Worktrip to Australia! [Weeks 2&3]
May. 19th, 2026 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beelikejLittle over a month ago I came back from my businesstrip and additional travel in Australia. I meant to follow up my first picspam sooner, but as per usual I got distracted by work (and fandom! I'm currently crazy about Heated Rivalry and there is a lot of meta out there to enjoy :-p)
Anyway, here I finally am again to continue with my travelreport! During the workweeks I mostly only make pictures of food, but there was also an evening we went looking for bats and an afternoon on a sightseeing train. In the weekend in between I traveled to Melbourne to meet up with fellow SPN fangirlmajestic_duxk and on the Sunday I went on a boat tour with other delegates, so there are plenty of touristy photos as well :-D
Oh and on day two I got to wear my raincape for the first and last time this trip! There were a couple more days with rain (and even one massive thunderstorm), but I was indoors then. Overall the weather in Victoria was dry and a lot cooler than I expected, often low 20s Celcius.
How cool is my colourful cape? :-D
Workweek 1: tech meeting & fruitbats on Wednesday evening!
Meeting Day 1
We start the first day of the meeting with a Smoke Ceremony, where herbs are burned in a bowl and everyone cleanses their faces and feet (shoes) in the smoke. After that, we continue with the regular Monday program of the agenda and updates of the past few months. There's a stand-up lunch at noon.
Obviously I have seconds at lunch ;-)
For dinner we sit down in the hotel restaurant, I order a Mushroom Pizza
For dessert I have a Lemon Poset and after preparing for tomorrow I spend the rest of the evening in the bath with my e-reader (Luck in the Shadows - Lynn Flewelling).
Meeting Day 2
I have three proposals to present (including yesterday's homework) and I'm very happy to grab some snacks with tea in the morning break.
There is another stand-up lunch at noon.
Due to sidebars with other delegates I don't get any food in the afternoon break, hrmpf.
There's a storm during the meeting (love these stained glass windows) and I need my raincape even for just the short walk back to the hotel.
When we drive into town for dinner it clears up and the sky is gorgeous.
We sit down in a pub in town (Lazy Moe's) where I have a Strawberry Kiss mocktail and mash & chips with a massive Classic Parma (a massive breaded schnitzel topped with napoli tomato sauce and melted cheese).
After dinner we go for a walk in the park to spot fruitbats; we don't see them, but we sure can smell and hear them in the trees!
Meeting Day 3
Hey, a breakfast photo: it's a hot cross cinnamon bunn with milk.
During the morning break I grab an omelet muffin with my tea.
A variety of snacks for the stand-up lunch. Love the beef and red cabbage combo! (Also: big fan of pies in any size:-)
After the meeting we rush to the park for the fruitbats that were making such noise yesterday evening and we couldn't see in the dark. Wahey, we find a whole bunch of them hanging in the trees.
Some of the bats are already awake enough to fly around, very cool!
We'd love to hang around in the park longer, but we have a hosted dinner to go to. Of course when we leave loads of bats start flying as the sun sets. *sighs*
The meeting's official hosted dinner is in a converted church.
First course is Baked Halloumi with ratatouille and salsa verde. (I only eat the chees ;-))
There are lots of speeches in between the main course and dessert.
Mediterranean braised chicken, Moroccan couscous and heirloom carrots (well, that's what the menu said, but I don't think that's couscous, they look like chickpeas to me, and the carrots were unrecognizable as well. Chicken was okay)
Dessert: Callebaut chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce and hazelnut praline parfait.
Art blob (we think it is a wombat?) in front of the restaurant and streetart on a nearby wall.
Meeting Day 3
In the morning break we celebrate that it's the 50th tech meeting, yay cake!
In the evening our AUS delegate invites us to a BBQ, this includes a taste of kangaroo meat!
Meeting Day 4
A stacked bun with meat and an egg at the morning break.
Lunch snacks and a rainbow :-)
Afternoon break sweet treats.
Right after the breaking I get in the car with G. & A. to explore a nearby reservoir where we hope to find kangaroos in the wild. I don't know what this metal structure is.
We decide to walk anti-clockwise around the reservoir, it's beautiful, but we don't see any animals, except for birds.
After about an hour's walk we are nearly back where we started and just when we think it's not gonna happen anymore, we run into a whole group of kangaroos, woohoo!
