Tag Archives: Australia

Flying home

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On a plane I always enjoy a window seat. I’ve never tired of that childhood excitement at seeing the takeoff, flying up into the clouds, and seeing the miniature scenery on the ground below. Flying out of Dubai at 10:25am is one of the most beautiful window seats possible. We flew around and (what looked) quite close to the world’s tallest tower, Burj Khalifa. We were so close I felt like I could open one of the doors and throw a watermelon out and it’d get skewered onto the spire.

I also enjoy the ability to watch a movie, or three. This trip I watched the following:

    Moon Rider

What a peculiar documentary. It covers the rise and challenges of Danish cyclist Rasmussen Quad. It makes mention of the distance a professional cyclist covers thru training, which is roughly the distance to the moon – hence the movie’s title. The film began very dull. He appeared very uninteresting.
Typical of old footage, the colour was faded, with blemishes, and the effects were quite odd. Then I noted the documentary was covering events from 2010!
The soundtrack was mostly odd, drawn-out synthesizer music. It was so foreboding I felt at any moment in the story Rasmussen was going to arm up and kill everybody.
Another thing I couldn’t ignore was the race footage they showed. The riders were not microphoned, yet to add more drama, quite often there was loud, heavy breathing. I’m certain someone else added this during the film’s production. It successfully added to the creepiness. Then the story focused on the world championships in Rasmussen’s home country, Denmark. It showed the human element lovely, even introducing his girlfriend. I won’t give away the ending though it made the movie passable (spoiler alert: especially for an Australian cycling follower!)

    GI Joes: Retaliation

What a stupidly wonderful action movie. Non-stop adrenaline-soaked predictability. I rate it very highly – particularly with beer or rum.

    Hitchcock

What an amazing tale, and glimpse into the movie genius!

And then not too long later we’re less than an hour from Brisbane International Airport. What a scene. For some time there’s been a window of nothing but darkness with the odd spot of mining lights. Now the black silhouette of the landscape is capped by a rich, hearty orange of the burgeoning East coast sunrise, giving light to the still dark blue sky.
Hello Queensland, lovely to see you again.

Boys Aussie trip – 25 March 2012

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In hindsight, the 16 hour flights always go quickly. This time, our entire trip lasting less than a week went just as quickly. The following are some of the memorable moments, in our home country of Australia.

The boys as always were very good flyers, although they avoided proper sleep as far as possible. This sadly was until the flight’s last hour for Myles, and the last 30 minutes for Lewis. It made it very difficult to wake them and depart the plane once we touched down. A few passengers found it more amusing than I did. There were also many impressed that Myles was wearing a suit yet so young. Maybe a dozen commented on how handsome or smart he looked, and he probably received double that many smiles mostly from women. I could still learn a lot from him.

It’s an interesting approach to tourism that once you touch down in Australia the four massive wall advertisements you first pass are devoted to Australia’s scariest predators. It was a sense of “Welcome to Australia, you’re probably going to die” when you see a life-size picture of the largest crocodile ever found, the number off spiders we have, and the number of poisonous snakes that bless our huge land. It could be giving the public what they want, although we were hoping for a less extreme adventure.

The reason we were in Australia was to attend my new nephew’s Baptism, as well as meet him for the first time. Bracken is such a beautiful happy baby. As far as I could tell, he only laughs, eats, and sleeps all day.
At the church the bible reading by two ladies got some extra attention when a phrase that God was to say, was actually said by an unknown deep male voice. In fact it was very surprising to most, with most looking around, and even a curious “where the [eff] did that come from” from someone in the crowd.

We took the opportunity of being up the Sunshine Coast to rent a cabin near the beach for the week. I find it interesting that I fly Myles and Lewis to the other side of the world, then we stay a stone’s throw from the beach of the beautiful Sunshine Coast, yet the boys’ favourite experience of this holiday may in fact be that they get to sleep on the top of bunk beds.

It was a bit disturbing though that when Lewis woke up and climbed down from his bunk bed, he walked toward the very loud sound of my Mum’s snoring and tried to join her in bed saying “Daddy, Daddy”.

On our first morning up the coast I made the most of the early morning and went for a run. There’s something magic about the sea breeze and a sunrise. Something that maybe only the east coast of Australia can provide. I made it around to Bulcock Beach, where the wind was blowing quite strongly. It was lovely to be able to enjoy such a nice breeze in my face. When the wind is that strong in Dubai you really must head for cover or you’ll choke or be blinded from dust. Here you could breath it in, and my lungs said thank you.

