It’s Sunday morning. We’re out at Phillip Island, where there’s no broadband Internet so I wrote this on the back porch and posted it later. It’s a beautiful place, but I’ll get to that part soon.

Phillip Island is where Clinton’s family owns a beach house. He’d had been reluctant to add a rental car to the expenses he’s incurred so it looked as if we’d have to skip a visit. When I awoke in Melbourne it occured to me that a trip here would actually save the company money. There was no way a rental car would be more expensive than the $300AUD per night for a hotel. Thus the trip was on.

I called Clinton with the news, whereby he quickly made the arrangements for the car. While he did that, I wandered out to find breakfast and a speedy Internet connection. From a food court three blocks from the hotel I enjoyed a nice muffin and dirt-cheap VoIP calls to the States. It was around eleven when I walked back to the hotel.

Saturday was Clinton’s mother’s birthday, so we joined her and her best friend for lunch in the up-and-coming Docklands area of Melbourne. Ah, nothing like a noontime beer to make one feel part of the culture! We ate at a Mediterranean cafe on the water called Mecca Bah, where I enjoyed a garlic chicken kabob.

It was around 2 PM before we hit the road north. Clinton drove his mom’s well-worn Mercedes, his mom rode in the back, and I had the “suicide seat” up front, windows down to mitigate the 32*C autumn heat. For the first time since my visit started, I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I dozed for ten minutes.

First stop was Clinton’s house, where he would pick up his laptop. He had locked his keys inside on his way out earlier that morning, so the actual first step would be getting into his house. His mom had helpfully given him a bag of keys she’d collected from her house, but none worked. To get inside, Clinton climbed through an open bathroom window. Ah, these hardy Aussies! Would the Crocodile Hunter walk through the front door? Crikey, no! He’d climb through the window, knife in his teeth, and wrestle with the window screen like it was an angry boa constrictor. Aussies don’t just walk through the door, mate. They live for the drama!

Clinton’s home was much like any single geek’s home: comfortable and full of gadgets of one sort or another. I was particularly proud of his room dedicated to geek pursuits: cables, computers, and electronics scattered from one end to another. Impressive!

We went from there to his parents’ home, five minutes away. There I met his dad, who gave me a look at the beautifully-restored, 50s-style antique car in his garage. Though I forget the name of the model, it was the first car built and sold in Australia. It even clocked distance in miles, rather than kilometers, which goes to show how old it is.

We had no time for a spin, however, so we took our rental car south to Phillip Island, arriving in a little over an hour. Along the way, I set up my newly-acquired Microsoft GPS and mapping software and was surprised to see it did cover Australia’s towns, if not the roads themselves. It was fun to see just how far south we were.

Arriving at Phillip Island, Clinton first took me to his favorite beach, which was farther than the beachhouse. We walked down thirty steps from a scenic cliff to the flat beach overlooking the Indian Ocean. The beach reminded me of one in America’s Pacific Northwest: high cliffs, rocky outcroppings, and few beachgoers out enjoying it.

The Indian Ocean! I couldn’t resist sticking my hand in it. It had been fifteen years since I’d sailed it and I thought I’d have to go to Perth to see it again. While it looked calm from the surface, I know its teeming with life. Lots of stuff unfriendly to man call the Indian Ocean home.

Getting to the beach house, we put our stuff inside and broke out the potato chips. I was getting a headache, so we ventured out to find some ibuprofen and dinner (it was 6PM or so). A visit to a convenience store got the pills I needed and directions to a good “fish and chipsery.” Off we went.

Clinton also had a headache at that point and wanted to get the fish “take-away,” but changed his mind once it was in hand. We sat at the wooden table outside while we watched a parade of tourists and locals descend on the restaurant. I marveled at our timing as we devoured two boxes of swordfish, “flake” fish, fries and vegetables. It was just what I needed.

We went back to the beachhouse and sat in front of the TV. We were killing time before Phillip Island’s “penguin parade” was to begin. On channel ten was the movie Matilda, starring Danny Devito. It was about a little girl with psychokenetic powers. Not too deep, but entertaining nonetheless. At least it seemed that way to this weary traveler!

