Reading and healing

7/4/2015

Spending the morning in The Storehouse, having a sensational breakfast, coffees and a good chat with the young owner of the business. While I was here they have changed the seating arrangement, putting very comfortable couches in (my office!) and I had the opportunity to try even more of their products. They get their coffee from a small roaster nearby – think I need to bring my camera at some stage to take some photos!

I've been on the phone for ages to find out where I was referred to and actually get somebody to pick up the phone in the hospital. Quite irritating! Finally managed get an appointment for this Friday for the follow up xray and consultation in the fracture clinic.

Spent most of the day in bed reading, giving my foot time to heal.

8/4/2015

Spending quite a while at the Storehouse again to do my emails, research some stuff in the internet, enjoy a few coffees and some stone age food and mainly to get out of bed. The staff here is very friendly, I get serviced at the table and regularly have a chat with other people.

I've been back into reading a lot.

Some interesting things I'd like to share with you:

Scotty Young, a relatively young blogger that I follow regularly, published an article about “What doyou want to do with your life” in 2007 that I just stumbled over - Key message: life is not a straight path, passions are evolving and changing, get out and experiment. Scotty has done some interesting things, among them the MIT challenge (compressing a full MIT degree into one year), a year without English, and many more things. He is striving for personal mastery and is writing a lot of good content.

Following his article, I followed the link to Steve Pavlina's work about “Courage to LiveConsciously”. A very well written piece with some exceptional quotes. Steve has been on a personal development journey for many years, has discovered the 'paying it forward' as well and transformed his and many peoples lives. 

The quote he's put at the start of the article is a nice introduction as well as a summary:

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits
in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.- Helen Keller

I've also been revisiting some works published by the 'Wissensmanufaktur', a German institute for economic research and social policy. Strong recommendation for everybody who wants to look a bit behind the curtain, but beware, you need to be open minded to follow their arguments. Digesting their ideas might take a while as they look at some concepts that everybody takes as given (our monetary system, interest,...) from a radically different standpoint. They mostly publish in German and have may interest, yet shocking, interviews, links to interesting external videos and publications on their website. Their Plan B, 'A Systemic Revolution for Real Transformation' can be found in English as well as in German and many other languages. A must read for an open minded person.

Dinner was steak, steamed vegetables and potato mash, like the last three nights. Kaye's dad, Sal, was cooking. I can't complain about that, having this meal 3-5 times a week is absolutely to my liking ;-)

Rest, Heathcote and Yarra Valley

2/4/2015

Taking some pain killers in the evening, I had a good nights sleep.

Spending all day in bed, reading, reading. Mainly Looptail and Meditations and doing the statistics for March:

Sports activities carried out (hikes, runs and bike rides):

hikes: 19.8km (3)

runs: 58.4km (9) @ average 4:40 min/km – all short runs though!

bike rides: 152.5km (3)

total sporty km: 230.7km

2807 km traveled in the van in March (February 2997 km)

number of days on the road: 31

Average km driven for one km of activity (running + hiking): 2807/78.2= 35.9 (February 66.7)

Average km driven per day of the trip in March 2015: 90.5 km (February: 272.4km)

With the recent injury to my foot, I think won't be much happening in relation to sports in April. Too bad, I was feeling really fit!

3/4/2015 + 4/4/2015

Staying in bed all day, getting treated like a VIP patient by Kaye and her family. Thanks a lot!

Done some more reading, watching Footy (AFL), playing around on the computer and snoozing in bed. The doctor said the better I rest the first few days, the better the healing process will be.

Breakfast in bed

Went to the Carriage Cafe in the afternoon with Kaye and some friends for a bit of fresh air and some sunshine. Beautiful place there.

5/4/2015

Trip to Heathcote with Kaye

Kaye took it upon her to drive up the 2 hours scenic drive to Heathcote – a small wine region known for their Shiraz and a few other red varieties.

We visited:

McIvor Creek winery, they are mainly known for their jams, preserves and marmelade and we bought some as it was all organic and tasted nice

Heathcote Winery

They have a great range of wines and I had a lengthy chat with one of their winemakers. Think we'll see a great 2015 vintage coming out next year in Victoria!

Munari Wines

We went there by referral of the owner of McIvor, and it was a great visit. Absolutely stunning place and some amazing wines!

Munari - with their panther

 Sanguine Estate Wines

Went there by referral from the wine maker at Heathcote Winery and had a fantastic tasting there. The young female general manager gave me a great run down and was entertaining a big group next to me as well. They are top notch at their marketing! Awesome Shiraz!

The Hunter family owns the Sanguine Estate Winery and The Wine Hub

The Wine Hub

They got 24 different wines on tasting, using Enomatics. I focused on the Shiraz there and only had a few samples as my taste buds were getting rather tired!

On the way back we took another 'scenic' route, and were lucky a couple of times to evade kangaroos that were crossing the road.

6/4/2015

Discovering the YarraValley after spending the whole morning in my 'office', the awesome 'The Storehouse' Coffee shop in Mount Evelyn. Caught up on about 30 private emails, updated the blog, checked flight options home and a lot more.

Kaye was adamant that the Yarra Valley produces better wines and has nicer wineries than Heathcote – hence she had to drive me around to find out ;-)

The valley is beautiful in autumn, but it was extremely busy as it was Easter Monday and hordes of people came up from Melbourne to enjoy a bit of wine & food.

