4
November
2009
We’re still slightly in shock, but Jacks and I have some really exciting news!
Today we bought an apartment!
It’s a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment with a nice big balcony. It’s on the 6th floor and has an underground parking place.
It’s just by St Leonards train station, and a short stroll up to Crows Nest shops.
View Larger Map
We don’t move in until Australia day (26 January 2010) because there is currently a tenant, but we’ll definitely have a house warming after that!
Bonnie and Lou – We’re looking forward to your visit 
I’ll need lots of help doing up the place!
Hope to see you all soon
Ben and Jacks
ben 
General 
2 Comments »
31
October
2009
Before I get into telling you all about my exciting trip to Cairns, let me just start by letting you all know that I am running in the Foxtel Lap as part of the ‘BCG Bolts’ on November 13th. It’s in support of the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, so please donate if you can by clicking here.
The Murdoch Childrens Research Institute discovers ways to prevent and treat conditions affecting babies, children and adolescents, helping them lead happy, healthy lives.
Now that I’ve said that, back to my trip. I got back yesterday (just in time for a work Oktoberfest party 
) from 2 weeks up in Cairns. The trip was to do with my work with Indigenous Enterprise Partnerships, but there was a lot of fun involved – right from the start since I was upgraded to business class at the airport . My first week there involved taking part in the induction week for secondees from Westpac, IBM and KPMG going to Indigenous Organisations in Cape York and Cairns for a month. This included a full day of four wheel drive training, cultural induction, and some free time exploring Cairns. We had a few fun nights out, although my favourite night was at a little backpacker restaurant/bar called the Green Ant Cantina where we had some drinks and Mexican food.
For my first night there, only a few secondees had arrived, so we headed up with Rose (the Cairns IEP director) to Djarragun College’s (a local Indigenous School) new wilderness centre where we had a BBQ and stayed the night in the dorms by the river. It was a fun night and a good way to get to know the people who had already arrived and start getting used to the big Land Cruisers that we would be driving up to the Cape.
On Thursday afternoon we set off North for our camping weekend on Cape York with a 3 hour drive to Cape Tribulation in the Daintree rainforest. It was a beautiful drive, although since the region has been quite dry, the river crossings mostly involved driving across dry river banks. At Cape Trib we spent the night in dorms at a little place by the beach called PK’s jungle village. It was a gorgeous spot because the rainforest goes right to the beach, but unfortunately the food in the restaurant there was disappointing and cold – I guess they weren’t used to dealing with a group of 25 people in 9 cars!
We woke up bright and early Friday morning and drove a little way along the rd for breakfast on the beach right at Cape Tribulation which was very beautiful, before continuing our drive to a community called Wujal-Wujal. At Wujal-Wujal, some local Aborigal ladies, Frances and Gloria, took us for a walk to a waterfall called Bloomfield Falls and told us a little bit about there culture which was interesting. We then continued on to lunch in Cooktown where we had some delicious grilled Spanish Mackerel and Chips. Cooktown was beautiful and on the water, but like everywhere else in the region, there was no swimming due to Crocodiles and Stingers! Cooktown is named after Captain Cook who stopped there for a few weeks to repair his ship in 1770. A lot of English words for Australian animals come from the local language there (Guugu Yimithirr) from the interactions during this time – for example Kangaroo which is how the word gangurru was written.
From Cooktown we continued our drive further up the Cape to Lakefield National Park where we camped at the Kennedy River. The afternoon drive took us over some quite treacherous roads – it was serious 4wding! The camp site by the river was stunning (Despite not being able to swim!). We spent the evening sitting on our swags (little camping mattresses) chatting, and having a delicious camp dinner of steaks, sausages and vegetable stew all cooked on the fire by Vit, the Westpac Cape York Secondee Program Manager. Vit was a real bushman – despite his Albanian heritage! After dinner we cooked some Marshmallows on the fire and played a game of celebrity heads which was surprisingly fun! It was beautiful sleeping under the stars and I had a surprisingly good nights rest!
Saturday morning we had a huge breakfast of bacon and eggs before packing up camp – we weren’t having lunch that day because of our schedule so I made sure to eat heaps Once we were all ready to go we headed to Lama Lama country where we were fortunate to be getting shown around the Aboriginal land by some of the locals! It was beautiful and varied land – almost desert like, to rain forest, to beach! We even got a chance to freshen up in the ocean near Port Stewart since the beach had a large shallow area so crocs weren’t an issue! We did have a funny thing happen though. All the cars had UHF radios so we could communicate on the rd, and coincidentally we had been tuned to the channel that Lama lama used to re-broadcast over a wide area. On the long drives our radios tended to end up being used for games like I Spy and other silly conversations, so when we arrived at the Lama-lama station they had a chuckle since they had been listening to all our conversations!
