Melbourne is ‘foodie central’, and there is a huge selection of trendy restaurants and cocktail bars on offer. A few of my favourites include Chin Chin, Tonka, Supernormal and Eau de Vie. There is no shortage of great wine regions in Australia. The Hunter Valley, Yarra Valley, Barossa Valley and Margaret River are all good starting points. These regions are also great locations to spot a kangaroo or three in the wild, particularly at dawn and dusk. Finally, no trip to Australia would be complete without seeing the Great Barrier Reef sprawling 2,300 km of coastline in far north Queensland, where the blue of the water and variety of sea life have to be seen to be believed. On a recent trip there, my family spotted green sea turtles, white tip reef sharks and a wide variety of brightly coloured fish including Nemo [the Ocellaris Clownfish that played a starring role in the Disney film, Finding Nemo]. Just be careful of swimming during ‘stinger season’ (November through March), when there are many of the smallest (1 cm3) and most venomous varieties of jellyfish in the world. But if you just don a ‘stinger suit’ [similar to a wetsuit], you’ll be sweet. Come to think of it, we have quite a few deadly creatures in Australia…
Melissa with her family at the Great Barrier Reef
This interview series, started in 2019 by Dr. Moon and Dr. Shah, gives NLGI members a bit of insight into the professional and personal lives of their colleagues, developments in the grease industry and the role of NLGI worldwide. If you would like to suggest the name of a colleague for an interview (or volunteer to be considered as a candidate), please kindly email Mary at mmmoon@ ix.netcom.com or Raj at rshah@ koehlerinstrument.com. Dr. Mary Moon is Technical Editor of The NLGI Spokesman. She writes scientific and marketing features published in Lubes’n’Greases and Tribology & Lubrication Technology magazines, book chapters, and other works. Her experience in the lubricant and specialty chemicals industries includes R&D, project management,
- 74 VOLUME 84, NUMBER 2
and applications of tribology and electrochemistry. She served as Section Chair of the Philadelphia Section of STLE. Dr. Raj Shah is currently a Director at Koehler Instrument Company and was an NLGI board member from 2000 to 2017. He is an elected fellow of NLGI, STLE, INSTMC, AIC, Energy Institute and the Royal Society of Chemistry. A Chartered Petroleum Engineer from EI and a Chartered Chemical Engineer from IChemE, he is currently active on the board of STLE and on the advisory boards of the Engineering Departments at SUNY Stony Brook, Auburn University and Pennsylvania State University. More information on Raj can be found at https://www.astm. org/DIGITAL_LIBRARY/MNL/ SOURCE_PAGES/MNL37-2ND_ foreword.pdf