Brisbane On Business... Again!
Trip Start
Feb 28, 2006
1
68
125
Trip End
Aug 20, 2008
Brisbane,
Australia
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
After a week back home (and the dramas of lost bags and BA being the single most useless entity in the world - special mention to Heathrow Airport as the possible centre of evil in the known universe...) and travel across Australia and to Papua New Guinea, it was time for me to fly off to Brisbane to follow up on some buiness opportunities over in the East Coast.
It turned out to be a fairly successful visit to be honest, with time to catch up with the guys at one of our anget companies and several of the CBM (Coal Bed Methane - won't bore you with more explanation than that!) operators. I even got to attend an SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) luncheon on the subject which was all good.
As usual the Sebel Suites were excellent and although it was too cold to use the pool I was able to have a run out in the gym in between meetings and trying to coordinate all the work that I had to keep going in Perth...
This all resulted in pretty long days, but I still managed to get a bit of time in the evenings to catch up with Graham, Ian, Caet, Emma, Jack, Sam, Jessica (the three kids), Jason and Jen (friends of Ian and Emma) and Caet's Mum and Dad all at one time, then have some beers with Neil Cochrane, Morna's brother, although I sadly didn't manage to catch up with Leane his wife or their wee girl Emma.
I also managed to squeeze in a catch up with Patrice giving us a chance to exchange gossip and have a giggle at Innes' ongoing drunken exploits... (You know what I mean mate!)
Lunch times as much as possible involved getting some walking exercise to work off the good food and alcohol I was drinking, and I even managed to squeeze in a bit of sightseeing at a bit of South Bank I hadn't seen before - the Nepalese Pagoda and the wee rainforest walk they have there...
The Nepalese Pagoda was built by craftsmen from Kathmandu Valley, Nepal for the 1988 Expo held in Brisbane, paid for with funds from the Expo, local government and private donations. It's a pretty spectacular sight in the centre of a busy city!
It's described as a 'Creation of peace, love, fertility and harmony...'
I'd agree with that... Well the peaceful bit anyway! Heh, heh, heh...
The end of the business week came and it was time to head out to Brisbane airport, not for more flying (for a change) but to meet Sophie, Dale, Suse, Harry and Taliah (their wee kiddies - more kids - they're everywhere!) and for us all to head down to the Gold Coast in preparation for the marathon on Sunday (Dale and I to prepare for our beer drinking and support team duties, Sophie and Suse to mentally prepare for running 42km... D'Oh!)
Sure they'll be fine - well, better than I'd do anyway! :o).
Brisbane Chinatown... 1