That night we camped at a site that they called ’safari camp’ that they were planning on doing up so that tourists could pay to camp there. We had a great evening there with another big camp dinner (including heaps of prawns) where we were joined by a lot of the locals. We then sat around the camp fire having more marshmallows before settling in to our swags. Unfortunately that night I barely slept because of mosquitos!!
Sunday morning we were up really early to get on the road for the long drive back to Cairns. Unfortunately my car had been the one carrying the prawns and ended up stinking of prawns, but the trip had to go on!! An hour in to the drive, the secondees going to Coen headed there separate way but there were still 8 cars that continued on to a little town called Musgrave for breakfast. The car of secondees going to Pormpuraaw, as well as Vit, then headed their separate way leaving 6 cars to continue.
About an hour after leaving breakfast however there was some unexpected excitement. One of the cars hit some soft sand and rolled! Luckily no-one was hurt (a miracle if you look at the photos), but it still left everyone very shocked. We got the 3 secondees who had been in the car to a nearby road station where they waited for an ambulance to check them out as well as the police. In the mean time I got everyone water and suncream and we got all of the bags out of the rolled car – apparently it often takes a few weeks to get a tow truck and by that stage everything including tires is usually gone! Having heard that, I also took the initiative to take the spare tyre from the crashed car and switch it with a flat tyre that my car was carrying since we’d got a flat on the second day
Once the police had seen the car and recorded the GPS co-ordinates, we got back on the road. 2 more cars headed to Cooktown, which left only 3 cars of Cairns secondees, Rose, and I to head back to Cairns. The accident had delayed us a few hours so we didn’t get to Cairns until 8, and still had to unload the cars and return them so it was a tiring evening. Overall however it was an amazing and eye-opening trip!
This week I’ve been working with Rose in Cairns on IEP’s Indigenous Employment strategy for the region. The CEO (Ralph) and Chairman (Ian) of a West Australian Indigenous Affairs Foundation called Wunan were also staying so I helped Rose with hosting them. It involved sitting in on lots of interesting meetings, such as with the Principal of Djarragun College, Jean Illingworth, and some local Aboriginal leaders. Rose and I also met with local Government representatives and the Djarragun transition to work manager. The Cairns secondees all started work, but we still caught up for dinner every night which was good fun! All in all a very productive trip – and I even managed to get a tan!
Last night I got back just in time to put on a silly outfit for the BCG Oktoberfest party at the Lowenbrau in the Rocks where I had a few Steins of beer and caught up with friends from work. Now I’m looking forward to a quiet weekend with Jacks who I haven’t seen for 2 weeks!
Have a look at all the photos in the gallery!
Hope you’re all well.
Ben
ben Travel No Comments »
12
October
2009
I know you’ve probably only just finished ready Jacs’ post about our wonderful trip to Adelaide, but I want to take this opportunity to give you more of an update on what we’ve been up to.
A couple of weeks ago we had Nadia (an old friend of Jacks’) and her boyfriend Jay come and stay with us on their way to Auckland. We had a wonderful time ‘being tourists’ in Sydney, and hopefully we’ll get a chance to visit them in Auckland. We visited Blu Horizons, the cocktail bar at the top of the Shangri-La hotel with views over the city, and had dinner in the Rocks. We spent a few days at the beach – Bondi, Manly and Maroubra (which happens to be an iconic place for Jay who is an avid surfer) – and did some surfing in the sun, which kindly came out and shone down on us! Unfortunately however, I snapped my board, although it was a great opportunity to go shopping (Or is that me being optimistic – my new board is very cool!). One of the highlights of the visit was our big day out on Saturday. We met Millie and James (other friends of ours) in the park outside our apartment in Milsons Point at lunchtime and had some champagne while we waited for a table at Ripples, which is a great cafe on the water! The 6 of us spent a few hours there, before heading across to the cross for some drinks at the Gazebo Wine Garden, and dinner at Tomatillo. We all had heaps of fun together, and had a great day and night!!
On September 26th, TK turned 18, and had a big party at Mum and Dad’s house. It was Rubiks Cube themed – everyone comes in multi coloured clothes and is meant to end up in 1 colour by the end of the night. We had a great night looking absolutely ridiculous, and mum did a beautiful ceremony!