Around 8:45 we went out to see the “penguin parade,” when dozens of penguins make their way up the beach to nest at a local wildlife park. It’s a very popular event with the tourists: there were over 2,000 people there to see the penguins make their long waddle out of the surf and into the dunes. We timed out trip to occur near the end of the parade when the penguin/people ratio was a bit more favorable. There were still throngs of people along the dimly-lit boardwalk though the dunes on either side were alive with chittering penguins.

Squinting in the dark, we could make out penguins here and there among the dunes. They would simply be standing there, backs turned to the crowd, seemingly happy to snooze among all the attention. It wasn’t like Seaworld where they’d do backflips or anything. After five minutes of watching a penguin sleep, you’ve pretty much seen it all.

We did see penguins waddling here and there. A half-dozen splashed out of the water when we went to the beach end of the boardwalk. They made their way up the dunes with surprising quickness. Others waddled next to the boardwalk as we made our way back out of the park.

No photography was permitted there so unfortunately a written description will have to suffice.

We went back to the beachhouse and straight to the backyard, where the most incredible show was taking place: the night sky. It was so dark on Phillip Island that galaxies were plainly visible with the naked eye. We sat in the darkness and took it all in. Surprisingly, in the half hour we were out there, I didn’t see one satellite pass by. Not even one manmade vehicle, in fact. It was stars and planets, as far as you could see. Absolutely beautiful. After taking that in, I bid goodnight to Clinton and retired to my room, where I read a book until about 11.

When I woke up in the night, I was astounded at how dark it was. We were out at the beach on a sparsly-populated island. The nights were dark. Of course, the awning was pulled over the window, too, which I didn’t realize until morning, but regardless it was dark. I’m not used to sleeping in such darkness and silence.

My alarm clock this morning was the unusual bird calls from the local birds. No robins or chickadees here: it was squawking seagulls and birds I couldn’t identify. Part of the fun of Australia is the sound of it. You know you’re someplace exotic even with your eyes closed.

Once Clinton was awake we went out for breakfast, heading to the Euphoria Gallery Cafe in town of Cowes. As we ate bacon and eggs, I read the travel section of the newspaper. The writer was visiting Tuscany, and described a cafe in Volterra that I visited this time last year. It was fun thinking of that fascinating, fun visit while I was enjoying this one.

We walked through the tourist shop and then went out to the pier, where I took pictures of the gorgeous coast. Then we went to see The Nobbies. No, it’s not a strip bar. It’s a group of rock outcroppings just off the shore. It was here that reconfirmed my comparison to the Pacific Northwest coast. The rocks looked similar to the ones I’ve seen on the beaches of Oregon.

We wandered along the walkway. I took pictures of everything imaginable, as there was fantastic scenery everywhere I looked. Some other tourists were looking under the boardwalk at something which turned out to be penguins. The park rangers had built little coops for them under the walkway. I took my only penguin pictures here.

We debated going to see the koalas at the koala reserve but decided to head back to the Melbourne airport. Good thing, too, as we checked in about twenty-five minutes before our scheduled departure. Fortunately for us the flight was delayed half an hour, so we spent the time in the food court.

Back in Sydney we waited for my bags, then we took the train into town. I realized after a few stops that I could have walked to my hotel from a previous stop, so I parted with Clinton and checked into my hotel. He’s off to get his car before meeting me for dinner, which will happen any time now.

I’m in Sydney for the rest of my trip. I’ll miss the Melbourne area. I didn’t see as much as I wanted to, but what I did see was spectacular. It all means I’ll have to spend more time here on a future trip.

I’ve uploaded more pictures from my trip here. These are of the certification classes from Sydney and Melbourne, so you don’t get much view of the cities themselves. In fact, the main feature of these pictures is my oversized, Charlie Brown-style noggin.

I’m off to take more interesting pictures now. Check back in about twelve hours for more shots.

In my attempt to write some amusing observations about Australian culture, I neglected to mention the day’s activities.

I met Naomi from the corporate office here at 8:30 this morning. We drove over to a place she said served the best coffee in Melbourne, a worthy coffee indeed in light of the large Italian contingent which lives in the city. We then walked over to our first (and, it turns out, only) customer meeting of the day.

