Rendezvous 2007 Trip: The Beginning

We left Melbourne on the afternoon of Wednesday, 13th June, and flew to Sydney.
We knew that we were destined for the Metro Central Hotel Sydney, which is in Pit street. We didn't know the number in Pit Street as we expected that the taxi driver would be familiar with all of Sydney hotels. Our driver knew Pit street, of cause, but was not familiar with the hotel. He worried all the way into town about finding the Hotel.

Travel Hint 1: Know the exact address of the hotel; don't rely on the taxi driver to be aware of it.

As things turned out we found the Hotel easily. We checked in quickly and found the dining room where we met some of our traveling companions. We also met the tour guide Rod Richardson from Trade Travel.

For those who aware of such things, this was the night of NRL Origin 2.

The next morning we met our Bus (sorry Coach) driver, another Rod - Rod King.

There had been severe storms in New South Wales in the preceding week and there were news reports of the Hunter Valley under floods. We were all a little concerned that we would not get through the Hunter Valley, but Rod King assured us (correctly) that there would be no trouble with flood waters.

There were 27 in our group. Most from New Zealand or Western Australia. Margaret and I were the only Victorians and there were two Tasmanians.

The Google Map below shows the route we took on the trip and the major towns that we passed through.


View Larger Map

Probus Rendezvous 2007

This has been our first probus Rendezvous. It was held on the Gold Coast.

Rendezvous is often associated with trips before and after the main event. We went on a pre-Rendezvous trip, the details of which can be found here, here, here, and here

Descriptions of each of the five days or Rendezvous can be found at the following links: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Details of our return to Sydney can be found here.

The Hunter Valley

We traveled north through the Sydney peek hour traffic and on to the Pacific Highway. We turned off the highway, drove through Cesnock and Pokelbein to the Hunter Valley Gardens.

The url is:
http://www.hvg.com.au/home.asp

There are about a dozen different gardens spread over 25 hectares. The gardens are very attractive and well maintained. We strolled through the gardens for about an hour and then had lunch in the restaurant overlooking the Oriental Garden, with its pavilion and lake. The Oriental Garden is in the background of the picture.

In the afternoon we traveled to Tamworth which took about three hours. This was our first day together so we did not know our traveling companions well. During the drive, I looked across the isle to see a bloke (whose name badge was Bob) with a good SLR camera and a map. I realised that I had forgotten to get a map for myself and commented to him that he was a "man after my own heart" with a good camera and a map. We became good friends during the trip. More about Bob in later posts.

Tamworth

We stayed two nights in Tamworth, at the Quest Apartments, which were quite luxurious.

On Friday 15th June, we first went to the Mt Oxley Lookout to get a view of the town. A shower that passed over the town caused a rainbow which some of us avidly photographed.

Our next stop was the Tamworth Visitor Information Centre, for the, “Walk a Country Mile Tour”, a history of country music with lots of memorabilia, and then we were off to the Big Guitar which has a wax works of Country Music stars. Country Music fans would find these fascinating, but as I don't like Country "Music" or Wax Works they left me cold. The picture at the right shows Bob, Tony and me outside the Big Guitar.

While in Tamworth I was reminded of the scene in the "Blues Brothers" where the band arrives at "Bob's Country Bunker" and Elwood asks Bob's wife what kind of music they play there. She brightly replies, "We have both types, Country and Western".

After lunch we visited Calala Cottage Museum, which was built in 1875 as a town house for Philip King, Tamworth’s first Mayor and Governor of the Australian Agricultural Company. On the site were a shepheard's hut, school room and work sheds from the 19th Century. Included in the items on display were gifts from Charles Darwin, including a sextant. King sailed with Darwin on the Beagle in 1831. Between 1876 and 1880 King was the first mayor of Tamworth.

For a biography of King follow the link: http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A050035b.htm .

In the evening the manager and staff at Quest Apartments gave our group a "Country Dinner". Margaret won a bottle of wine which we shared around.

Stanthorpe

On the morning of Saturday 16th we set out for our next stopover at Stanthorpe.
Fairly soon after leaving Tamworth we started to climb up onto the New England Plateau.
We stopped at Armidale for morning tea, which was made by Rob King our driver. We only had 45 minutes in the town so Margaret and I did some quick exploring. For a country town there were many young people walking the streets. This is because Armidale is a University Town, housing the University of New England.