Ofcourse we have to stop at this roadsign on the way back into town and also for this amazing view of galahs and a cockatoo up in the tree *hearteyes*
We sit down for dinner in town: Pulled Pork nachos with a Fruit Lemonade Mix Mocktail (lychee, strawberry, raspberry, lemon, lime, lemonade, soda water) and for dessert: Passionfruit cream (biscoff buiscuits, passionfruit, meringues and whpped cream). Omnomnom.
Day 8: Fangirlmeet-up Daytrip Melbourne
After breakfast I move my backpack and other bags to my colleage T.'s car, as I will be moving to another hotel tonight.
Then I take only a bag with a book and get on the bus to the station to catch the morning train to Melbourne to meet up with fandom friendmajestic_duxk!
After she picks me up at Southern Cross station, we take a tram to Queen Victoria Market where we sit down for lunch.
My "Soggy Burgers" are served with gloves, as these mini cheeseburgers are soaked in sauce and impossible to eat without making a mess. The glove may look silly, but it's very effective :-D
After lunch we stroll around for (my) souvenirs - I did not get this slightly creepy koala cushion o_O.
Victoria Market is right in the middle of the Melbourne Business District with it's big buildings.
After I say goodbye to Duxk, I stroll through Flagstaff Gardens (and admire pretty sculpture The Court Favourite by Paul Montford (1930) - check out that carved elephant head on his baton) and walk to Docklands, the fancy harbour area.
I find a bench near the water to read for a bit and discover the main character has just walked the same route into Docklands, haha! (Tigers & Devils, written by my friend Kennedy)
Look at these funky sculptures.
I'm tired of walking and decide to take the old Circle tram that goes all the way around the city centre (for free!). It's lovely, but none of the seats offer a view, so it's mostly a nostalgia ride.
I get off for a short stroll along Yarra River, before I walk to the station.
I get on the 17:30 train. What a lovely day!
My colleague T. picks me up from the station and takes me to my new hotel (which is closer to the location where I will be workshopping the following week). There is a jacuzzi in the corner of the bedroom :-O
Sunday: Riverboat tour & Aussie Beer Museum
Breakfast. My room has view of the main road through town, but even though there was a lot of traffic, even during the night, I slept very well.
We go on a road trip with a whole bunch of international colleagues! The others had discovered these painted silos near Werrimull yesterday when I was in Melbourne and they wanted to do a detour today just to show me, so sweet <3 Gorgeous artworks by Jimmy Dvarte depicting all kinds of Australian animals.
Can you guess what we will be doing next? When I saw this poster it brought back memories of my mom and I watching this Australian TVseries about a couple on a riverboat... We are going on a steamercruise along the Murray River!
It was lovely and relaxing.
I love being on the water.
*happy sigh*
After that we explored The port of Echuca: an open-air museum tracing the history of this 19th-century river wharf, very interesting.
I had Fish & Chips for lunch with a large Caramel Milkshake.
Our roadtrip continued to a very different kind of museum: The Great Aussie Beer Shed & Heritage Farm Museum!
Besides the 17,000 beer cans from Australia and around the world, there is a collection of collections on display, all sorts of Aussie Icon paraphernalia. It is a very entertaining place.
At the end of the afternoon the group split up and D, G, A and I drove to the Geographic Centre of Victoria. Geonerds unite!
We ended the evening with icecream and a final view of the fruitbats (They went crazy from fireworks that were being tested for the Good Friday parade)
Workweek 2: tech workshop & a sightseeing tram on Tuesday afternoon!
Workshop Day 1
The guys dropped me off at my motel and I went for a short walk to stare in awe at the cathedral nearby (see daytime view below).
Monday breakfast had been delivered in my room the evening before.
My walk to the workshop takes me past the cathedral, what a great view.
For lunch we went to a local bakery, I had a beef pie and a Vegemite cheeseroll, omnomnom.
In the evening I did some adulting: laundry in a top loader without instructions, eeep!
It was still light when I walked into town to meet up with G. and A. for dinner. I had a Deep Blue Mocktail (apple and pineapple, apparently) and Bunja's Style Fried Rice with a combination of meats.
Again we ended the evening with icecream: I went a little overboard with the mix-ins: too much candy, oomph.
Workshop Day 2
Another big breakfast: I can leave the dishes in the cabinet behind the servery hatch to be picked up by staff.
