Build it and they will come

The rumours are true. I’m an infrastructure geek. I love learning about major civil engineering works. Over the years, I’ve blogged about structures like the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, the world’s longest single-span suspension bridge, the Panama Canal, and Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.

Currently, a couple of construction projects in New South Wales are firm favourites. That is, the Coffs Harbour bypass and the M1 Motorway Extension to Raymond Terrace. Once completed you’ll be able to drive from Sydney to Brisbane without encountering a single stop sign or traffic light. In fact, following the recent completion of the Northconnex tunnel in northern Sydney, you’ll be able to do the same from Melbourne to Brisbane.

Last December, Garry and I drove past both projects on our way to our holiday in Ballina. I was surprised (and delighted) to see an elevated roadway rising on the Raymond Terrace bypass. It’s part of a 2.6-kilometre viaduct across the Hunter River and surrounding floodplain. The scale of this roadway was impressive, to say the least.

Once completed, this 15-kilometre motorway extension will remove five sets of traffic lights and cut 15 minutes or more from travel time during peak periods. For years, we’ve dreaded this section of road as traffic slows to a crawl for kilometres in the run-up to the existing river crossing.

Likewise, the Coffs Harbour bypass will involve 14 kilometres of dual carriageway and three tunnels, diverting traffic around this north-coast city. Last December, massive earthworks were underway at either end of the bypass. The Coffs Harbour bypass is scheduled to open in late 2027, while the M1 extension at Raymond Terrace will open in 2028.

However, I won't force Garry to make a special trip to experience the roads when they open. In 1998, I recall taking a detour while driving to the Hunter Valley with my friend Michele to see the recently opened M1 motorway extension to Tomago. Years later, she drove me across Hong Kong's recently opened Tsing Ma Bridge in her employer's convertible simply because she knew I'd relish the experience. Halfway across the bridge, its presentation floodlights timed out for the night, leaving us in total darkness.

 Lake George Dual Carriageway: Shutterstock

When I relocated to Australia in 1990, things were very different. Back then, the Pacific Highway was considered one of Australia's most deadly roads thanks to horrific head-on collisions, including the Kempsey bus crash that killed 35 people and injured 41 the year before I arrived. 

The equally busy Hume Highway between Sydney and Melbourne was also incomplete, with lengthy sections lacking a dual carriageway. I recall the opening of bypasses at Goulburn and Mittagong in 1992, as well as the final section of the missing road near Holbrook, which opened in 2013.

Likewise, a dual carriageway on the Federal Highway between Goulburn and Canberra was well underway, including an elevated roadway along the shores of Lake George. Fast forward 35 years, and the dual carriageway is now progressively extending south along the Pacific Highway towards Batemans Bay. I love it all. Sad but true.

Where to next?

We have plenty of travel coming up. 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 fly 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 for a week in early April. 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 made the whole experience way more affordable.

Finally, my EO Forum has scheduled its annual retreat this year in Queenstown. We’ll be off to New Zealand for three nights in late June. I’m just praying it won’t be bitterly cold.

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 every year 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 coming home this year. However, we did secure the first two bulkhead seats in Business that offered 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 for some 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 4.2 km from Windsor Castle to Snow Hill, home to an elevated statue of George the Third on horseback. 

The walk took more than an hour each way. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people were doing the same thing. The statue on Snow Hill was impressive up close. The monumental bronze statue is larger than life size, 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 unforgettable sight captured our attention. Windsor Castle lies directly under the flight path of 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 returned 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. We used the bar's quirky self-vending wine wall to toast another successful business trip. We've returned home with two new brands and a greater appreciation for everything 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 at the show and 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 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 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 is 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 Atlas 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, where we enjoyed 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. We began our walk before sunrise while the locals were at their most active. The sun rose as we walked, bringing warmth and character to the barren landscape. 

Our guide was excellent, pointing out quirky facets of daily life in the desert. For example, he explained how the land is divided into family plots; each one gets access to water 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 one of the most impressive kasbahs of its kind in Morocco and once featured on the Moroccan 50 dirham note. It’s still owned by a local family who live in part of the complex. We even met one of the family's sons on our way out. 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 an embassy in the movie “Rules of Engagement” and for some scenes in 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 village scenes that have appeared in movies such as 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 simulate 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. We decided to try the mocktail float with our meal, a series of five colourful juice drinks, in place of alcohol that's traditionally restricted in this Muslim nation. Garry and I agreed the Orange, Carrot, Ginger and Turmeric shot was best, followed closely by the Avocado, Orange, Dates, Mint and Verbena shot.