Our destination was the two cathedrals that we saw from the bus as we entered the town. St Peter's is the Anglical Cathedral and St Mary's is the Roman Catholic one. St Peter's was interesting and attractive, but St Mary's was magnificent. Internally it was one of the most beautiful churches we have seen. The photograph shows Margaret admiring the architecture of St Mary's.
We had lunch at Glen Innes which is famous for its Celtic Festival and visited the Standing Stones a short distance from town.
The next major town was Tenterfield. We stopped at the Tenterfield Saddler, which was made famous by Peter Allan. I would have preferred to see the School of Arts where Sir Henry Parks gave his famous Tenterfield Oration on 24th October 1989. Parks was the "Father of Federation" and his address was one of the main speaches leading up to the Federation of the Australian colonies.
Unfortunately we had already passed it and the driver needed to push on to Stanthorpe.
We had an excellent meal at an Italian Restaurant in Stanthorpe and stayed the night at a local motel.
On Sunday 17th we left Stanthorpe and traveled through the southern Darling Downs and arrived at Conrad Jupiters on the Gold Coast. We settled into our room, found a restaurant for our evening meal and then returned to the hotel for an early night.

Monday: Rendezvous Day 1

The first activity, on the morning of Monday 18^th June was the opening ceremony. It occurred in the Conrad Grand Ballroom with 820 proberians in the audience. The ceremony involved some generally interesting and informative speeches, some blue jokes from the MC and some entertainment from students from a local school. I have a somewhat jaundiced view of the latest crop of teenagers, but the students who performed were very talented. Two of them sang the Flower Duet by Delibe. A fiendishly difficult piece that they handled very well.

The brochure advertised lunch following the opening ceremony and Margaret and I had discussed this. We thought that there would be tables of finger food with hundreds of people crowded around the tables, and had thought that we would give it a miss and find somewhere quiet to have lunch. How mistaken were we as we were about to experience the first of five culliary tours de force.

At the end of the meeting we were all directed to one of three locations for lunch. Margaret and I went to the closest one to us and found a large room with long tables groaning with soup, salad and meat rolls, deserts and tea and coffee. There were a large number of tables where we could sit and eat lunch.

The afternoon was free for relaxing and sight seeing. In the evening was another dinner – the Welcome Dinner. We had not booked for this much to our disappointment when we heard reports of it the next day.

That evening I took the picture of the hotel casino. You can see the monorail in the foreground.

Tuesday: Touring and evening show

Tuesday was for Touring. Destinations included, Australia Zoo, Green Mountain / O’Reilly’s MT Tamborine, and Byron Bay. We went of a cruise on the Tweed river and a visit to a farm / tourist attraction specializing in a rain forest experience. During the cruise staff on the boat throw scraps over the side to attract wildlife. The photograph shows one of the pelicans that turned up for a free feed


Tuesday night contained one of the highlights of the week. I can understand people saying that they would never go to the Gold Coast because it is crass and overly commercial – and of cause it is. But if you are ever in the vicinity of the Gold Coast make a point of going to the Outback Spectacular. The show is set in an enclosed arena that seats 1000 people. It is an audio visual extravaganza of music, poetry, and horseman ship. The basic premise is that two outback cattle and sheep stations meet together for friendly competition. The audience is divided into two groups each supporting one of the stations. Audience members sit at long benches and when you arrive a salad entree is on waiting ready to be consumed. Part of the way through the show the cast settle down to a barbie which is the que for the secondary piece of culinary magic for the week. From no where waiters appeared and all 1000 members of the audience were given a meal within 10 minutes. It would be interesting to observe the kitchens as the 1000 steaks were prepared to be timed for the right point in the show.

The show finishes with its famous finale - with all the riders carrying Australian flags. Many people are particularly affected by this part of the show. Unfortunately I always feel uneasy with flag waving. Excessive patriotism and veneration for "Old Glory" is one of the traits of Americans that leave many of us cold. This paragraph might annoy some readers, I might write a post expanding on it some time.

Wednesday: Travel Show and Casino Show

Wednesday morning was a travel trade show. The Grand Ballroom was packed with exhibitors after the Probian traveling dollar. We discovered the best way to tour NZ – by Grand Pacific Coach.What convinced us was that people who had traveled by Grand Pacific confirmed (unsolicited) the claims made by the Grand Pacific presenters.



In the afternoon, after another brilliantly organized lunch,all Probians adjourned to the Casino theatre for the current casino show. This show was much better that I had expected. This was the first Casino show that I had attended. I expected something trashy and extravagant. Instead it consisted of song, dance, comedy,and acrobatics. I did not smuggle my camera into to the show, the photo at right is taken from the web site. It shows the highlight which was a performance by five motor cycle riders who performed intricate, high speedmanoeuvres, inside a sphere that seemed to be only 3 - 4 metres in diameter. The sphere could be separated into two hemispheres. At one stage three of the riders were circling in the top half and the other two in the bottom half. The photo shows the sphere in the background with the hemispheres separated. The girl on the bike isn't a gratuitous addition. At one stage she stood inside the sphere while two bikes whizzed around her.

That evening we went out for dinner to a Thai restaurant, with Bob, Ellis and Margaret. The meal and the company was excellent.