A scrumptious lunch from the bakery again: a Victoria bun and a potato pie (with mash and beef inside and a fried potato in its crust!)
I worked with G. today on post-meeting homework and we managed to finish early. We then snuck out of the office for a touristy tram ride. Along the way to the starting point, we stopped at Pie Face for a sweet berry pie snack.
This vintage 'talking tram' will take us through town while telling us about the local history. We had the tram all to ourselves and had a lot of fun :-)
The tram rides all along the main street (it passes my motel as well) and beyond. It's a hop-on/hop-off system, but we stayed on the tram the whole route.
It has stops at the city's landmarks and two turning points where the driver gets off to manually turns the trolley poles around, so they correctly connect to the overhead lines, very cool to watch.
We finally get off when we get back in the town centre, to get some souvenirs.
On my walk back to the motel, I come across an interesting sculpture at the side of the road: After the Procession by Maggie Fooke (1993).
In the evening a whole bunch of us meet up for dinner (delegates from USA, AUS, DNK, GBR, NLD). I have Spaghetti Carbonara with Ginger Ale.
Workshop Day 3
I stopped ordering breakfast, as I have left-overs from the first two this week that will keep me going for the rest of the week!
Another lunch from the bakery in town: custard tart and pizza!
The entrance to my motelroom with the servery hatch next to the door.
I have dinner in an old gold rush hotel (1897) with D, G. and A.: Chicken & Chorizo Risotto. I never had the latter in a risotto, but love the combination!
Workshop Day 4
For yesterday evening's dessert we went to the ice salon again, but this time i have a Loaded Shake: Caramel Coma (caramel ice cream, crunchie, caramel syrup and hot caramel fudge).
A simple breakfast this morning (that milkshake lived up to its name;-))
Final day of workshopping, so last day at our favourite bakery as well: I have a vegemite cheeseroll to say goodbye.
These were the quote benches we sat down on for all our lunches.
It was another awesome work week.
To be continued with a week in Perth, Western-Australia, where temperatures are a lot higher!
J.
Previous posts:
Day 1 & 2: flying to Sydney [LJ] Day 3: Sydney Opera House [LJ] Day 4: Ferry & Swimming with family [LJ] Day 5: Flying to Victoria & Birdspotting [LJ] Day 6: Australian Football in the MGC [LJ] Day 7: Underground Goldmine [LJ]
X-posted to https://beelikej.livejournal.com/589699.html
Lurk or comment wherever you like:)
Anyway, here I finally am again to continue with my travelreport! During the workweeks I mostly only make pictures of food, but there was also an evening we went looking for bats and an afternoon on a sightseeing train. In the weekend in between I traveled to Melbourne to meet up with fellow SPN fangirl
majestic_duxk and on the Sunday I went on a boat tour with other delegates, so there are plenty of touristy photos as well :-DOh and on day two I got to wear my raincape for the first and last time this trip! There were a couple more days with rain (and even one massive thunderstorm), but I was indoors then. Overall the weather in Victoria was dry and a lot cooler than I expected, often low 20s Celcius.
How cool is my colourful cape? :-D
Workweek 1: tech meeting & fruitbats on Wednesday evening!
Meeting Day 1
We start the first day of the meeting with a Smoke Ceremony, where herbs are burned in a bowl and everyone cleanses their faces and feet (shoes) in the smoke. After that, we continue with the regular Monday program of the agenda and updates of the past few months. There's a stand-up lunch at noon.
Obviously I have seconds at lunch ;-)
For dinner we sit down in the hotel restaurant, I order a Mushroom Pizza
For dessert I have a Lemon Poset and after preparing for tomorrow I spend the rest of the evening in the bath with my e-reader (Luck in the Shadows - Lynn Flewelling).
Meeting Day 2
I have three proposals to present (including yesterday's homework) and I'm very happy to grab some snacks with tea in the morning break.
There is another stand-up lunch at noon.
Due to sidebars with other delegates I don't get any food in the afternoon break, hrmpf.
There's a storm during the meeting (love these stained glass windows) and I need my raincape even for just the short walk back to the hotel.
When we drive into town for dinner it clears up and the sky is gorgeous.
We sit down in a pub in town (Lazy Moe's) where I have a Strawberry Kiss mocktail and mash & chips with a massive Classic Parma (a massive breaded schnitzel topped with napoli tomato sauce and melted cheese).
