Olivia here, with my barbecue tongs and a Guinness (I’m Irish after all!) to share a super fun update about a recent trip I had to Melbourne to catch up with the Camino Women team!
Usually for Camino Women, a trip away leads us far from an urban environment but on this occasion, my team mate Sophie and I didn’t need to be asked twice to trade sleeping in tents and bathing in rivers (there’d be plenty of time for that for Sophie in Laos soon enough!) for two nights at the city’s newest 5-star hotel, Melbourne Place.
‘Oh, go on then, if we must!’ we said as we shut our laptops and headed to the airport to catch our respective flights from the Central Coast, NSW and the Sunshine Coast, QLD.
This might come as a surprise, but despite working closely together for months now, this was the first time Sophie, and I got to meet each other in person.
In case the grins don’t give it away, we were a tad excited! Especially as Sophie was going to be flying out shortly after our team meet up to open our new ‘Soum Son Trail’ in Laos. You can check it out here on our Facebook page!
As Booking Managers, our days are usually jam-packed with making arrangements to get our guests away on our trips, so it was fantastic to take some time out to catch up with the rest of the Australian based CW team that make our awesome treks possible.
Usually a CW adventure has a maximum of 12 guests onboard, but we totally blew the numbers on this one! All 17 of our Leatherback Travel team mates from our sister brands; Patch Adventures, Magnificent Rail and Fencox rolled into town to join in on some serious team bonding shenanigans.
Front row: Alicia, Mat (co-founder), Lisa
Oh, if these bluestone walls could talk…we wouldn’t let them!
What followed was 48 hours of all the things we love to put into our adventures; incredibly fun activities, delicious food, lots of walking and spectacular views!
Starting with this one from the rooftop terrace at our hotel…how spesh is this?!
As the saying goes ‘An army marches on its stomach.’ So, with the final drops of our welcome drinks drained from our glasses we hit the streets of Melbourne on the hunt for a feast, and found ourselves in an underground carpark disguised suspiciously like a Thai street food market at Soi 38!
What a find! A glance around at the packed tables beside us told us we were in for a treat. Placing our orders at one of the food carts, we waited barely minutes before our table was spilling over with authentic Thai street food; hot pot soups, boat noodles, spicy salads, and all the mouth watering ingredients that go with them; limes, chilis, coriander. Oh yeah, you know it – delish!
Satiated (and sweating!) we waddled out of there back to our hotel rooms and called it a night, vowing to complete unfinished business with the mango sticky rice next time….
With all of the arrangements for our Melbourne meet up having been made in secret by our team mate Lou from Fencox, Day Two dawned upon us shrouded in mystery. We’d been warned to bring comfortable footwear (that just goes without saying for Camino Women right?!) and shortly after breakfast it was revealed why…
We were quickly divided into two teams across all our brands, pitting team mates against team mates in a dog-eat-dog foot race across the city to find four iconic statues and complete a number of unusual tasks…
Well, not so much ‘dog-eat-dog’ but each team did have to find this one and upload a photo to their Whatsapp chat!
As with all Leatherback brands’ adventures, getting to know the locals is a super important element we build into all our itineraries and our foot race was no exception.
Here we are completing a challenge to snap a photo with two innocent passersby. Scored ourselves some bonus points too, because they were wearing glasses! Thanks lads, for indulging us with our crazy competition!
For the sake of saving you from unsubscribing from future CW emails, I’ll fast forward past the part where we had to publicly perform the chorus to the Village People’s ‘YMCA’ and skip to the part where we boarded a tram for a strict two-stop only ride that led us to the waters edge at the Docklands, and the finish line beneath the 4th and final statue.
Though it pains my highly competitive side to say we weren’t first to arrive at ‘The Cow in the Tree’ art installation, (I suspect the other team cheated) we did take a way better photo – which, let’s be honest, is what really counts.
By now it was midday and we were ‘Starvin Marvin’ which brings me to the reason why I’m holding a pair of tongs at the start of this post…
For lunch, we were served a big orange donut. But not just any donut. An Aqua Donut! Complete with a barbecue grill, ingredients for burn-your-own hamburgers, refreshing beverages and a speaker/microphone.
You’ll be grateful there’s no audio in this blog post because I’m pretty sure that bronze dog statue began howling as we drifted around the harbour, charring our buns and belting out 80’s power ballads with our onboard karaoke machine.
After two hilarious hours, we returned to the dock without the aid of Marine Rescue, somewhat surprised that nobody fell out of the boat. There was only one person among us though, who didn’t know that in the not-too-distant future they’d be falling out of a plane…
After one final afternoon team building activity to solve our way out of an escape room at Trapt, (I think some of the Patch crew are still in there) it was time for our farewell dinner at the Captain Melville pub and a little gift giving ceremony, not only to thank Mat for the amazing team meet up we’d just experienced, but to celebrate his recent milestone birthday too!
For a man that spends so much time on aeroplanes visiting out-of-the-way destinations to research exciting new trips for not just CW, but for all of the Leatherback brands, it felt only fitting to give him the gift of flight!
With a 15,000ft skydive.
And a rainbow unicorn onesie. Just because we had one in his size.
Mad, we know. But you have to be just a little bit mad to work in adventure travel!