I was there to provide technical resources to this particular customer. It turns out this happy customer really didn’t need any. He figured out things himself and couldn’t have been more pleased with the product. We left him after a half hour of pleasant conversation and headed back to our office.

The customer meetings planned for this afternoon didn’t pan out, as the short notice of my arrival here didn’t allow for much certainty. Instead I spent the afternoon at the office, configuring my VoIP client and answering emails.

The office here is a small thing. Only three employees work out of it. Two of those employees were away today. You would think this would have made it a nice quiet refuge today. Of course, you would be wrong.

The telephone literally rang off the hook! Naomi took one call after another, most of them orders for our new product. Her lunch was actually cold by the time she got around to eating it! It was absolutely crazy. I couldn’t stop chuckling at the response. I’ve been doing this for three years now and this response beats all I’ve ever seen.

To say the presentations of this week were wildly successful would be an understatement. The response has far exceeded my expectations. I’m really excited at the momentum that I helped build for the product, though all the credit goes to the great team here in Australia. I’m glad to have been here and to have helped get things going.

One thing about Australia is that it takes a long time for things to get here. To just visit takes fourteen hours by air and weeks by sea. Indeed, its one of the most remote places on earth.

One thing that surprised me is that, due to Australia’s position below the equator (or some other phenomenon not well understood), entire decades have simply disappeared. You see, the 1990s and 2000s never made it to the Land Down Undah. Here it is still the Eighties.

You get a taste for this right away on the radio. Men At Work, a band that flew to the top of the American pop charts before quickly boomeranging back to Oz, can be heard every hour on any station of your choosing. This will be followed by one by Kylie Minogue [Warning: annoying Flash music] or even the Bee Gees. It’s nothing short of scary.

The craft brewing craze of the 1990s never arrived, either. I’ve been in a half-dozen drinking establishments and not once have I had a decent craft beer. I did enjoy a Guinness, but that’s as foreign to these shores as I am. Aussies are quick to say they don’t drink Fosters, but what they do drink isn’t much better.

That wonder of modern navigation and one of mankind’s greatest inventions, the Global Positioning System (GPS), is just now appearing on store shelves, only thirty years after it was first implemented. Not that it matters, though. There are no electronic maps of the cities here, anyway. No Mapquest nor Google Maps. The closest thing is Street Directory and it doesn’t even give directions.

Australia is home to supermodels like Elle MacPherson, yet fashion is stuck in the 80s. Young men walk around with their shirt collars flipped up. Women walk around with oversized sunglasses. I saw no parachute pants, thank goodness. Perhaps they got stopped at customs.

The Internet made it to Australia but most hotels provide their guests the retro 80s experience of dialup speeds. The idea of flat-rate access never arrived here, either. In fact, internet access in Australia may actually be regressing. Aussies call telephone poles “telegraph poles,” after all.

The biggest Eighties flashback came on my way back from dinner tonight. I walked up to a group of Asian teenagers kicking out the jams with a ghetto blaster. Getting closer, I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were breakdancing! For a moment I truly was back the Eighties. I even looked around for time-traveling DeLoreans or shrimp tossed on barbies.

So next time you think of Australia, think of Crocodile Dundee, the Bee Gees, and all that goes with them. That’s what life is still like here because the Eighties live on in the Land Down Undah.

I’m wrapping up my first full day in Melbourne. The weather was absolutely perfect today. It would have been a great day to wander about. Too bad I had work to do!

The main event in Melbourne now is the Commonwealth Games. The Games are athletic competition between the British commonwealth countries. It’s like a mini-Olympics, and its very big here. Throngs and throngs of people are here for the games, which makes it difficult to find a decent hotel (I’m at the beautiful, exotic “Best Western“). Ironicallly, this also makes it easy to find a table at restaurants, as most of these tourists are at the stadiums until late.

Most local papers like The Age have huge portions devoted to the Games. Aussie newspapers, by the way, are as wide as the continent itself, perhaps fifty percent wider than typical American papers. It makes them difficult to fit on the table when one is eating breakfast. Anyhow, I mention it because this city (and country) is paying rapt attention to it now. You can’t go anywhere without hearing of it.