Corey managed to take some time off while we were in town, so we had a sneaking suspicion we’d get to go fishing. Lewis must have been tired for it as he nodded off while we were going almost full speed at the hands of Corey’s new 125 horse-power motor – altho I don’t believe horses have hands. Seeing Lewis asleep, Myles let out a “pffft”, then perhaps inspired by Captain Haddock from TinTin he explained disapprovingly that Lewis is a “Typical Land-Lover”.

We think Myles took honors again in the fishing stakes, with a catch of several bream, an estuary cod and a small blue-dotted stingray. Altho there could be a small protest, since a couple of these fish he caught were on a line someone else baited, cast, and finished the winding in. Particularly with the stingray. Myles remembered very well that Steve Irwin was killed by the barb of a stingray. So he really wanted to make sure that it was kept well away from us – which seemed like Corey’s plan anyway. I was Myles’s assistant in bringing the ray in, what a fight they put on!

On one of the nights we went out for dinner at Corey’s restaurant. The barman that served me looked familiar, a bit like someone I went to school with. Soon after, my brother confirmed it was indeed that kid I went to school with, and it was good to catch up with him and hear about his young family. However my brother saying his name, Dean [Surname] rang no bells. It wasn’t until later when I heard someone say, “seeya Deano” that I realised I only ever knew him through his nickname.

We made our way back to the Brisbane vicinity a day before our flight. We had important shopping to do. Expats have a responsibility when they’re in their home country to buy up certain supplies for their countrymen. For Aussies in Dubai I had a list of the usual items, Twisties, Cherry Ripes, Picnics, Bushells teabags, and for this trip, promite, and Easter Eggs. Although there are enough Christian expats here in Dubai to get plenty of eggs here, you can still pick up things overseas at a fraction of the local price.

With that done there was just one thing remaining on our agenda before having to leave. My parents bought tickets for the kids to see the How To Train Your Dragon Arena Spectacular. It was great. I was amazed at how life-like they can now make such big robots move. I saw more than a few couples going to see it without a kid in sight, which is probably a good sign of the show’s popularity.

Then we took our return flight home on a completely filled Boeing 777-300 ER. The boys were amazing for me again and this time slept for maybe four hours. This allowed me to even take a nap, after drinking a handful of red wines to help the process. 🙂 Although Emirates has by far the world’s best in-flight entertainment, it was interesting to watch Lewis trying to navigate through the menus, movies, and games. Three year olds don’t know better, so they automatically swipe and pinch, like it’s an iPhone or iPad. The ICE system isn’t quite there yet buddy.

We had a lovely trip to Australia, one I’m sure the kids will always remember.
We’ll get sadly dragged back into Dubai reality tomorrow, all three boys have their dental appointments. :-/ then Sunday it’s back to work, school, and nursery for us. We’d probably get through the first day back easier if only we could swap who goes to each to these places.

Movie: Van Dieman’s Land

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I just finished watching Van Dieman’s Land. It was terrible.

Elle and I caught a trailer for the film some time ago, which gave the false impression it would be interesting.

And Van Dieman’s Land – AKA Tasmania – being Elle’s home state in Australia, we also thought it’d be nice to see some familiar beautiful scenery and hear some historical accounts.  We were mistaken.

The story tracks the hardships of hardened escapee convicts through the hard Tasmanian wilderness. Then it tracked the hardships of hardened escapee convicts through the hard Tasmanian wilderness.

It was monotonous. Until things got even harder and food become more scarce. So, as you do when in this situation while bush walking through Tasmania, you start knocking off your mates one by one and eating them.  The only piece of suspence was who was next to become stew.

In fact, as there was an absence of any other storyline, perhaps they should have named the flick, “Guys walking through bush, eating each other”.

  • Rating: 0.5/5
  • Tags: Australia, Tasmania, cannibalism

The Workshops Railways Museum

We were in Brisbane for our final day in Australia. So we made the most of the day with a trip to The Workshops Railways Museum with the boys’ grandparents.

The weather was terrible, so we took two devices to keep the rain away. They’re called umbrellas.

The railway museum has become an annual visit each time we’re in town for holidays.

It’s a great place for people who enjoy trains – young and old. It’s nice to see Lewis now enjoys the workshops as much as Myles does.

The only slightly unfortunate thing (for people on the north side) is the museum’s all the way down in Ipswich.

Since Lewis is still toilet training, the hour or so train trip is fraught with danger. My nose was in overdrive. In fact, I quite regularly asked Lewis if he had to poo as I could clearly smell something very unpleasant.
After Lewis denied any activity for about the tenth time I noticed the horrid stench was actually coming from the guy that was sitting behind us. It was confirmed the next station when he got off, and the train’s odour improved markedly.

