Experiencing California in the rain…

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I’ve been in the USA for over a week now and ever since I arrived here the weather hasn’t exactly been what I’d expect from California at this time of year – in fact it’s not exactly what the locals would have expected either!

There’s been torrential rain, huge squally winds, the odd tornado and lightening strikes aplenty and that’s just here around Los Angeles. Up in the mountains, which surround this vast sprawling city, snow has fallen unabated with around 20 inches / 50 centimetres in some resorts. Winter has hit here with damaging results. It’s all been pretty easy for me to deal with though, coming from the UK you could say I’m used to a little rain and wind!

Just have a look at the way the pressure dropped on the graph below and the resulting rain that arrived:

So I’ve tried to deal with it as best I can. Not wanting to hide in my room and waste this opportunity to see a new location, and with a busy 2010 on the running calendar coming up (including the Comrades Ultra Marathon, South Africa in May) I grabbed my kit and headed out onto the sopping wet streets of the city. Normally I’d use the Runkeeper application on my iPhone to show me where I’m going, but being on international roaming it doesn’t make good financial sense to constantly download Google Map images.

I headed out with my GPS, a paper map, by backpack and camera and made for the coast – the mecca of Californian surfing….well on a good day anyway! It took me an hour to get there running into a strong headwind all the way and I didn’t see one other human being ‘outside’ of their car the entire time. I must be mad.

The beach was a mess; huge charging surf, flooded car parks, washed out beaches and the odd bird struggling to make headway in the gusting winds – it was a little different to the picture perfect Baywatch scene I’d imagined. Oh well it made a damn good run and witnessing the planes battling to land as they came into LAX airport was a sight to behold. It still amazes me that these huge lumps of metal actually stay in the air…

I’d spent the morning visiting another television station for an interview, this time KTLA in Los Angeles. There’s been so much interest in the ‘Best Job’ campaign right around the world since it started a year ago, that the story has been followed by media outlets far and wide all wanting to know about the experience and I’m only to happy to oblige. This one was pretty simple; a friendly trio of presenters, easy enough questions and just a hint of jealousy from the viewers…that’s what we’re trying to do after all!

Whilst over here I’ve also been giving some presentations to the travel industry about the job, Queensland and what happens next…that very obvious question. It’s a really new role I’ve taken on and hadn’t really done much before, bar at a wedding a few years ago, and one that becomes easier the more I do it.

G’Day USA is taking place at various locations with the next stop being Toronto, Canada for a couple of days before an overnight in New York and then back to L.A. for the flight home to Australia.

This part of California has impressed me you know; ok L.A. is a sprawling, vast mass of buildings and people bisected by roads, overpasses and freeways but it’s on these roads that there’s a noticeable difference. I’ve long been interested in looking after the environment and have considered owning a Toyota Pruis once I get back to Brisbane. They’re environmentally friendly and have a hybrid engine which significantly reduces the consumption of petrol. It switches between electric and engine driven power and as an Automotive Engineer fascinates me!

They are everywhere out here in California, there must be one every 10th car, and in a nation which loves the SUV and huge V8 engines it’s quite a statement. The ‘Arnie’ government have helped out the public as well by reducing taxes on owning one and have allowed them to travel in the ‘Car Pool’ lane – usually only for vehicles with more than one person. In my mind the USA wasn’t doing enough to reduce its carbon footprint but this goes a long way to at least making a visible start.

‘Best Job’ goes around the world, first stop the USA

I headed out of the Queensland summer on the 12th January aboard V Australia’s a flight from Brisbane to Los Angeles to start the first leg of my new role as the Global Ambassador representing the state of Queensland and the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.

During the trip I’ll be making presentations to the travel industry and hopefully lots of excited customers all keen to find out more about the islands and the experiences I’ve had over the last few months. G’Day USA is an annual event introducing to Americans the experiences and everything that’s possible in Australia through trade and business. Tourism, being Queensland’s second biggest employer, is high on the agenda so together with Anna Bligh the Premier, we’ve been embarking on a media tour to tell New York, Los Angeles and beyond all about why Queensland is so good and discussing the options that are available for those people wishing to holiday in the state.

There are links below to the two appearances we’ve made on the Today Show and Fox & Friends, two of America’s biggest morning programmes.

I’ve since flown back to L.A. and over the weekend made a number of speeches to the public and representatives from the travel industry here, all about Queensland and the experiences I’ve had over the last few months as the Island Caretaker.

Having taken so many photos during that time it’s easy to choose the ones I need in order to make a good, light hearted presentation, and the reception I received was pretty good! Having a substantial prize to give away always helps to fill a room (not just the fact that I’m talking!) and Qantas had been kind enough to donate two return flights to Cairns as part of it along with two nights accommodation at Thala Beach Lodge, and a packed house awaited me in the theatre. The huge backdrop of the Great Barrier reef really enticed people to come and find out more about it and the children loved the touch pool with real life star fish in it!

Saturday night was The Gala Black Tie Dinner taking place at the Hollywood & Highland Grand Ballroom in Los Angeles, a celebration of all things Australian and what a fantastic night it was! With 900 people attending the room was filled with an electric atmosphere and kicked off with a presentation by the Qantas Children’s Choir with their rendition of “I still call Australia Home” – very uplifting and truly angelic voices all round.

The evening recognised and rewarded some of Australia’s best known Ambassadors who now live and work in the USA, Greg Norman was the first to be recognised and the speech presenting his award was made by none other than John Travolta! Wow I’m in the presence of greatness here!

