Letter from Australia - none business

26/09/2010 by Geoff.

We’re on a break in Australia taking in Noosa, Brisbane, Sidney, Melbourne and Adelaide.  My thoughts are that there are bound to be some things of interest I can share with you during this trip:

Noosa

Bit of a seaside resort and despite it being winter its been quite sunny. Chris (Mining engineer), Sheila (ex. teacher) and Bundy (aging Blue Heeler) have been great and its been even more like home from home with a hung parliament! Seeing the dingo again was great but yesterday a gardner called to show us a six foot long snake that had been sunning itself on a neighbours wall! Now safely released into the bush - I don’t think I’ll be going in there. A brief business view is that retail seems to suffering similar to the UK.

Brisbane

Missed this since our friends were a bit crook. The airports nice.

Sydney

Met an “Agile developer” see blog on this subject.

So seven days are coming to an end and we’re very grateful to Sam and Dave for looking after us. Its a nice city Sydney as well as the underground trains a popular mode of transport are the ferries. I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve been over the Sydney Harbour Bridge but the most memorable was the walk over it. Be warned there’s a bit of a climb to get started. The trip to the Blue Mountains was spectacular and we were lucky enough to see kangeroos and a lyre bird. The Hunter Valley wine tasting tour was also memorable the sleep on the way back was a bonus!

Our visit to Sydney should not go without a report on our visit to the ANZ stadium to see the Bunnies play the Eels (the South Sydney Rabbitohs vs the Parramattou Eels). Now this is rugby league and as regular readers of this blog will know I’m a rugby union supporter. Luckily back in 2003 the ANZ stadium was called the Telstra stadium and it was the scene of England winning the RUFC World Cup and Jonny’s great drop kick beating the Aussies in their own back yard. By the way I’m still an rugby union supporter! 

Now off to Mebourne and hopefully to watch a game of Aussie rules at the MCG.

Melbourne

A bit colder and wetter down here. Trips on the great ocean road and the penguin parade were great.

We did go to the MCG and see Geelong Cats vs ST Kilda Saints narrowly won by the latter. They seem to run a lot and there seem to be large number of referees in yellow. All good fun and I think we almost understood it in the end. By the way we were on the back row of the MCG - aren’t they supposed to play cricket here?

Adelaide

This city is a bit more spread out than others and there is no group of central sky scrapers here. Infact there aren’t many at all!

Great trips to the Borossa wine region (Wolf Blass) and Kangaroo Island (plenty of wild life).

Another cricket ground our hotel room overlooked the Torens River and the Adelaide Oval thanks to Sam.

Our five days soon came to an end and this entry is being completed in Singapore on our way back to Blitey.

Business Stuff

Now I’ve rattled on about the need for business processes and standards before. Its important these have the desired effect and don’t turn a customer off. Try these which we experienced during our trip:

• The hotel whose reception advised us to use the escalator to get to lifts with all our bags. We weren’t the only ones!
• At the same hotel the concierge showed little interest in helping.
• In another hotel refreshingly our bags were taken off us before entering the hotel.
• In a hotel every day the kettle was turned off at the switch.

So we’ll soon be home - I hope you’ve enjoyed the above as much as we enjoyed the trip.

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