Another flying visit; this time it was to the ICEM'09 conference in Liverpool to chair a session on Environmental Remediation, give a paper on the latest situation on the work at South Alligator Valley back in Australia and then help run a meeting of the Uranium Mining and Remediation Exchange Group (UMREG).
So off to Landstrasse station to catch the 0805 City Airport Train (CAT) and off to Vienna Airport. The flight was with Swiss but I had to change at Zurich - where I met up with Alex, an old friend and colleague, (and a fellow member of the UMREG committee) so we could travel on together to Manchester. There we hired a car for the drive to Liverpool and our hotel. I was driving as Alex figured I was more used to the left hand side of the road. Anyway, we made the trip without drama and found our destination. The Hotel Campanile was located close to the convention centre and the rejuvenated area of Albert Dock.My room looked out onto the old Queen's Dock and beyond to the Mersey itself. We arrived mid afternoon so lunch was called for (Swiss don't do meals in economy anymore.). The closest pub was a place nearby was called the Pumphouse and it turned out to have Greene King IPA beer and good pub food, so we were well content. A quick check around the conference centre to sort out details for Wednesday and then it was out for few drinks with old colleagues from the remediation business. Suddenly Tuesday was finished.
Wednesday began at 0700 outside the Campanile's dining room waiting for the place to open so we could get to grips with the "full english" breakfast, The meal was good and by 0730 we were at the speakers' gathering at the Convention Centre to check everything was ready for the day, All went well and we went off to work. The papers in the session were interesting and well presented and there were several old mates in the audience. After lunch we spent the afternoon with UMREG which was all papers from well known chums and covered a wide range of topics related to the remediation situation in uranium mining.
A group of 6 of us from the UMREG meeting went out to dinner after the session and enjoyed a good meal at one of the many restaurant bars around the old Albert Dock.
Thursday morning had not dawned and we were off on the road at 0600 for the drive back to Manchester Airport. A bit wet in the dark but not too much traffic and so the journey was fine. We negotiated a few dodgy sign posts and found teh rental car retrun desk OK. Then the Swiss check in and although the staff were great the news was that we had a 45 minute delay. As they told us this so my phone received the same news from Swiss via a text message. Anyway my Austrian Airlines card got us into the lounge and although we had missed a Campanile's "full english" we did do pretty well for breakfast there while we waited. The plane arrived and off we went. An OK flight but the delay meant that it as quick cheerio to Alex at Zurich (his closest airport) and a rush for me to cross cross Zurich Airport to board the Vienna flight in time. There had been about 5 or 6 of us connecting between the same flights so we arrived more or less as a group to find the plane full and then the door was shut and off we went. Reaching a 3 degree Vienna was little surprise after seeing snow on the mountains en route and even some sprinkling on some of the hills around the city. The weather has changed and winter cannot be far away. Friday the car was booked in to the garage to ahve the winter tyres put on ( a leagl requirement in Austria) and a winter check.
Saturday I am off to Mongolia via Beijing, ! No rest for the wicked......
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