As dinner was served the feeling across the room was one of expectation and excitement, what a start to the evening! The next award of the evening was to Simon Baker the actor who’s starred in movies such as The Devil wears Prada and the more recent CBS series The Mentalist, and the role-out of stars continued with Aussie legend Nicole Kidman giving the speech. Then when it couldn’t get any better she and her husband Keith Urban sang a ode to Simon himself….here it is below:

The final award of the night went to the actress Toni Collette whose movies include In Her Shoes and Little Miss Sunshine and the very amusing Cameron Diaz strutted on stage to make a very amusing speech and presentation. Things got even better for Toni last night as she collected a Golden Globe as the Best Actress in a Television Series for her role in United States of Tara. It appears the Aussies are taking the USA by storm right now!

After the awards had been made it was time to dive into the desserts and also time to take our chance socialising with the stars. Shana (Tourism Queensland’s US Director), Wendy (Tourism Queensland’s stand-in CEO) and I headed into the crowds to go and meet the celebs!

It may appear a huge amount of fun, and it was, but at the same time the event raises Australia’s profile in the US and opens lots of doors for trade and tourism alike. Please can I go back next year!?!

Hamilton Island Yacht Club and Race Week

Nautical phrases today as it’s Race Week:

• A shot across the bows - ’A shot across the bows’ derives from the naval practice of firing a cannon shot across the bows of an opponent’s ship to show them that you are prepared to do battle.
• Three sheets to the wind – very drunk. Sailors at that time had a sliding scale of drunkenness; three sheets was the falling over stage; tipsy was just ‘one sheet in the wind’, or ‘a sheet in the wind’s eye’.
• By and large - On the whole; generally speaking; all things considered. To get a sense of the original meaning of the phrase we need to understand the nautical terms ‘by’ and ‘large’. ‘Large’ is easier, so we’ll start there. When the wind is blowing from some compass point behind a ship’s direction of travel then it is said to be ‘large’. ’By’ is a rather more difficult concept for landlubbers like me. In simplified terms it means ‘in the general direction of’. Sailors would say to be ‘by the wind’ is to face into the wind or within six compass points of it.

Location: Hamilton Island

Weather: Little fluffy clouds, blue skies, not enough wind but 26°c

After months of hearing it talked about the best week on Hamilton Island is finally here…IT’S RACE WEEK!

Four years ago building work commenced on the site of the new Hamilton Island Yacht Club and I was very honoured to be there at the official opening last night in the presence of the owner Bob Oatley and the Premier of Queensland Anna Bligh.

On what was once a rocky and muddy entrance to the marina, now sits what must be one of the finest yacht clubs anywhere in the world – something that will adorn the pages of many an in-flight magazine for years to come. The architect Walta Barda was given a blank page and asked to create something unique which would reflect the boating and marine lifestyle which it would become an integral part of and the result is this.

Now I’ve flown over it and sailed past it a fair few times since arriving on the island and it wasn’t until I actually got down to see it at ground level that I realised quite what a spectacular building it is appearing as a cross between Sydney’s Opera House and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

The evening’s opening night was attended by 500 people with the official cracking of the champagne on the bow-like spit by Anna Bligh the Premier who gave Tourism Queensland, the Best Job campaign and even me a mention during her speech. Mum and Dad would have been so proud if they’d have heard it!

I had to dash away from proceedings for half an hour to meet Amanda Fitzgerald, the weather presenter from Channel Ten, as we were co-presenting her five minute slot together! (another job for the Island Caretaker) Brilliant fun – arrive panting from the run, have a script thrust in my hand, practice saying ‘Toowoomba’ a few times and….we’re live to air!

‘Sydney 17, Brisbane 24 with temperatures increasing steadily next week’ – oh what fun but over far too quickly and then back to the opening party for more introductions and socialising.

Day One out on the water….

Up with the sunrise for the next of my commitments – a guest slot on Race Week radio down in the marina. Dean Miller (a presenter on Creek to Coast) and Rob Mundle (sailing journalist and legend) are the hosts and we had a ten minute chat about life on the island, plans for the week and how the Ashes were panning out – for once in England’s favour!

After watching many Cowes Week sailing regattas in the UK from the shore working for Mumm Champagne I had the chance to get out on the water and see some of the racing up close and personal aboard one of the hospitality boats Alanis – a luxurious motor launch full of the Tourism Queensland staff all on a big ‘thank-you’ weekend from Hamilton Island for their work over the last few months. Very well deserved too you guys.

We cruised down towards the start line off Catseye Beach together with a few other hospitality boats and the 194 yachts which make up this years competitive field. The 11 different classes all tightly bunched up twisting and turning around the ‘virtual’ line between the committee boats waiting for the starting claxon.

With virtually no wind this must be one of the most difficult things to do as a skipper, navigating around the other boats keeping one eye on the clock, one on the line and the other on keeping your yacht in one piece.

And then they were off…..the fleet heading south towards the turn around mark off Lindeman Island on a perfect day for spectating, if not sailing. The light breeze doing little to force a ripple on the surface let alone power these Formula One yachts through the crystal blue blue waters. It was a slow trickle south….

We were lucky enough to spot a few Humpback whales on the way down the passage and caught two napping in open water, a mother a calf, who only realised we were there at the last minute and hurriedly splashed under the surface…not before I’d grabbed a few pics though:

Powering past the near-static fleet we sat off Lindeman Island awaiting their arrival with the Grand Prix Div 1 boats arriving first as they turned into the channel….and lost all wind. Totally becalmed and going nowhere fast.

I wish we could have stayed around to watch the outcome but there’s work to do with this job you know and I have to visit Brampton Island for a few days so we headed back to Hamilton Island marina and straight to the airport.

End of day location: Hamilton Island

Distance travelled: 35kms