Well I am sat in the Quantas Club Lounge at Sydney airport. I’ve had a couple of their free drinks, a couple of their free coffees and some of their free lunch. I am sure they sell the tickets as business class, what I can’t work out is, what business are the three screaming kids who are running round the tables in? Maybe they are in the business of disruption. Perhaps they are in the employ of a major multi-national and they have been sent here to upset the travellers of their competitors. It’s working.
The course in Wellington finished well and the feedback was good. The sales and marketing director and HR manager took me and a couple of others out to dinner. This was possibly the worst planned project I encountered here in the antipodes. The restaurant they wanted to go to does not take bookings so we did a 15 minute taxi ride from my hotel, got there and found out they were full until 10:00 at the earliest. We then rang another place and they said they could do a table for 5 at about 9:00 pm and we could have a drink in the bar. So we took another taxi 10 minutes back towards my hotel to the restaurant. When we arrived we told them we had rung and the maitre d’ looked blank, told us we would have to wait until 10:00 to 10:30. So we left there and walked 5 minutes across the road to another restaurant, full of office Christmas parties, but with a table for 5! So after a taxi tour of Wellington I ended up 5 minutes walk from my hotel. The food was excellent. I had venison and we accompanied it with an excellent bottle of Greywolf, a full bodied ozzie red.
The venison was evidently local and deer hunting is a popular pastime. I read a very interesting article in The Dominion (Wellington’s newspaper) about an unfortunate gentleman who had gone pig hunting with a friend. Wild pigs are very common on the North Island and pig hunting is very popular. They identified and pursued a fine specimen which whilst being chased ran over a cliff. Now that’s unfortunate enough, but one of the hunters was running so fast after the pig that he couldn’t stop and he fell to his death over the cliff after the pig! Dangerous business this hunting.
Managed to get 4 and a half hours sleep before having to get up to catch the plane. The taxi driver was an expert on British politics and talked all the way to the airport. I asked him how he knew so much and he said “I have a contract with the British High Commission; I take all their staff to the airport”. Is this a threat to national security?
The flight out of Wellington crosses the north end of the south island (after it takes off from the south end of the north island, keep up). The mountains on the south island looked fantastic. It was completely clear and the view was like a geography lesson. The huge volcanic mountains with great glacial valleys leading down into flat bottomed river valleys with meandering rivers forming ox bow lakes and silt and sand spits running out into the sea. Fantastic.
I’ve picked up my email from the public internet access here at Sydney airport and I was going to update the blog from the business lounge, but the connections here are not free! So I’ve written this lot up in word and I’ll post it as soon as I can.
Took some stick about the cricket. They should never have lost that one.
The course in Wellington finished well and the feedback was good. The sales and marketing director and HR manager took me and a couple of others out to dinner. This was possibly the worst planned project I encountered here in the antipodes. The restaurant they wanted to go to does not take bookings so we did a 15 minute taxi ride from my hotel, got there and found out they were full until 10:00 at the earliest. We then rang another place and they said they could do a table for 5 at about 9:00 pm and we could have a drink in the bar. So we took another taxi 10 minutes back towards my hotel to the restaurant. When we arrived we told them we had rung and the maitre d’ looked blank, told us we would have to wait until 10:00 to 10:30. So we left there and walked 5 minutes across the road to another restaurant, full of office Christmas parties, but with a table for 5! So after a taxi tour of Wellington I ended up 5 minutes walk from my hotel. The food was excellent. I had venison and we accompanied it with an excellent bottle of Greywolf, a full bodied ozzie red.
The venison was evidently local and deer hunting is a popular pastime. I read a very interesting article in The Dominion (Wellington’s newspaper) about an unfortunate gentleman who had gone pig hunting with a friend. Wild pigs are very common on the North Island and pig hunting is very popular. They identified and pursued a fine specimen which whilst being chased ran over a cliff. Now that’s unfortunate enough, but one of the hunters was running so fast after the pig that he couldn’t stop and he fell to his death over the cliff after the pig! Dangerous business this hunting.
Managed to get 4 and a half hours sleep before having to get up to catch the plane. The taxi driver was an expert on British politics and talked all the way to the airport. I asked him how he knew so much and he said “I have a contract with the British High Commission; I take all their staff to the airport”. Is this a threat to national security?
The flight out of Wellington crosses the north end of the south island (after it takes off from the south end of the north island, keep up). The mountains on the south island looked fantastic. It was completely clear and the view was like a geography lesson. The huge volcanic mountains with great glacial valleys leading down into flat bottomed river valleys with meandering rivers forming ox bow lakes and silt and sand spits running out into the sea. Fantastic.
I’ve picked up my email from the public internet access here at Sydney airport and I was going to update the blog from the business lounge, but the connections here are not free! So I’ve written this lot up in word and I’ll post it as soon as I can.
Took some stick about the cricket. They should never have lost that one.
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