Monday March 13, 2023
The day at sea on our way to Melbourne was very welcome after 2 days in Sydney, walking a total of 26.5 kilometers! We attended the first lecture by Peter Price AM MBE (PP) who after getting his stat in advertising in Australia, ended up in Crime prevention, becoming the head of Crime Stoppers Australia and on the Board of the International Organization, that works with Police forces to help stop crime. He has travelled the world and has got to know and work with many heads of state (like USA President Barack Obama) and Interpol. He described many cases and how Interpol works in solving crimes across borders. By working with all the police forces around the world. On a personal note, I had an interesting interaction with Interpol when living and working in Central America in the 1970’s where a Traveller’s Cheque forger was apprehended in one of the Branches of the Bank where I ran the operations, dressed as a priest and we were able to capture him and turn him over to Interpol through a “sting” operation. The Interpol group we dealt with were very good and the perpetrator, had been doing this same scam in various countries. I know I digress, but because of this first hand knowledge, I found his lecture particularly interesting. The second lecture was absolutely fascinating. John Stainton, a TV Producer who became Steve Irwin’s manager, shared many fascinating Torres of the famed “Crocodile Hunter” who did some 600 shows on wild life and some amazing exploits and interactions with many famous people around the world. He shared with us many “home movies” and private clips from scened he had filmed that are part of Steve and his family’s private collection. Steve died doing what he loved in one of these animal exploits being killed by a stingray, and John shared with us part of his funeral when his daughter Bondi read the eulogy The third lecture was by Dr. Dennis Foley who spoke of Melbourne, Australia’s cultural heart. unfortunately he spoke so fast, had slides where the pictures were so small that you could not make them about and lots of unreadable writing on the slides, that it was a “dud”. It turned out to be more of a commercial for how great Melbourne is as opposed to Sydney and most of what he sad was garbled. A real shame as I am sure he has a lot of information as a professor at Melbourne University.
We dressed for the Black and White Galla dinner, but skipped the show as it was “Be out Guest” by the Cunard Singers and Dancers, which we have seen many times.
Roger & Anne Travels 