North Queensland Risk Tour

Every year, one of our Gen Re guys takes a group of people on a car trip for a week through Northern Queensland to show different types of risks that we reinsure.  This year I was lucky enough to get invited to attend along with two of the girls in our Shanghai office.  It was a full week of driving of about 700 miles over the 5 days.  In my mind, the landscape of Australia looked like the Crocodile Dundee movie or something shown by Steve Irwin.  I was wrong though!  Parts of it were very lush and overall it was very pretty!

We started up in Cairns, which is home to one of the main places tourists go to see the Great Barrier Reef.  Unfortunately I didn't get to see it, but hopefully one day I will!  From there we stayed nights in Townsville, McKay and Yeppoon.  Little did I know, but Australia grows a TON of sugar cane!  That and coal are two of their main exports.

We saw a lot of sugar mills and sugar warehouses, coal loading terminals and ports, power plants, aluminum smelters and other various industrial places.  It was a very educational trip from a work perspective - it was great to see things in person and to realize that a lot of hurricanes go through this area of Australia.  I wasn't too aware of that, but they've had some big ones in the past few decades.  Not too many people live in these areas which is good, however a lot of Queensland industrial sites are located here so there is a fair amount of damage that can be done. 

Port Douglas

Sugar Warehouse - this was about two football fields long and during the harvest season is filled to the peak of the roof with raw sugar

How they load sugar on to a cargo ship

This jetty is coming from another sugar warehouse to take sugar out to load onto cargo ships.  The jetty though is about 3 miles long as The Great Barrier Reef is along here and they didn't want the ships getting too close to it.  This jetty was severely damaged by a hurricane in 2011 but it is now working again.

The largest sugar mill in Australia

The Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal - this is one of the largest coal terminals in the world.  This place was massive!

This machine puts the coal in to piles in to piles in the yard, before it gets on the ship.  The piles are based on size and grade.  So if China calls and says we want 50 tons of 'XYZ' grade to be put on the ships, they know where to find it to put it on the conveyor belts to send out to the ships.  The jetty which takes the coal out to the ships is maybe 1.5 miles long.

Cargo ship getting loaded with coal.  This machine dispenses the coal into the various holds on the ship.

Another view of the ship.  Each of these holds on the ship were filled with coal - can hold something like 100,000 tons of coal I think? 

My trip to Australia

Hi Everyone - I feel like every time I start out a blog post, it's with an apology for not writing for a while!  This time I have a decent excuse though; I was in Australia for a week and then back home for a week and a half...pretty good reasons, eh?

I'm going to break my Australia post up into two parts as some of it was for fun and some was for work.  I had to go down there for work and decided to go a few days early to check out Sydney before flying up to Cairns to meet my coworkers.  I then spent an extra night in Brisbane on my way back.  I have to say, I'm now a huge fan of Australia - maybe because it was the closest thing to the 'Western World' that I'd been to since I came over in January?  Regardless, I'll be back!

Sydney

Really reminded me of San Francisco and it was such a beautiful city!  It's winter there now but wasn't that cold; however it was nice to finally be able to naturally cold (not air conditioned cold) and wear a scarf and a jacket!  I walked around a lot and saw the Opera House, Bridge, etc. on the first day.  On the second day, I went out to Bondi to meet up with a coworker from the Sydney branch and some clients for lunch.  I then did the Bondi to Coogee cliff walk around the ocean.  Bondi Beach wasn't too crowded since it was winter (there were still surfers though) but I'd love to see the madness during the summer!  

Here are some pictures from Sydney:

Sydney Harbor Bridge

Darling Harbor - sort of Sydney's version of San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf

Sydney Opera House by day....

And by night...

Bondi Beach

What you can't see in these pictures are the guys wearing Speedos or 'Budgy Smugglers' as the Aussie's call them.  They seem to be the swimsuit of choice for the guys that shouldn't be caught dead in anything that tiny!  

Bondi to Coogee Cliff Walk

Brisbane

I was only in Brisbane for one night so didn't have a chance to see a whole lot but I think I got a fair amount accomplished.  A river cuts through the city and most people seem to commute by the river taxi.  I thought it might be a good way to see the city but it got dark while I was on the boat, so that didn't work out too well!  I did see some pretty nice houses overlooking the river...and their nice boats docked up to their yards!  The second day I walked through the Botanical Gardens in the morning before having breakfast and catching my flight back to Singapore.

Brisbane from the river

Brisbane's Story Bridge

Botanical Gardens