So today was our partner certification training day. We had a nice hotel meeting room set up for our presentation and twenty-two partners attended for the full day. My Aussie counterparts presented some introductory information, after which I had the floor to demonstrate the product. I began with a joke, telling them that like the Games, they, too, would be competing today. Their race was the “ten meter dash” and the finish line was the hotel bar. It was admittedly a lame joke but I got laughs everytime things slowed down and I mentioned the “race.”

The demo and training went well, the partners were engaged and excited, and the local boss complemented us on the professional way the day was presented. To top it off, even more orders rolled in as a result of our earlier Sydney presentation!

Even though I didn’t get out to see the city until after sundown, I had a wonderful day. Here I am at the bottom of the world and I feel like I’m on top of it.

I’m in Melbourne tonight, ready to do training here tomorrow. I flew in from Sydney this morning, a 90 minute flight, and immediately went on sales calls. I got to visit the official company office here in Australia, which was nice. I also met the rest of the team here. We’ve got very good people here, that’s for sure. They’ve got a handle on things. It doesn’t bode well for me returning any time soon. 🙂

We ate dinner at one of the many riverside restaurants. I had a decent pasta dish, served by a waiter from Green Bay, Wisconsin. It was kind of nice to hear a proper accent, really, even if it was a Midwestern one.

I didn’t get a chance to see much of the city, though I’m told it was a planned city, rather than the jumbled mess that Sydney became. Melbourne is surrounded by large parks. Beautiful parks from what I’m told. I’m hoping I can carve out enough time to visit them.

On the photography front, I took a few shots from the 767 as it flew into Melbourne, but not enough to qualify for uploading now.

My day starts early tomorrow as the certification training goes all day. I’ve been promised that tomorrow night we’ll go out to dinner at a place off the beaten path. I look forward to that.

G’day and g’night for now!

Day three in Sydney is “in the bag” now. It’s been all business but fun all the same. I awoke and got dressed to go to our meeting at 8 AM. After last night’s successful navigation of the Sydney train system, I confidently rode the train over to the meeting’s hotel. I didn’t expect it to be raining this morning, though luckily I had a hooded jacket and the walk to the train station wasn’t far.

Warm, humid, rainy days make for a fun ride on a crowded subway train. Uh, not. Fortunately I had one stop to go.

Our company’s invited partners were all there, so we began promptly at 8:30. Clinton led off with an overview of the company’s traditional products before turning the meeting over to me. Then for the next two hours I animatedly explained the product and how to sell it, first going into some history of the product and its previous companies. I spoke for about four hours total today. By the end of the day, the room was buzzing with questions, there was excitement on their faces: I really think I succeeded in “lighting the fire” I set out to light.

We had drinks at the hotel bar after the formal presentation, during which I heard how well the partners received the message. I was told once again how good a presenter I am, which of course thrilled me to no end. Now our New Zealand partners want me to do this in their country next month! While I’ve always wanted to visit New Zealand, I don’t think I could do another hop across the Pacific so soon, certainly not without Kelly going with me (though that may be a possibility).

Clinton did a fine job with his part, too, and got high marks for his presentation. The product’s success here is directly related to his skills. He is more than capable of doing what I’ve done here. The big attraction of my visit, though, is simply that I’m an American representative of the company. Partners consider it a big deal if someone from the company’s headquarters (or close to it, as is the case) comes out to this part of the world for a presentation. Should my travel requests become too tiring maybe I can teach Clinton to speak ‘Merican and he can pass as someone from the home office. I have my work cut out for me as my attempt to explain the Andy Griffith Show was met with blank stares!

We headed out to the Darling Harbour area for dinner at Nick’s Seafood, where I had a plate full of fried jumbo shrimp (here they call ’em “prawns.”). The guys told me that in the two hours since our presentation five more products were sold! Whatever we did today apparently caught on! We helped ourselves to a bottle of wine to celebrate.

Tomorrow morning we hop a plane to Melbourne, which I’m told is more laid back than Sydney. I’m interested to see how the two compare. On the schedule is a tour of the office and customer meetings, among other things. I’ll finish off the week in Melbourne before flying back to Sydney Sunday night. Look for more pictures once I get to check out Melbourne.

G’day!