Darwin trip

I'm sure most of my friends are tired of me talking about Darwin when they ask how business is going ... but what can I say, its been a LARGE part of things over the last few months. While I "patiently" wait for the main part of our business to return to normal (that is helping the travel management companies during peak dates), we've been making hay while the sun shines by booking plenty of long-stay accommodation in Darwin.

So a much needed trip to Darwin took place last week. I had been keeping an eye on the Virgin Blue happy hour specials and it paid off as I picked up flights for basically half the normal price and began planning the visit. Almost all of the accommodation we've been booking in Darwin has been at Mantra Pandanas and Mantra on the Esplanade so they were my first point of call when it came to organising a room for myself. Thanks to Angie in sales, I was given a one bedroom water view apartment (pictured below) at Pandanas which was very nice. I was lucky enough to be on the top floor so had great views, the apartment was a good size and of course fully self-contained.

Virgin Blue has only one flight from Brisbane in to Darwin and one flight out each day and they're not pretty. Land at 12:45 am and fly out at 1:40am ... ouch! I didn't mind too much as it was a really quick trip to see the two Mantra properties, say hi and thanks to the reservations staff that have been looking after us and also check out the newly refurbished Holiday Inn. It was a good trip and great to put faces to names that we've been working with so closely.

And yes it was of course pretty warm up there and it took me a few days to catch up on lost sleep ...