Monthly Archive for July, 2008

Starbucks Closes 70% of Its Franchises in Australia

Published on July 30, 2008 in Australia in the News. 1 Comment Tags: .

It is bad days in Australia for the Starbucks Coffee franchise:

International coffee chain Starbucks will close 61 Australian stores within days, shedding 685 jobs as part of a strategy to slash underperforming outlets and boost profits.

Twenty-three stores will remain open in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney and surrounding areas after the closures this Sunday, an official statement from the company said.

Starbucks opened its first Australian store in Sydney’s Hyde Park in July 2000.

It currently has 85 outlets nationally, including in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, the Gold Coast, Melbourne, South Australia and Tasmania.

The announcement follows the decision by Starbucks last month to close 600 company-operated stores in the US, costing up to 12,000 jobs.

The company blamed poor real estate decisions, coupled with the troubled economy, for the US closures.

The company said the 61 locations to be closed in Australia were underperforming. [Yahoo News]

I saw on the news today that last year Starbucks Australia lost $36 million dollars in 2007 which is just a staggering number.  Personally I am not surprised because I have found the Starbucks in Australia to be of poor quality compared to the US franchises.  Also there is some good domestic competition in Australia against Starbucks such as Gloria Jean’s Coffe which is superior in quality.

So the fact that Australia is losing 70% of its Starbucks franchises comes as no surprise to me and I won’t miss them.

Lost Victorian Prospector Found in the Outback

Published on July 30, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

A gold prospector lost in Western Australia’s remote Outback has incredibly been found after surviving four days alone in the Outback:

A gold prospector survived on insects and termites for four days after becoming lost in Western Australia ‘s Goldfields region, police say.

Theo Rosmolder, 52, from Victoria, was in a “particularly good condition for the ordeal”, police said after finding him 10km from his prospecting group’s campsite, about 130km north of Laverton.

Mr Rosmolder had been searching for gold with his wife and four other people in the desert scrubland.

When he failed to return to the group at a pre-arranged time last Friday, they began searching for him and raised the alarm with police that night.

He was wearing light clothing and carrying a metal detector but had no food, water, matches or global positioning system on him, police said.

Police said Mr Rosmolder was on his feet and able to walk when he was found, reportedly by two Aboriginal trackers. [AAP]

It seems like every few months someone gets lost in either the Australian bush or Outback which usually ends in tragic consequences.  Fortunately this time the story has ended with a happy ending.

Postcard from Australia: Thredbo Valley

Published on July 29, 2008 in New South Wales. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Here is where I spent some time recently at the beautiful Thredbo Ski Resort:

Make sure to check out the pictures I took from my trip to Thredbo last year.

Australian Cadel Evans Finishes Second In Tour de France

Published on July 26, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Australian rider Cadel Evans has unfortunately not realized his goal of winning the Tour de France:

CADEL Evans has agonisingly failed in his bid to become Australia’s first Tour de France champion.

Evans, who began this morning’s 53km individual time-trial 94 seconds Spaniard Carlos Sastre, managed to wipe just 29 seconds from the Spaniard’s lead in a gripping stage 20, leaving him 1min5sec off the pace.

With only tonight’s largely ceremonial closing stage to come, time-honoured riders’ etiquette will consign Evans to second place overall for the second consecutive year after he lost by 23 seconds to Alberto Contador last year in eerily similar circumstances. [The Herald-Sun]

Cadel Evans’ bid to win the Tour de France was a big story here in Victoria since Evans lives in the Geelong area just southwest of Melbourne.  It must be agonizing for him to lose two years straight like he did.  I wish him the best of luck next year.

Quantas Flight Experiences Small Fuselage Explosion

Published on July 26, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: .

I fly on Quantas quite a bit thus I definitely take notice when I see a story like this:

Australian investigators on Saturday began examining a Qantas jumbo jet which had to make an emergency landing after a large hole opened on its fuselage, a Philippine aviation official said.

The Boeing 747-400 was cruising at 29,000 feet with 346 passengers Friday when it was shaken by an explosive bang. The plane descended rapidly before landing safely minutes later at the Manila airport.

There were no injuries among the passengers and crew, but some of the passengers suffered nausea.

