A Week in Australia
A Week in Australia
I have had a great week in Australia, catching up with friends, family, and most importantly, my children. Last night, we had a combined birthday celebration for Di and I which was the first time we have had all four of our children together with us since we moved to Hong Kong over three years ago. Needless to say, it was a very special time!
I spent much of Wednesday at our hotel preparing the lecture on Iceland that I will present to the Geographical Society of New South Wales this afternoon at Saint Ignatius College. It was a great to re-live the experiences of my two trips to Iceland and to have the opportunity to share those experiences with a wider audience. I did take a few hours out in the middle of the day to go for a walk, and to catch up on work e-mails which have continued at quite a furious pace this week, but in general, Wednesday was a relaxing day immersed in the geography that I love so much.
I flew to Adelaide on Thursday to catch up with friends and colleagues in the city where I lived for five years before we moved to Hong Kong. When we were living there, I remember many people commenting that Adelaide was like a big country town, and those memories certainly came to the forefront as I drove through the centre of Adelaide, past old wooden single storey shop-fronts, vacant blocks of land and along streets wide enough to land a plane in with speed limits of 50 kilometres an hour - and cars that actually kept to that maximum speed! I really had to slow down several degrees upon arriving in Adelaide, which of course is always good therapy!
A highlight of my visit to Adelaide occurred on Friday morning (my birthday!), when I attended the annual Old Old Boys’ Assembly at Prince Alfred College. I was Headmaster of Prince Alfred College immediately prior to my current appointment as Principal of Li Po Chun United World College in Hong Kong. The Old Old Boys’ Assemblies are a tradition dating back to the early 1930s. Ex-students are invited back the school, where they sit on the stage as guests of honour. Former students are eligible to come to the assembly after it has been at least 60 years since they first attended the school. The Old Old Boys’ assemblies were always one of the highlights of my annual calendar when I was Head of PAC. This year, 192 “old boys” attended, the youngest having entered the school in 1947, and the oldest this year being one man of 98 years of age who entered the school in 1925. One other old boy was a little younger than 98, but was the earliest entrant, having entered the school in 1923. The assembly was a wonderful opportunity for me to catch up with students I had known in addition to former colleagues. Furthermore, it marked an historic day in the 138 year history of Prince Alfred College, being the first time that four headmasters had ever been present on campus together (Mr Geoffrey Bean was Head from 1970 to 1987, Dr Brian Webber was Head from 1988 to 1999, I was there from 2000 to 2004, and since then the Head has been my former Deputy, Mr Kevin Tutt). An historic photo was taken of the four of us on the front steps of the College, and I am really looking forward to seeing a copy and, if I can get permission, perhaps posting a copy here on a future weekly blog.
Sunday, 29 July 2007
I was greeted with this spectacular sunset as the clouds parted upon my arrival into Sydney after a flight from Adelaide last Friday afternoon - what a fantastic birthday present!