A couple of police asked to see our tickets on the train. They were impressed to see my boys wearing Junior Police hats that the boys’ Nannors bought them from The Ekka. The police got off the train with us when it terminated at Ipswich. And to our luck, they were happy to get a photo with us (see below).

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Myles & Lewis as Junior Queensland Police, with real Queensland Police and me looking like a scruffy criminal

I couldn’t help but feel like a criminal with four people around me wearing police caps, and me looking quite scruffy and unshaven. It was probably unfair of me to suggest that on this end of the train line the hats could make Myles and Lewis targets for non law-abiding 6 and 2 year olds.

As it wasn’t the weekend or a local holiday, the workshops was quiet. It gave my boys the power to do whatever they wanted to for as long as they liked. So we drove a lot of train simulators for a long time.

We caught the train home, which from the Ipswich line can be quite interesting. Sitting in the next four seater was a huge Maori guy and his girlfriend. Lewis stared at him – which isn’t a good start – but then it got worse. Lewis decided to point straight at the guy and ask us why the guy “has a string there”. We didn’t know, and the guy who also heard this didn’t know what was meant either. Then after a few moments he realized Lewis was referring to his long thin “rat’s tail” of hair extending down, which the guy showed us. It was all quite jovial, thankfully. When Lewis asked why he had it, I asked why Lewis didn’t have one. I should have known better. Lewis now almost in conversation with the guy, explained that he didn’t have one cause he’s a boy. It was at this point he guys girlfriend laughed out loud. The poor (now almost demoralised) guy could only share with a wry smile that “he really got me”.

All in all a good day.

Now we’re at Brisbane International Airport waiting for boarding time to our flight back to Dubai.

Seeya Australia!

Tassie winter roadtrip

The weather wasn’t great for the start of our family campervan trip down the East coast, to the South of Tasmania. We’ve been to Tas plenty of times, yet the kids have never seen these areas. Our first stop for the kids to stretch their legs was Avoca – home to perhaps the worlds smallest police station. I’ll share the photo later, the office looked less than 3 metre square. The highlight for Myles and I was being able to warm our bums with the public restroom’s hand dryer. The rain had started, and the temperature was already cold.

On the next stretch of road we saw lots of colours, but they were mostly shades of grey.

People in charge of roads in Dubai should come to Tasmania to learn a thing or two about dealing with water on roads. Altho UAE only deals a week or so of rain each year, the roads flood terribly from a few mils, and it doesn’t disperse for weeks. Here in Tassie we’re experiencing >20 mils and there are seemingly swimming pools and swimming pools of water all over the land. Yet the road seems almost waterproof.

We stopped for pancakes at the famous Mount Elephant Pancake Barn. We risked the $2.20 surcharge for rowdy children they have up on the chalk board. Lady asked where we were headed as the police had called her to advise they were closing the road going back the way we had just gone through. Perhaps the Tassie roads aren’t magical afterall,

Went thru Elephant Pass Rainforest. When I saw a couple of kookaburras fly away I did my best imitation of their famous laughing call. It mustn’t have been good, Myles let me know there are no monkeys in the forest. Although I’m sure my impersonation could be improved, the fact is the boys may not really know about this iconic Australian bird. Lewis even struggles to say it properly, now when we ask what kind of bird it is, he calls it “kookabugger” – which is much funnier.

Day 2 we left for further down the coast.
We spent some time at a kids park at Coles Bay. It had swings and activities which I haven’t seen since 1981. Elle had been going there as a kid – probably since 1981 – and informed me they have all been there unchanged since then.

We went to the jetty where a dog did a wee on our tyre. I think it was showing off, it was so chilly I couldn’t imagine weeing anything but ice.

For a change we had lunch in a pub, the Iluka Tavern. We were one of 6 people in the entire establishment. Their chicken parmy was superb. Loved their sign on the way out, “We encourage people to drink in moderation, PARTICULARLY if you are driving”. Hopefully that kind of encouragement is enough.