We visited the following wineries:

St. Huberts a very old, lovely small winery

Domaine Chandon, owned by Moet & Chandon, overcrowded with visitors, mainly people from Asia – we left without tasting their produce as there were too many people at the bar

Oakridge, a very modern and stylish looking winery with some great wines

Beautiful autumn colours

Yering Station, an awesome looking place with a sensational 2010 Yarrabank Sparkling Cuvee

2010 Yarrabank Cuvee - sensational

and finished at DeBortoli. They have a massive operation and a huge tasting range. It's very picturesque at their Cellar Door and Restaurant. They won a lot for their “Noble One”, a Dessert Semillon from their vineyards in New South Wales.

De Bortoli vineyards

All up, I have to admit that the wineries look awesome and the wines, mainly the Chardonnay, Pinot Noirs and in some cases Cabernet Sauvignon were very yummy!

Bike ride, Mornington Peninsula and a broken foot

30/3/2015

I borrowed Greg's mountain bike to ride the Lilydale to Warburton Rail Trail. A former train line was converted into a lovely trail winding its way through the Yarra. All up it was a 68km ride, quite a bit longer than I expected it to be. I had a picnic and coffee in Yarra Junction on the way back to refuel and get ready for the last 20 kilometers. It was great fun riding a hybrid mountain bike, but it is a very different style for cycling.

Trail running through beautiful countryside

Dinner was prepared by Sal (steak, mash potatoes and vegetables) and afterwards I went for an evening walk with Kaye to flush out the legs and watch the colorful sunset.

Later that evening, Kaye drove me up to Mount Dandenong, to a restaurant called 'Sky high' and aI had another go at taking some night shots of the huge Melbourne area. Beautiful views

Melbourne area at night

31/3/2015

Mornington and Mornington Peninsula

I borrowed Kaye's car as she has an e-tag for the Eastlink toll road to drive to Mornington and then explore the Mornington Peninsula.

The Paleo Cafe in Mornington serves authentic Bulletproof Coffee – and I had to have one. Putting it through a blender makes it incredibly creamy and it tastes awesome. Also stocked up on some MCT oil and a few other goodies.

Mornington beach

The real deal

From there I followed the coast line down all the way to the National Park. From there you can see over to Queenscliff. The whole coast line is used, some parts, like Sorento, is where the rich people from Melbourne have big holiday/weekend houses. Quite pretty down there and not too far from Melbourne.

You can see the other side of the bay clearly

I visited two wineries on the Mornington Peninsula on the way back to Mount Evelyn. This region is know for their Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays. Yabby Lake Vineyard produce a range called 'Red Claw', their entry level wines. We had quite a few of them in Perth, especially the Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. They also own a vineyard in Heathcote, “Heathcote Estate” and their Single Vineyard Shiraz was delicious!

I'm back in business ;-)

Autumn colours are coming out beautifully

Distance traveled: 280km in Kaye's Ford Fairmount I6 4.0, 0km in the camper van

Just before going to bed, I rolled my ankle after taking my contact lenses out stumbling on the stair down from the bathroom. It hurt quite a bit and I was hoping that I didn't injure it and that it would be better again in the morning.

1/4/2015

Didn't sleep much list night was my left foot is very swollen and bruised. I cooled it over night with cold bottles of water from the fridge. Kaye drove the camper van to the Ford service station as I had an appointment there and then drove me to the Ferntree Gully Hospital to get examined.

The three xrays taken show that I broke a bone in my left foot (hence the swelling!), but not the ankle itself. They ordered me to rest for a week and then get another set of xrays done and consult with the fracture clinic. Not good! I got a big 'moon boot' to protect my foot and keep everything nice and tight.

A bit swollen!

My new boot

Sandra, Kaye's sister, gave me a ride from the hospital back to Mount Evelyn. As the camper van was at the service station, I was using Kaye's bed to rest and keep my leg up high to help the swelling getting less.

The Ford Service station rang and gave me some more bad news: quite a few things need fixing and replacement to make the van fit for travel again, and they need it for another day to fix it. So no bed for the night! Kaye offered me to stay in her bed and she would spend the night at Greg's place. She is so incredibly generous and was looking after me again as soon as she was home from work.

Being forced to rest and lie down, I utilized my time to read all afternoon.

I went half way through one of the best business books that I read last year and felt a strong need to re-read it: it is Bruce Poon Tip's biography: “Looptail”. Bruce is a Canadian entrepreneur who established his own adventure travel company, called G Adventures. He runs the company very differently, establishing a strong company culture that follows and lives five core values:

• We Love Changing Peoples Lives
• Lead with Service
• Embrace the bizarre
• Create happiness and community
• Do the right thing

In Looptail, Bruce describes the history of getting the company from zero to over 1500 employees and turning over more than $100 million. Bruce also shares many of his thoughts and the book has links to videos from their website. Absolutely inspirational stuff! They won too many awards to list (including Best Adventure Travel Company on Earth by National Geographic) and being named one of the best work places in Canada.

Beside G Adventures, Bruce also founded the Planeterra Foundation, an NGO that helps local people develop their communities, conserve their environment and provide social solutions to local business challenges.

I remember the first time I read this book (and sent multiple copies of the book through Amazon to friends of mine in Europe), I was delighted by how they do business. This approach, at least to me, makes so much more sense than the traditional business approach, and it appears to work very well when applied correctly. The key concept in Looptail is 'paying it forward'. I strongly recommend this book to everybody, no matterin which organization they work, as it is transcending.