Ruben Ciron, chief of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, said four specialists from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau were still inspecting the aircraft to determine what caused the damage.

Qantas Chief Executive Officer Geoff Dixon told reporters Saturday he was “horrified” after seeing pictures of the aircraft’s gaping hole. He said it was too early to speculate on what caused the damage. [Associated Press]

Right now no one is sure what caused the explosion but no evidence of terrorism has been found.  Investigators though do have a pretty good idea what may have caused the explosion:

As passengers were reunited with loved ones, aviation experts offered several theories about possible causes of the mid-air explosion, including:

* Oxygen cylinders rupturing.

* Corrosion and weakening of the plane’s aluminium skin, making it susceptible to bursting under the enormous pressure of cruising at altitude.

* A deliberate or accidental explosion caused by something in a passenger’s luggage.

However, a source close to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority said exploding oxygen cylinders were the likely cause of the rupture, and would be the main focus of the investigation, as they were stored in the exact location of the explosion and there were no signs of fire. [The Age]

These types of explosive decompression incidents have happened before and will probably happen again but what is good to see is that despite the decompression the airplane did not crumble and make a larger hole like in other similar incidents.


Aftermath of Aloha Airlines Flight 243 in 1988.

Passengers though were furious about the malfunctioning the airplane’s oxygen masks:

St Kilda architect David Saunders described the moments after the explosion as utter panic.

“The oxygen masks were f—-d,” Mr Saunders told The Sunday Age at Melbourne International Airport, after an emotional reunion with his mother and sister.

“The elastic was so old that it had deteriorated … I was trying to get my passport, and every time I got my passport the mask fell off and I started to pass out.”

In some parts of the cabin, the masks didn’t drop down at all: “A guy just went into a panic and smashed the whole panel off the ceiling to get to the mask.

“The kids were screaming and flailing … Their cheeks and lips were turning blue from lack of oxygen.” [The Age]

Definitely not a good sign about the safety procedures over at Quantas especially considering other recent safety scares:

The 17-year-old aircraft, a late-middle-aged member of the airline’s fleet, last underwent heavy maintenance at Qantas facilities at Avalon in Victoria. Incidents involving explosive decompression are extremely rare, with less than six on record for commercial aircraft.

Qantas, which has been embroiled in a pay dispute with maintenance engineers, has an enviable safety record, having never lost a jet to an accident, but it has had its share of scares.

In January, a Boeing 747 carrying 344 people from London lost all main electrical power and was forced to land on battery back-up.

In February, a Qantas 717 with 84 passengers on board sustained what the Australian Transport Safety Bureau described as “substantial damage” when it landed heavily in Darwin. [The Australian]

I am actually flying to Hong Kong on Quantas from Melbourne next month.  I wonder if they will let me carry on my own oxygen bottle after reading about all this?

Heavy Snow Falls on Victorian High Country

Published on July 21, 2008 in Victoria. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Heavy snows have been falling in the Victorian high country leading to some of the best ski conditions in years. For example in Falls Creek they have over a meter of snow on the ground now which is the most in the entire state right now:

Falls Creek Ski Resort
Falls Creek Ski Resort

Mt. Hotham Ski Resort located not to far from Falls Creek is likewise blanketed in heavy snow:

Mt. Hotham Ski Resort
Mt. Hotham Ski Resort

Mt. Hotham is reporting 24cm of new snow and an average depth of over 100 centimeters.

Victoria’s other major ski resort Mt. Buller also has plenty of fresh snow:

Mt. Buller Ski Resort 2008
Mt. Buller Ski Resort

The snow season this year is quickly turning into a quality one with this recent dumping of snow in the high country. For anyone thinking about going skiing in Australia now is definitely the time to do so.

Additional Australia Movie Trailer Released

Published on July 21, 2008 in Books & Movies. 0 Comments

Here is another trailer from the new Australia movie that has only increased my interest to watch what looks like is going to be a great movie:

Cranky and the World’s Hottest Burger

Published on July 19, 2008 in Humor and Queensland. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Here is an email I received today about the “World’s Hottest Burger” at the Off the Wall Diner in Brisbane, Australia. Enjoy.

burger2.JPG

Dear sweet arseraping jesus i will make this report VERY quick because just the memory of the burger is giving me bowel cramps.