We stayed the evening of 09th of August, 2011 in the Mayfield Beach Conservation Park. I mention the date cause it’s significant, it’s the night of the 2011 Australian Census. Although we’ve been living overseas for more than two years, we’ll coincidentally be counted and archived into Australian history. I think it’s sort of interesting that in 100 years, people can learn that we were staying in such a “dwelling” as this campervan at a tiny place on the East coast of Tassie. As a former forms designer I must say I was disappointed with the census form. Ours is completed and sealed, but I remember it didn’t cater for work location for people working overseas, nor did it allow for non-salary workers being on a holiday for Elle. And if I’m being really pedantic, their use of followup questions and not applicability was inconsistent and inefficient. And I’m no authority, but I hadn’t heard of Salvation Army as a religion before Regardless of such issues, we’re recorded though. And it was a bit if fun for Myles. He was quite proud when I told him I recorded the task he performs daily in his job is to talk about gross stuff.

We had the luxury at our camp to make a camp fire. As a Queensland boy, this is a very unexpected activity, it almost felt like something stuck in the days of my childhood. It may also be part of the reason why I struggled. Things were all resolved once we figured out it’s simpler to use almost an entire box of fire lighters rather than the few scraps of kindling we could muster.

The next morning when we woke it was surprising to see the cut up apple we left was untouched, yet Lewis’s spilt satay beef and basmati rice was devoured. I wonder if Mayfield’s possums have been run out of town at the hands of some Asian critters.

Today we saw a few nice natural sights. When walking through the bush at Archers Knob or Devils Kitchen, Lewis was helping Elle in the search for wombats in the little tracks just off the path into the bush. He had no luck – the boys inadvertently made enough noise to make sure of that. However as we were coming to the end of the path, he suggested to Elle that maybe we have a wombat in our van, then even more curiously added – and I quote – “maybe there’s a box of them”. So perhaps Lewis had something other than a wombat in mind.

After a while Lewis tired of nature, saying I don’t like these trees.

We stayed the night at the well-eqipped Port Arthur. The park has always been a popular place – maybe even more popular given the museums raised profile due to the atrocity in 1996.
The manger informed me in the summer the park gets up to 600 guests staying. Now in winter there’s only about 10-15 of us scattered around the campervan area. The manager only took over the place less than 12 months ago, and he said this has been the areas coldest recorded winter since 1968. He didn’t have to explain that to us it was freezing!

Place was scattered with potteroos, wallabies, and many friendly rosellas. The place was seemingly infested with small hopping animals. The manager said there’d be enough wallabies to fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools – which provides an interesting visual. The kids liked the animals, although Lewis was selective with the potteroos. He only wanted to feed the ones he decided weren’t bad. He warmed to them all by the end, even sharing his Milo with one of them. This sadly ended with Lewis trying to be helpful by throwing the cup at the poor animal. Once he noticed they were interested in the cup, I had to intervene as Lewis thought it would be a good way to catch one.

All in all, a great trip. Now we just have to go through our few 1000 pix across four cameras. And there could be more tales to share.

My Yourtopia

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I was quite surprised by an online survey I completed.  Well, I was surprised twice.

The first surprise was that I actually completed the thing.  I find online surveys overly saturated, monotonous, and I’m very suspicous about a great majority of them providing any real value or insights.

The survey is from yourtopia.net (an Open Knowledge Foundation Project):

The idea: Construct a measure of social progress world-wide based on your preferences for development. Participate in a global effort to improve tracing of humanity’s progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. 

In it you are asked to rate the importance you place on various factors of human well-being.  It was interesting to contemplate if I place higher importance on things like household consumption over say poverty headcount. And to be honest, some of the items I don’t know in any depth – so had to take an educated-uneducated guess.

The ratings are calculated, and the output is your preferred country – based on your ideals and preferences.

The result for me was surprising.  Out of the 186 countries featured, my ratings indicate my preferred country in the world is Australia – my home nation.

My Yourtopia - my home country, Australia

Screen shot of my results

Some could assume that Australia has a great standard of living, so it’s a likely result for many.  Based on the site’s results though, Australia only features 8th.  Norway is the list leader, followed by a couple of other European nations. 

It’s nice to know that the pace and progress that Australia achieves with various human factors aligns to my priorities. 

Although I left Australia temporarily for employment, fresh experience, and opportunities for my children, we obviously have a deep affection for Australia and will forever live and breath her ideals.

Queensland floods

Myles was very interested in news of the devastating floods back home in Queensland, and particularly Brisbane – our former city. He was extremely concerned about the whole emergency. 

From the various stories we shared with him about it, he particularly liked the story of the tug boat driver who saved the Gateway Bridge from the 50 metre strech of concrete walkway that broke away from its pylons – despite the clear risk, and it not being part of his job. Amongst Myles’s praises for the tug boat driver he mentioned, “No job is as important as saving another”.  It was very touching, I just had to hug the boy.  I thought it was excessively deep for a six year old.  Then he told me he didn’t come up with it himself, it was from Thomas the Tank Engine – apparently Rusty said it once.  Still it was lovely to hear him recount it.