The other very exciting piece of news from us (well Jacks really), is that Jacks started her new job today at CSC, which is a global consulting, systems integration and outsourcing company where she will be Corporate Affairs Executive! Very impressive She will be responsible for government relations, analyst relations and media relations for CSC Australia.
In between Howorth and CSC, Jacks had last week off and spent a few days of it relaxing and getting healthy in the Hunter Valley. She headed up to the Golden Door Spa with Lucie, a friend of hers, abandoning me to look after myself 
It sounds like she had an amazing time though – meditating, hiking, exercising, relaxing and eating delicious but very healthy food. She even brought me back the cook book so I can try some of it at home!
Well I think that about covers our news (for a little while at least). I’m sure we’ll write again soon.
Check out all the photos!
Look forward to hearing from all of you
Ben and Jacks
xx
ben General No Comments »
10
October
2009
Over the long weekend, we ticked off yet another Australian state with a visit to South Australia’s capital of Adelaide. We barely made it to the airport in time Saturday morning due to an alarm clock mishap, but luckily Ben saved the day and woke up just in time!
Saturday we walked around the entire city, headed down to the beach at Glenelg for lunch and explored that area for the afternoon. That evening we dressed up for a night on the town with our first stop at Mesa Lunga – a trendy wine and tapas bar. We had a few glasses of Adelaide Hills/Barossa Valley wines and a bit of banter before dinner at Adelaide’s infamous Ying Chow (a cheap Chinese joint that is legendary with the locals) We then made our way to The Bar and finished the evening at Lotus Bar.
Sunday morning we picked up our rental car and made our way to the hills for a day exploring the famous wine region. We had a delicious breakfast at a tiny little providore cafe (the kind I dream about opening one day!) A couple of ks down the road was our first winery – Petaluma. The cellar door and fine dining restaurant are inside what’s known as the old Bridgewater Mill which is actually still in operation. Their extensive wine selection took nearly an hour to go through before we headed downstairs to check out their champagne room. Some of the bottles had been then for nearly 15 years (with the dust to prove it) and would be there for another twenty! The old German town of Hahndorf was our next stop. We strolled along the main street, had lunch and made our way to the next winery on our list – Shaw and Smith. Michael Hill-Smith is actually a friend of Ian and Siena’s and he’d helped with our initial planning of the trip and set up the special tour at Petaluma.
He met us at his winery to guide us through our tasting which as you can imagine added so much to the experience. Ben and I channelled our inner John Allen while he explained the intricacies of the wine, the history of the winery, his personal journey as a wine maker/businessman. After nearly two hours there Ben and I headed back to Adelaide with our 6 bottles from Shaw and Smith.
Monday was reserved for the Barossa Valley which is famous for its Shiraz so as you can imagine I’ve been dreaming about since we’d booked our vacay! The drive in itself was a treat. Our first stop was Yalumba which is actually owned by Michael’s cousin. They had a huge cellar door with a gorgeous fire place. We’d decided to take advantage of the sunlight and make ourselves a picnic for lunch so our next stop was the Barossa Valley Cheese Shop to pick up some freshly made Goat’s Brie before heading down the road to Penfolds. We purchased a delicious bottle of Bin 28 to add to our ‘cellar’.
Maggie Beer’s Farm was next on the list to pick up some more essential ingredients for our picnic before heading to the charming boutique winery – Hentley Farms. We’d tasted their Zinfindel at Mesa Lunga the first night and I fell in love with it. So we tracked it down and to our delight it was the perfect setting for our picnic. We purchased a bottle of the Zin and enjoyed a lunch of fresh cheese, wholegrain bread and vegetable pate overlooking the picturesque vineyards.
Our last stop was Jacob’s Creek which was a bit of a disappointment after our special experience at Hentley Farms. The cellar door was actually referred to as the ‘Visitors Centre’ which I’m sure paints the picture perfectly for you.
We flew back the next morning bright and early. Ben rushed straight back to work and I was off to my health retreat in the Hunter.
It was a fabulous trip and we had such a great time. Let us know if you want some tips for wine tasting in Adelaide!
There is much more to report on…but in the interest of keeping these as short as possible we’ll hold off on that…
Lots of love,
Jac and Ben
Jacqueline General, Travel 1 Comment »
23
September
2009
Not sure how much pick up this has received overseas, but check out the thick dust storm that has blanketed the east coast of Australia!
ben Jacqueline's Mobile Posts 2 Comments »
