20 March 2009
Since Thursday last week…
Posted by Mick (SplaTT) Stanic under: AIMIA; Conferences; Events; Mountains; Personal; Sydney .
…it went something like this…
Left the Upper Yarra Valley in Victoria at 5.30am on the morning of Thursday the 12th of March and started the long drive up the Hume Highway/Freeway to Sydney. After a fuel and lunch stop I arrived in Sydney at around 3pm and popped into favourite Glebe cafe called Well Connected for a coffee. Wandered around Glebe Point Road for a while and then drove down to Woolloomooloo and had a “pie with peas, mash & gravy” at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels before checking into the “Blackett Hotel” in the city.
Friday started with a wander around the the city before attending an AIMIA Board meeting at lunchtime. Caught up with some friends in the afternoon and then jumped in a cab and headed down to the Australian Technology Park in Eveleigh which was the venue for the 15th AIMIA Awards.
The Awards was a great event with over 700 people attending and both the “after party” and the “after after party” were a great opportunity to catch up with everyone. All of the entries and finalists were great so a big congratulations to the 24 winners…well done :)
After being woken way to early to the sounds of Australian Navy marching bands in George Street on Saturday, i checked out of the hotel and caught up with an old friend for lunch at Bar Italia in Leichhardt before catching up with a supplier who has became a good friend over the years.
I left Sydney on Monday morning and headed for Canberra where i had a meeting with the main organiser behind the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. I’m helping out to organise a logo and other stuff. My interest in this is that I’m fascinated by a particular location and its story in Australia’s space involvement…so much that my umbrella business, “Honeysuckle Creek Pty Ltd“, is named after the “NASA Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station“, which was located south of Canberra and was responsible for picking up and transmitting the Apollo 11 moon landing, including the footage and audio of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moons surface (Honeysuckle Creek site – wikipedia).
After the Apollo meeting I caught up with and stayed with some close friends in Canberra on Monday and then on Tuesday headed south for the Snowy Mountains region after first stopping at the Mount Stromlo Observatory, the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex and the Honeysuckle Creek site.
A quick lunch at Jindabyne and then the drive continued onto the Alpine Way through Thredbo, over Dead Horse Gap, passed Tom Groggin and though Khancoban. I then crossed back into Victoria and had a well deserved beer at one of the pubs in Corryong after which I followed the road from Corrying to Omeo and onto Bairnsdale before stopping for the night after what was huge 11 hour drive from Jindabyne.
Wednesday morning saw me making a quick dash for the V21 conference in Melbourne which was certainly worth the effort. Well done to the team at AIMIA Victoria for putting this on…looking forward to next years event.
Spent Thursday at the EYEfi office before finally returning to the starting point in the Upper Yarra Valley late on Thursday night…finally home :)
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