Australia Trip

Cristin and I returned last weekend from our trip to Australia. I went for SMX Sydney initially, but Cristin and I took a side trip to the beautiful Whitsunday Islands after the conference. I'll bore most people with too many details, but I will say a few words about the trip.

The conference itself was excellent, thanks to the organizer, Barry Smyth. More relaxed and informal than most. A bit smaller group than the US counterpart, but anecdotally I felt like the average level of expertise amongst the participants was a good bit higher than many of the other conferences. It may have just been the folks I talked to or the sessions I hung out in, who knows. The after conference was also a blast, especially the "barbecue under the bridge" which turned into a dinner cruise in Sydney Harbor. My favorite talk was actually on Day 2, "Twitter Tips & Etiquette" by Darren Rowse of Problogger.net. There were tons of other great talks and speakers, but twitter and social networking was probably the topic I personally was least familiar with.

Speaking of twitter, I got my first drinking from the firehose experience at SMX West as well. Half the attendees were live-twitting (is that the right word) the event or watching the stream. I got a real kick out of seeing what folks were writing about the speaker in real time. By the way, if for some reason you want to follow me on Twitter in addition to gregable.com, my name over there is also gregable. Gregable was taken, and Gregacious sounds like loquacious which seems appropriate for twitter.

After the trip, Cristin and I headed to Hamilton Island which is part of the Whitsunday islands. Using the island as a starting point, we took a few side trips:

• A dive boat to the Great Barrier reef for a few reef dives - spectacular coral, I wish I had some photos.
• A trip to the sparkling shores of Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday Island itself where Cristin polished her ring using the nearly pure silica sand.
• A day on the mainland boating up the proserpine river, on the lookout for Crocodiles lounging on the banks and hunting mud crabs.

In addition, we did alot of lounging/snorkeling in the pools and beaches of Hamilton Island proper, a resort island with alot of amenities. Cristin and I got to pet some Koalas, Kangaroos, Wallabees, Dingoes, and a Wombat, as well as hold a few rainbow lorikeets. A photo of Cristin posing holding a 15-month-old Koala is above (Isn't that photo awesome?), a few more photos are available on picasaweb. All and all, a great time by both of us.