Virgin Blue joining forces with Etihad

It was only a matter of time before more carriers cottoned on to the massive demand for Australia<->UAE flights. My family have known the demand first-hand, after having a few close encounters with getting bumped from flights due to being on staff tickets.

Emirates is obviously our first-choice, and the choice of many more.  But non-employees now have even more competition.  I assume the global financial crisis was a key factor for Emirates fares becoming among the cheapest (according to my friends at least). It was apparently a huge dive from their usual prestige prices.  With the crisis now well behind the industry, and our plane’s loads now completely filled, the prices were only to go in one direction – up.

It was interesting though to see – our Abu Dhabi rival – Etihad’s announcement thhat they would reduce their prices significantly.  Some fares will dropp by 40%!!

And in some other news is there is go ahead for an alliance with Sir Richard Branson’s down under carrier, Virgin Blue – Interim approval given to Virgin Blue/Etihad alliance – Plane Talking http://bit.ly/9BWPep.

Interestingly times ahead for the region. I wonder how this will affect my hopes that Emirates would put one of its incoming A380s onto the Brisbane-Auckland leg just so I can experience the wonder.

The Wiggles in Dubai – 12 June 2010

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The world’s most popular children entertainers, and possibly Australia’s greatest export visited Dubai over the weekend.  They had quite a whirlwind tour performing just three shows over our weekend. I took my two boys on Saturday to watch the final show in a packed Palladium –  just over the road from our place.

Unfortunately Murray – the red wiggle – was absent, due to a pressing family commitment, so we were introduced to a new red wiggle in Bobby – apparently Australia’s greatest surfer.  But otherwise all the characters were there.

I knew what to expect, Elle had gone to a previous show in Australia, and told me how the event goes at such a frenetic pace. But it must be seen to be believed, particularly when you know their ages.  It was interesting when they did their usual gag of Jeff falling asleep so the kids can scream “Wake Up Jeff!”. However while Jeff was standing there ‘asleep’, instead of telling kids the instructions on how to wake Jeff, Anthony mentioned Jeff ‘s tired because he’s getting old. He then proceeded to tell a story of what had happened earlier in the day.  Judging by Jeff’s giggles he knew what was coming. Apparently Jeff got news from Australia that he had received his Senior Citizen’s Card.  Apparently Jeff was dancing around the hotel room repeatedly singing “half price at the movies”. By the end of the story Jeff was visibly laughing, so Sam interjected telling kids that Jeff must be having a really funny dream. Once the kids had succeeded waking him up, Jeff jumped up and hung upside down from a bar, again singing “half price at the movies”.

The Wiggles are a real class act. Even a minor mistake was extremely smooth, and then highlighted to make an even more entertaining moment. It happened when Henry the Octopus couldn’t stand on the thight of a couple of wiggles and fell. Captain Feathersword couldn’t stop laughing, and explained it was just so funny – and they made the three do it again when the song had finished.

They are also expert at seamlessly introducing local influences to their show. Apparently they fell in love with our fruit dates – a traditional local treat – and were re-considering the lyrics of their song ‘Fruit Salad’ so it would become just “Dates”. And after doing “Incey Wincey Spider” quite a few times, Anthony cut it off abruptly and said, actually it doesn’t rain that much here – which received a lot of laughter.

It was good to see quite a mix of people attending. The Wiggles are  a real world wide phenomenon, and it was present in the crowd.  While it was mostly Western looking families, you could easily spot a few locals were present in their Konduras and Abayas.

I saw a couple of guys from the office at the end of the show, one of the guys apparently insisted on going it was just lucky that his wife and kids were interested in coming along also.

Get on board Australia

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Australia’s leading consumer advocacy group, Choice, have surveyed Aussie air traveller’s levels of satisfaction, and the results are in. Dang it, Singapore Airlines came out on top for best airline covering the the UK leg, with my employer Emirates taking third place only (URL: http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/australias-favourite-airline-revealed/story-e6frfq80-1225848328840).

I’d like to add, British Airways was voted last.  And it seems there’s more than enough negative QANTAS press around presently to keep them out of the top places, e.g. A380 tyres bursting, and engineers striking over the Easter break.

One positive result, Emirates was deemed best for travel between Australia and “Unzed” (Australia’s neighbour, New Zealand).  Thanks Kiwis!  This is fantastic considering the huge number of carriers crossing the ditch these days and the fierce competition amongst them.

Come on Australia, get with the programme.