First of all the burger in question can be found at the “Off The Wall Diner” at Wellington Point in Brisbane.

Secondly, before it gets served to you you have to put on rubber gloves.

Finally, it was not so much a meal as a physical assault.

I swear to god i have never been in so much pain in my life. i was mentally prepared for the burn and had decided that no matter how hot it turned out to be i was just going to open a can of “harden the f*** up” and keep eating. So here’s how it panned out…

4 of us head to Wellington Point around 2pm for a cruisy Saturday lunch. Me, Thommo and our two better halves.

We know that drinking beer won’t help the burn, but just for psychological backup we have 2 6 packs of Little Creatures. We drink 1 6 pack on the way to the diner. We start on the other as soon as we arrive.

The 2 guys order the megadeath burgers to much laughter and derision from the kitchen of the diner. The 2 girls order sensible burgers.

We are downing the beer like water before we even see the burger so we run across the road and grab another 6 pack from the pub.

The girls burgers arrive and they are awesome hand made giant patty motherfucking things and I’m starting to get REALLY hungry.

Our burgers arrive, with rubber gloves and a recovery kit consisting of a big drink of milk and a bowl of yogurt. The challenge remains that if we can finish the burger without resorting to the recovery kit we get our names on a plaque on the wall…

burger1.JPG

I start eating, and eating fast. I stick with my game plan and ignore the burn, just push through the pain.

2 things happen immediately to my body.

1. I get violent hiccups as my body tries to reject the molten lava i am putting into it.
2. I begin crying like a little girl.

Not to be discouraged I forge ahead, quickly shoveling the burger into my mouth. I begin to descend into my own little hell. Staff come out and are watching us eat and are egging us on. I can barely notice anything except the immense pain in my mouth, eyes, ears (yes my ears were ringing) but most importantly in my stomach…

And this is the problem.

The burning mouth, the crying, the ringing ears I can handle. But now with less than a third of the burger to go my stomach seizes up and refuses to let me put anything into it. I take a deep breath and look for my can of “harden the f*** up” when I notice that my mate Thommo has stopped eating his burger just beyond the halfway point and is wandering aimlessly up and down the street.

He has honestly lost the plot and is walking around in circles.

I decide I can’t be defeated and manage one more bite before my stomach explains at this point that it is about to return to me everything i have just eaten at high speed.

not being able to face the prospect of vomiting back something that hot i pull off my gloves and admit defeat with 2 mouthfuls to go. The staff can’t believe I have got this close and not finished it but at this point i really don’t give a f*** because i have just started to hallucinate.

No exaggerations here for the next 15-20 minutes or so as we just sat there i was completely off my face. it is one of the strangest drug experiences I have ever had (thats a BIG call). The closest thing I can liken it to is the feeling you have when you are coming off an “e” and you are really jumpy, agitated, spun out and trippy.

burger3.JPG

Can i recommend this burger to anyone?

No f***ing way.

Should you go and try it anyway?

Absofu**inglutely!

And about 2 days later…

it is now almost 48 hours later and i have just had my second shower for the morning.

second shower? why have 2?

because i am still shitting white hot torrents of molten steel and i need to cool down my puckered, torn and abraded sphincter before it decides to go all “china syndrome” and melt through the crust of the earth to the core.

i swear to god all i have eaten in the past couple of days since the “event” is stomach and anus friendly food like yogurt, and ham and salad rolls and yet here i am at 6am on Monday morning wondering why i have just been fisted by someone with a handful of broken glass and gravel?

the burger was evil. and it’s evilness continues to taunt my bunghole.

shame on you for wanting to try this boobmeister. shame.

… and finally, a few days after that…

lol thanks for your concern f***er

it lasted until tuesday night (i had the burger on Saturday lunchtime) and i had my first *normal* crap on Wednesday morning.

my mate i went who also tried the burger with came good on Tuesday morning, but he admitted by “good” he meant he wasn’t bleeding profusely from his anus and eyeballs at the same time.that burger was all f***ed up.

now go try it.

Has any readers out there in Queensland ever seen this place and tried this burger because I’m curious if this is actually true or not?

