderie we created was something special.

Doing battle in Wellington

I unexpectedly found myself in Wellington last month.  My Mum was admitted to hospital in New Zealand’s windy capital after falling ill while visiting friends.  In the end, she spent 15 days in the ward while the doctors debated her fate.  She was eventually discharged and flew home for more out-patient treatment and tests in Tauranga.

For several months now Mum has been experiencing painful joint inflammation and a worrying bout of joint infection that has the doctors baffled.  In Wellington, they debated endlessly as to whether she had an infectious disease or a rather nasty version of auto-immune rheumatoid arthritis. As of today they're still not 100 per cent sure what's happening.  However, her white cell blood tests are clear and so an infectious disease has been ruled out as the source of her illness.

Her admission to hospital while out of town resulted in my brother and I taking turns to fly into Wellington to support her and navigate the joys of New Zealand’s public hospital system.  Garry and I will be in Wellington for a couple of days while on our Christmas vacation so the early reconnaissance visit was unanticipated.

However, in between meeting doctors and nursing Mum, I did find a little time to catch up with relatives, visit a former employer and tour The Great War Exhibition at the National War Memorial.  The exhibition was very impressive.  The Trench Experience is a real highlight.  Designed by Peter Jackson (director, writer, and producer of the Lord of the Rings trilogy) this simulation of an ANZAC trench at Gallipoli has proven highly controversial. 

The experience was only ever designed to be a temporary exhibit. It was created to celebrate the centenary of the World War I armistice. However, the Trench Experience ran over budget and ultimately open more than year behind schedule.  Sadly the entire exhibit will be demolished and removed before the end of the year at a “make good” cost of more than $7million. 

The exhibition is outstanding and the Trench Experience was well worth the entry fee.  The extraordinary diorama of The Battle of Chunuk Bair is simply brilliant. It includes more than 5000 tiny pewter warriors each painted and positioned on scale model of the hilly terrain that rose up from the narrow, gravel beaches of Gallipoli.  It’s such a shame that this world-class exhibit will be destroyed a few weeks from now.

Death of a fridge

Our apartment building is less than 18 months away from celebrating the 20th anniversary of its construction. As I've mentioned in earlier blog posts the building is now in midst of its first major repainting and facade repair program.  Garry and I are also less than four months away from celebrating the 15th anniversary of our purchase of the apartment itself.  At the time, moving in drove a host of supplementary spending on furniture and appliances.

As the years tick by, it's been interesting to witness one appliance after another slowly giving up the ghost.  In the last three years we've had to replace the dishwasher, the oven, the microwave, the coffee machine, the laundry dryer and our back-up laundry fridge (also know as the beer and wine cellar).  We've reached the point where only our main kitchen fridge and plasma TV are still original purchases.

However, last month, our kitchen fridge finally called it a day.  Thank goodness we had the back-up downstairs.  I'd noticed a few months earlier that the fridge was starting to cycle through its cooling function more frequently.  At the time we thought it was on its way out but decided we'd wait until the new year.  Our optimism proved misguided.

Needless to say, a flurry of frantic unpacking and repacking saw us filling our "wine and beer" fridge with fresh and frozen goods from the kitchen.  We then spent weeks searching for a suitable replacement. Frustratingly, the search is always compounded by the entrance door to our apartment.  In a moment of madness, the architect who designed our building failed to install over-size doors.  As a result, we're forever measuring furniture and appliances to ensure they'll fit.

Garry and I have talked about a fridge with French Doors for some time so we duly traped the halls of every appliance store in the area looking for the perfect model.  We decided not to spend more than absolutely necessary as we still harbour aspirations to renovate in the future and thus replace the appliances to match the new look.

As luck would have it we came across an end-of-line model marked down as the last in-store and couldn't resist the bargain.  Much to our surprise; the new fridge ultimately cost $500 less than the model it replaced (despite the passage of 14 years).

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.