Hawaii for Christmas
31 December 2016
Despite my long service leave from St Vincent’s and thus having every Friday off work, the last part of 2016 seemed extremely busy. My private practice work expanded to fill most of the extra time.
We had fllmed some clips for the Melbourne Argonauts Trivia Night and so we were asked to help with the live-action component of the evening as well. The trivia night had a record attendance and was a successful fundraiser for the club.
In September we were successful in the ballot for tickets to the AFL Grand Final. As well as the usual spectacle, we were lucky that it was quite a good game. We went with my father and sister
I have served as the chairman for my private practice group for two years. My term finished at the AGM in November. The work during my two years included changing the legal structure of the group and also developing a very different financial model. I was somewhat surprised that we managed to achieve a consensus among more than 20 doctors to go ahead with the final changes at the AGM and was very relieved to be able to put that work behind me and step down.
As the weather warmed, my sister was looking to move closer to my parents. She found a house which was ideal and we helped her to move at the end of November, The following weekend we took the opportunity to go to Sorrento and make some use of the house there.
We spent Christmas with Jay’s family this year. We had booked a house on the big island of Hawaii near Hilo. Before we left we had an early Christmas dinner with my family at my sister’s new house.
The area around Hilo was lush and tropical, and the vegetation came up very close to the house with lots of frogs and geckos. We met Jay’s sister Denise and his parents in Hawaii and we spent ten days together seeing the big island and celebrating Christmas.
The geography of the big island includes active volcanoes and we drove as close as we were allowed to the lava and to the outflow into the ocean. It was quite a contrast from the volcanic activity in Iceland last year which was more steam and geysers. We also saw some of the lava tubes, but we didn’t explore very far with only the light from our phones.
We also went on a tour to the top of Mauna Kea, the highest peak in Hawaii at 4200m. We were only allowed to see the telescopes from the outside. The contrast between the warm beaches and the snow at the top of the mountain was striking. I struggled with the altitude: the atmospheric pressure at the top of the mountain is only 60% of that at sea level and I was glad to get back in the van and come down to sea level again.
Jay cooked roast turkey for Christmas dinner. Our choice of turkeys was quite limited at the supermarket in Hilo and so it was a big bird for the five of us. We ate turkey sandwiches for the rest of the stay. From Hawaii we are headed to Los Angeles and then back to Melbourne to return to work. I have put an album of other photos from the trip online.
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We had fllmed some clips for the Melbourne Argonauts Trivia Night and so we were asked to help with the live-action component of the evening as well. The trivia night had a record attendance and was a successful fundraiser for the club.
In September we were successful in the ballot for tickets to the AFL Grand Final. As well as the usual spectacle, we were lucky that it was quite a good game. We went with my father and sister
I have served as the chairman for my private practice group for two years. My term finished at the AGM in November. The work during my two years included changing the legal structure of the group and also developing a very different financial model. I was somewhat surprised that we managed to achieve a consensus among more than 20 doctors to go ahead with the final changes at the AGM and was very relieved to be able to put that work behind me and step down.
As the weather warmed, my sister was looking to move closer to my parents. She found a house which was ideal and we helped her to move at the end of November, The following weekend we took the opportunity to go to Sorrento and make some use of the house there.
We spent Christmas with Jay’s family this year. We had booked a house on the big island of Hawaii near Hilo. Before we left we had an early Christmas dinner with my family at my sister’s new house.
The area around Hilo was lush and tropical, and the vegetation came up very close to the house with lots of frogs and geckos. We met Jay’s sister Denise and his parents in Hawaii and we spent ten days together seeing the big island and celebrating Christmas.
The geography of the big island includes active volcanoes and we drove as close as we were allowed to the lava and to the outflow into the ocean. It was quite a contrast from the volcanic activity in Iceland last year which was more steam and geysers. We also saw some of the lava tubes, but we didn’t explore very far with only the light from our phones.
We also went on a tour to the top of Mauna Kea, the highest peak in Hawaii at 4200m. We were only allowed to see the telescopes from the outside. The contrast between the warm beaches and the snow at the top of the mountain was striking. I struggled with the altitude: the atmospheric pressure at the top of the mountain is only 60% of that at sea level and I was glad to get back in the van and come down to sea level again.
Jay cooked roast turkey for Christmas dinner. Our choice of turkeys was quite limited at the supermarket in Hilo and so it was a big bird for the five of us. We ate turkey sandwiches for the rest of the stay. From Hawaii we are headed to Los Angeles and then back to Melbourne to return to work. I have put an album of other photos from the trip online.
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