After dinner we go for a walk in the park to spot fruitbats; we don't see them, but we sure can smell and hear them in the trees!
Meeting Day 3
Hey, a breakfast photo: it's a hot cross cinnamon bunn with milk.
During the morning break I grab an omelet muffin with my tea.
A variety of snacks for the stand-up lunch. Love the beef and red cabbage combo! (Also: big fan of pies in any size:-)
After the meeting we rush to the park for the fruitbats that were making such noise yesterday evening and we couldn't see in the dark. Wahey, we find a whole bunch of them hanging in the trees.
Some of the bats are already awake enough to fly around, very cool!
We'd love to hang around in the park longer, but we have a hosted dinner to go to. Of course when we leave loads of bats start flying as the sun sets. *sighs*
The meeting's official hosted dinner is in a converted church.
First course is Baked Halloumi with ratatouille and salsa verde. (I only eat the chees ;-))
There are lots of speeches in between the main course and dessert.
Mediterranean braised chicken, Moroccan couscous and heirloom carrots (well, that's what the menu said, but I don't think that's couscous, they look like chickpeas to me, and the carrots were unrecognizable as well. Chicken was okay)
Dessert: Callebaut chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce and hazelnut praline parfait.
Art blob (we think it is a wombat?) in front of the restaurant and streetart on a nearby wall.
Meeting Day 3
In the morning break we celebrate that it's the 50th tech meeting, yay cake!
In the evening our AUS delegate invites us to a BBQ, this includes a taste of kangaroo meat!
Meeting Day 4
A stacked bun with meat and an egg at the morning break.
Lunch snacks and a rainbow :-)
Afternoon break sweet treats.
Right after the breaking I get in the car with G. & A. to explore a nearby reservoir where we hope to find kangaroos in the wild. I don't know what this metal structure is.
We decide to walk anti-clockwise around the reservoir, it's beautiful, but we don't see any animals, except for birds.
After about an hour's walk we are nearly back where we started and just when we think it's not gonna happen anymore, we run into a whole group of kangaroos, woohoo!
Ofcourse we have to stop at this roadsign on the way back into town and also for this amazing view of galahs and a cockatoo up in the tree *hearteyes*
We sit down for dinner in town: Pulled Pork nachos with a Fruit Lemonade Mix Mocktail (lychee, strawberry, raspberry, lemon, lime, lemonade, soda water) and for dessert: Passionfruit cream (biscoff buiscuits, passionfruit, meringues and whpped cream). Omnomnom.
Day 8: Fangirlmeet-up Daytrip Melbourne
After breakfast I move my backpack and other bags to my colleage T.'s car, as I will be moving to another hotel tonight.
Then I take only a bag with a book and get on the bus to the station to catch the morning train to Melbourne to meet up with fandom friend
majestic_duxk!
After she picks me up at Southern Cross station, we take a tram to Queen Victoria Market where we sit down for lunch.
My "Soggy Burgers" are served with gloves, as these mini cheeseburgers are soaked in sauce and impossible to eat without making a mess. The glove may look silly, but it's very effective :-D
After lunch we stroll around for (my) souvenirs - I did not get this slightly creepy koala cushion o_O.
Victoria Market is right in the middle of the Melbourne Business District with it's big buildings.
After I say goodbye to Duxk, I stroll through Flagstaff Gardens (and admire pretty sculpture The Court Favourite by Paul Montford (1930) - check out that carved elephant head on his baton) and walk to Docklands, the fancy harbour area.
I find a bench near the water to read for a bit and discover the main character has just walked the same route into Docklands, haha! (Tigers & Devils, written by my friend Kennedy)
Look at these funky sculptures.
I'm tired of walking and decide to take the old Circle tram that goes all the way around the city centre (for free!). It's lovely, but none of the seats offer a view, so it's mostly a nostalgia ride.
I get off for a short stroll along Yarra River, before I walk to the station.
I get on the 17:30 train. What a lovely day!
My colleague T. picks me up from the station and takes me to my new hotel (which is closer to the location where I will be workshopping the following week). There is a jacuzzi in the corner of the bedroom :-O
Sunday: Riverboat tour & Aussie Beer Museum
Breakfast. My room has view of the main road through town, but even though there was a lot of traffic, even during the night, I slept very well.