Kangaroo Attack Nearly Kills New South Wales Woman

Published on July 19, 2008 in New South Wales and Wildlife. 0 Comments Tags: , .

As cute as kangaroos can be it is important to remember they are wild animals:

 

A 65-year-old woman mauled by a kangaroo on her central western NSW farm is lucky to be alive, with the animal only stopping its attack when it was chased away by the farm dog, her son says.

Rosemary Neal was rushed to Mudgee Hospital suffering facial lacerations and other injuries, after being attacked on her nearby farm on Friday afternoon while checking on horses in a paddock.

Her son Darren said his mother was lucky to be alive after being attacked by the male kangaroo – which he estimated to have been up to two metres tall, and weighing 100kg.

He said Mudgee had become overrun by kangaroos in the past two years, with the animals now congregating on many of the rural properties.

“There would be a couple of hundred kangaroos within a hundred metres of the house, and on Friday night she was just walking down the paddock to check on the horses before it was dark,” he said.

“A lot of kangaroos have just bolted, but the males don’t care, they just stay laying down, they’re not scared.

“The kangaroo has just jumped up and launched straight at her. He hit her once and she just dropped and rolled. My dog heard her screaming and bolted down and chased him off.

“It it wasn’t for the dog she’d probably be dead.”

Mr Neal said his mother was in a “bad way”, but had been discharged from hospital late Friday night.  [AAP]

I’m glad Ms. Neal is alright but I think it is important for people to realize that the vast majority of kangaroos will hop away when approached.  However, occasionally you get a big male kangaroo that is not scared of you and looks at you as a threat to his mob.  I have had this happen to me before and I just walk away from the kangaroo to show him that I am not a threat and he is still the superior male.

Hopefully the kangaroo that harmed Ms. Neal isn’t shot and killed over this because he was just doing what wild kangaroos do.  However, if he is shot and killed I know what they can do with him.

Friday Eco-fact: Amazing Karri Trees

Published on July 18, 2008 in Environment and Western Australia. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

There is no country on Earth with more species of eucalyptus trees then Australia. Depending on climatic conditions across the continent the species of eucalyptus trees can change dramatically. For example in the state of Victoria the climatic conditions are such that eucalyptus trees have grown to such proportions that the mountain ash is considered the world’s largest flowering plant:


Mountain ash tree in the Otway Ranges.

Likewise in southwestern Australia the moist climatic conditions combined with the nutrient rich soil have allowed the regions eucalyptus trees to evolve to become one of the largest species of trees on Earth as well:

The trees do not grow as tall as the mountain ash trees in Victoria but they do still grow to an enormous height of 90 meters. These trees are called karri trees after the Aboriginal word for these massive trees. These trees as mentioned earlier are only found in southwestern Australia:

southwest-australia.png

The tree has smooth silvery bark and a straight trunk that has an inner wood colored a reddish brown. The karri tree sheds its bark every year leading to multi-colored trunk. The leaves of the tree are a dark green on the upper reaches of the tree and the darkness of the green lightens on the lower leaves of the tree. The tree also produces barrel shaped fruit.

The karri tree reaches its maximum height in little as 100 years which is extremely fast for a tree to grow up to 90 meters. The trees live up to 300 years old with most of the larger karri trees remaining in southwestern Australia being about only 200 years old. This is due to the heavy logging of the tree in prior decades which caused a steep decline in the number of karri trees. Logging of the karri trees continues today under controlled conditions with much of the old growth trees protected in the various national parks in Australia’s southwest.


Area of logged karri trees with one tree remaining as a fire lookout.

The best place to views these beautiful trees are in Walpole-Nornalup National Park and in particular the Tree Top Walk:

The Tree Top Walk is raised platform that allows visitors to literally walk on top of the trees located in the park. Adjacent to the tree top walk is The Ancient Empire which is the best place in the national park to appreciate these fabulous karri trees from the ground:

A really unique thing you can do in southwest Australia is that you can actually climb up one of these karri trees:

The Gloucester Tree outside of Pemberton is a fire lookout tower that allows visitors to climb up its metal pegs to the top of this 61 meter tree. Highly recommended but don’t climb it if you are afraid of heights:

The Australian karri trees are truly an impressive and just another example of how incredible a species of tree the eucalyptus is.