Face-to-face Meeting in Darwin

And so the week rolled around where we had a trip to Darwin to learn some new things and get clarification on some of the things that we are doing or should be doing. It was Monday morning, around lunchtime that we boarded the flight from Alice Springs to Darwin.

Of our group (four EHOs and one manager) it was interesting to find out that 40% of our team did not like flying. I've never found flying a problem, with the exception of a foggy head sometimes, and I never thought that those I work with would have an issue with it. One of our team certainly really didn't like flying. I was sat next to this one person who was pretty anxious about flying but especially the landing part. As the plane came into land the noises of the flaps and throttling of the engine made things worse. They totally freaked out pushing back on their chair and trying to do what ever they could to take their mind off the landing. Unfortunately this also entailed grabbing my arm. I've never really seen someone snapping pencils and tearing books to try and get their mind off things. As soon as we landed though they were fine like nothing had happened, apart from of course being extremely apologetic.

The bruising from the landing.

The view from my room on the 12th floor of the Ramada Apartments

The week week went well. Long and busy days going over areas such as the Food Standards Code and new edition of Safe Food Australia, discussion regarding policy and enforcement of legislation as well as a couple of afternoons and a morning just discussing with policy some of the changes that we'd like to seen made to the way we do things. An of course there was the team building. While there were several team building exercises that were done, the longest one was a sort of treasure hunt. I say, treasure hunt but it really just entailed us running around a section of the city looking for photographs of stuff in that area and then trying to get a photograph of us on the beach with a lifeguard. Unfortunately you apparently need to fill in a 12 page document to take photographs of the public waterfront and also a lifeguard. For some reason the lifeguards don't want to be photographed or as one of them said to us, "don't get me or any of my gear in your photo". I don't really understand why you couldn't even get their bag in the photo, nor do I understand why you couldn't just take a photograph you on the beach without having to get permission from the Waterfront Authority.

Photographs taken during the scavenger hunt through the city centre.

The flight back was less eventful. The morning was spend at the office in Darwin before they drove us to the airport and we boarded. I shared a row with two colleagues (including the one who really did not like flying) and at around 5 pm we arrived back into Alice Springs. It was a very long week and I was looking forward to the weekend.

Me eating satay octopus on a stick.

On Mindle Beach watching the sun set.

We stayed until the sun had fully set.