Dateline Down Under - February 1, 2008

Dateline Down Under – Melbourne
February 1, 2008

Today dawned bright and partly cloudy, then cleared up into a warm and to die for seacoast day. We rolled out and headed for a day of self-touring and a trip to St. Kilda’s Beach. We toured around downtown a little more, watched a film on the growth of the Melbourne area over the past 25 years, and then went to the observation tower on the 55th story of a building to get some photos (Gee, does this remind any one else of another vacation we started in Vancouver Canada?). This view always gives us a very good perspective of a city, and where we wish to go check things out.



Then it was off to the infamous St. Kilda Beach, you can check out the photos at the St. Kilda photo album on Google Picassa. Just think People’s Republic of Bzerkeley in Australia, complete with Marxist Rally advertisements and kinky people. Make sure you check out the videos we took of the Australian Coca Cola Salespeople’s “Team Building Exercise.” They are forthcoming and we will let you know when they are up on the website! For those of you who are SC Consulting clients, BEWARE!! Carol was VERY excited and intrigued about this action, so much so that she spent some time speaking with the consultant who put the entire thing together, but in short, here’s the deal if you are not into film appreesh:

Every one is broken into five separate teams. There is a pile of 55 gallon plastic barrels, some five gallon containers, some bamboo poles, some PVC pipe, some wood and some mountain climbing rope.

First you play sort of a Jeopardy game right on the beach. Whoever does the best gets to pick the “good stuff” to construct an ocean going raft with. Those who do poorly get the leftovers.

Each “Team” gets about 20 minutes to build a raft designed by that Team. Testing? We don’t need no stinkin’ testing!

Then one person is picked (this is the job for Steve!) to go tread water out in the ocean about 25 yards off-shore for about a half-hour. All of the water craft (and we use that term VERY loosely) are lined up along the beach behind a start-finish line. The consultant starts the race and they are off! We both gave odds that there would be multiple drownings before any one got to the dude treading water off the beach, and we weren’t far off. The video captures not only the spirit of the people of Coca cola, but it also captures the free and humorous spirit of the Aussies we have met here. They are ALL into “having a go” with one another; very competitive, but in a good-natured fashion. We had as much fun as they did, and as Steve “interviewed” all of the people watching the event, they did too.

We walked along the St. Kilda Pier, checked out a restored Victorian pavilion, and watched some wind surfers defy gravity, checked out some cool old art deco buildings, an old theater, and a TOTALLY scary amusement park entrance. It’s all on film is you care to look.







We started back to town early as we are leaving for Perth, which is like a flight from New York to California in the States. We got back smack into the middle of the 5 O’clock rush hour in the center of Melbourne which was a great deal of fun! There are even more people that we thought riding the trams. There are a LOT of East Indians and Asians here, and a lot of them were wearing tech sector badges. We saw CDC, Microsoft, HP and others, so if you are close to getting fired in the States, you can find work down here!

There are also TONS of backpackers from all over the world here, and they are all crammed into youth hostels downtown. Something that would have interested us in our 20’s (and maybe 30’s), but sharing a bedroom with 12 of your closest friends is past us at this age.

We did dinner and hit the rack early. Tomorrow is a BIG day!

We remain, Steve and Carol, wandering around the world!