We go on a road trip with a whole bunch of international colleagues! The others had discovered these painted silos near Werrimull yesterday when I was in Melbourne and they wanted to do a detour today just to show me, so sweet <3 Gorgeous artworks by Jimmy Dvarte depicting all kinds of Australian animals.
Can you guess what we will be doing next? When I saw this poster it brought back memories of my mom and I watching this Australian TVseries about a couple on a riverboat... We are going on a steamercruise along the Murray River!
It was lovely and relaxing.
I love being on the water.
*happy sigh*
After that we explored The port of Echuca: an open-air museum tracing the history of this 19th-century river wharf, very interesting.
I had Fish & Chips for lunch with a large Caramel Milkshake.
Our roadtrip continued to a very different kind of museum: The Great Aussie Beer Shed & Heritage Farm Museum!
Besides the 17,000 beer cans from Australia and around the world, there is a collection of collections on display, all sorts of Aussie Icon paraphernalia. It is a very entertaining place.
At the end of the afternoon the group split up and D, G, A and I drove to the Geographic Centre of Victoria. Geonerds unite!
We ended the evening with icecream and a final view of the fruitbats (They went crazy from fireworks that were being tested for the Good Friday parade)
Workweek 2: tech workshop & a sightseeing tram on Tuesday afternoon!
Workshop Day 1
The guys dropped me off at my motel and I went for a short walk to stare in awe at the cathedral nearby (see daytime view below).
Monday breakfast had been delivered in my room the evening before.
My walk to the workshop takes me past the cathedral, what a great view.
For lunch we went to a local bakery, I had a beef pie and a Vegemite cheeseroll, omnomnom.
In the evening I did some adulting: laundry in a top loader without instructions, eeep!
It was still light when I walked into town to meet up with G. and A. for dinner. I had a Deep Blue Mocktail (apple and pineapple, apparently) and Bunja's Style Fried Rice with a combination of meats.
Again we ended the evening with icecream: I went a little overboard with the mix-ins: too much candy, oomph.
Workshop Day 2
Another big breakfast: I can leave the dishes in the cabinet behind the servery hatch to be picked up by staff.
A scrumptious lunch from the bakery again: a Victoria bun and a potato pie (with mash and beef inside and a fried potato in its crust!)
I worked with G. today on post-meeting homework and we managed to finish early. We then snuck out of the office for a touristy tram ride. Along the way to the starting point, we stopped at Pie Face for a sweet berry pie snack.
This vintage 'talking tram' will take us through town while telling us about the local history. We had the tram all to ourselves and had a lot of fun :-)
The tram rides all along the main street (it passes my motel as well) and beyond. It's a hop-on/hop-off system, but we stayed on the tram the whole route.
It has stops at the city's landmarks and two turning points where the driver gets off to manually turns the trolley poles around, so they correctly connect to the overhead lines, very cool to watch.
We finally get off when we get back in the town centre, to get some souvenirs.
On my walk back to the motel, I come across an interesting sculpture at the side of the road: After the Procession by Maggie Fooke (1993).
In the evening a whole bunch of us meet up for dinner (delegates from USA, AUS, DNK, GBR, NLD). I have Spaghetti Carbonara with Ginger Ale.
Workshop Day 3
I stopped ordering breakfast, as I have left-overs from the first two this week that will keep me going for the rest of the week!
Another lunch from the bakery in town: custard tart and pizza!
The entrance to my motelroom with the servery hatch next to the door.
I have dinner in an old gold rush hotel (1897) with D, G. and A.: Chicken & Chorizo Risotto. I never had the latter in a risotto, but love the combination!
Workshop Day 4
For yesterday evening's dessert we went to the ice salon again, but this time i have a Loaded Shake: Caramel Coma (caramel ice cream, crunchie, caramel syrup and hot caramel fudge).
A simple breakfast this morning (that milkshake lived up to its name;-))
Final day of workshopping, so last day at our favourite bakery as well: I have a vegemite cheeseroll to say goodbye.
These were the quote benches we sat down on for all our lunches.
It was another awesome work week.
To be continued with a week in Perth, Western-Australia, where temperatures are a lot higher!
J.
Previous posts:
X-posted to https://beelikej.livejournal.com/589699.html
Lurk or comment wherever you like:)