Thursday: Touring and Dinner

Thursday was another tour day. We went to South Stradbroke Island on a boat. A fairly large group opted for this tour so the company sent us out on two ships. We were on one and Bob was on the other. You might expect that the weather was warm, but we were in Southern Queensland and it was winter. I have picture of Margaret on South Stradbroke sitting in front of a fire trying to get warm. The photograph shows the other boat, with Bob standing on the bowsprit. Although both boats were primarily motor vessels they has sails as well - mainly for show.

That evening we all dressed up for the Gala Dinner – an evening of food, socializing and dancing.

Friday: Meetings

The last say, Friday involved a number of meetings. The first was a question and answer session on Probus issues. Many issues were raised here are a few that caught our attention:

• Probus Centre - South Pacific Inc which as I understand it co-ordinates probus in this region of the world is very well off with over $600,000 in the bank – and rising
• The name probus as we know comes from abbreviations of the words Professional and Business. It seems that in one Probus club some members are refusing admission to a woman who has been a home maker all of her life on the basis that she wasn’t a professional or business person. The Probus Centre - South Pacific people made it clear that keeping people out of a club for that reason was unacceptable. In fact if you read the definition of Probus on the website http://www.probus.com.au/ you will find the following defintion:

Probus is an association of retired and semi-retired people who join together in clubs, the basic purpose of which is to provide regular opportunities for them to keep their minds active, expand their interests and to enjoy the fellowship of new friends.

• Probus is large and growing

Clubs in Australia = 1799
Members in Australia = 141 065

After another lunch the closing ceremony was held in the afternoon. This involved a hand over to the Christchurch committee and some NZ entertainment.

The trip home

We left for home on Saturday 23rd June. Our first visit was to Tropical Fruit World where a wide range of tropical fruit is grown and researched. It is in New South Wales not far south of the Tweed River. The photo shows Margaret and other members of our tour party tasting Macadamia Nuts. It was so interesting that we overstayed and as a consequence had a long drive to our overnight destination - Coffs Harbour. There we visited the Pet Porpoise Pool where we watched displays by sea lions and dolphins.

On Sunday we drove to Port Stephens via Foster where we had lunch. Port Stephens is a very attractive area with a beautiful harbour. Our last night was spent at Salamander.

On Monday 25th we drove into Sydney and were dropped off at the Airport. We ate lunch with Margaret and Ellis which was very pleasant, then caught our plane home.

It was a great trip. We enjoyed it so much we have already booked for Rendezvous at Christchurch next year.

The move to Tarneit

As I described in the Tarneit Skies post we are going to move to a Retirement Village. This involves many processes. We have recently been given a probable move in date by Tarneit. It looks likely that we will move in during the last week of November. As a result we have started the house selling process. This will be a long and detailed process. More posts to come on our experiences.

Rendezvous 2008

We had such a great time at the Gold Coast Rendezvous that we have started the process of registering for rendezvous 2008 in Christchurch. Last week we visited the Grand Pacific Tours office near us and handed in the registration form.

We will be attending the:

• Welcome Dinner,
• Theatre Production,
• Gondola, and,
  
• Gala Dinner

Accommodation: Quest Apartment Studio.

Pre-tour: 18 day rail/coach tour with Grand Pacific Tours.

Tarneit Skies

More than a year ago Margaret and I decided to downsize. We are quite capable of maintaining our house and garden for another ten years or more, but we can't really see the point. The house is a little too big for us and is now 50 years old, so it has few modern touches. As well keeping our garden alive during last summer's El-Nino was a nightmare that we don't want to face again. Neither of us are avid gardeners, we just want the yard to look neat and cared for but don't particularly enjoy working in the garden. All the same, at the right time of the year the garden looks pretty good, as shown by the photo. Click on it to see a larger view.

If we are going to downsize it doesn't make much sense to find an anonymous flat in the suburbs, it seems to us to make more sense to live in a community. We also intend to spend much of our retirement traveling (hence the name of this blog). Already we have booked three holidays totalling 8 weeks in 2008. For details see the Travel Plans post. We therefore want a home base that is secure when we are away. Often on holidays we think (separately) about the security of our home - ie has anyone burgled or trashed it? We also want to be close to facilities such as a pool, gym, restaurant, library, theatre and to self improvement and study groups such as a well resourced craft group.

We found all of these requirements at a retirement village called Tarneit Skies which is in Tarneit near Werribee. There is a gym, pool, restaurant, library and small theatre less than a minutes walk from our prospective front door. As well it becomes a "gated community" at night which is when a house is most at risk.

Many people suggest that we are too young for this step with the idea that Retirement Villages are for old people. There are three problems with this idea. Firstly, it assumes that older people are not interesting, which we have found not to be true - see my post Valuing Old Folks. Secondly, we will not forget all of our current friends and relatives, and thirdly most of the current residents that we have met do not seem to be "old" to us.

We are now in the business end of this life transition which I will outline in more posts to come.