A Really Big Blog Part 2!

After reading Richard’s blog about large balloons in India, I felt the need to explore this topic a little further.

A few years back I was on a business trip to Bangalore, and one night while in my hotel room reading the paper copy of the Bangalore times (a free paper left in my hotel room by the staff) , I came upon a really interesting article about luxury train journeys across Africa. A kept the article, and a few weeks later when back home, came across it again while unpacking. I had been looking for an interesting event to celebrate an important birthday for my wife, and so made the spontaneous decision to book a three-day sleeper train from Pretoria to Cape Town, and then work out the other details later. As a side note, I’ve since learnt that booking at adventure this was is both a lot of fun and certain to make your spouse very happy.

Anyway a few months later we had an incredible adventure lined up, with first class air tickets, safari’s, wine region tours, animal encounters, luxurious hotels and a train journey all laid out in our future. So off we went, arriving in Pretoria directly off of a few days’ safari, ready for our train experience. While waiting for the train to be prepared we were walking around the grounds of the station, and by wife made eye contact with a six-foot-tall ostrich.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been stalked by a bird the size of a small car, but it can be a little disconcerting, and my wife let her fear show a little. And the chase was on, she started walking away, the bird followed. She increased the pace, as did the bird, and before long the race was on, my wife running and the bird flapping along merrily behind, gaining ground. I’m not sure my laughing helped the situation or the photos I was taking instead of helping.

Luckily a local person decided to step in front of the bird, and it backed down.

Like all good incidents, a meeting was scheduled to review the event, and detail a series of corrective and preventative actions (CAPA). It seems the root cause of this incident was me, and I accepted full responsibility. Luckily the train was incredible, and so no further corrective action was required.

For over 25 years Nastel has been building products that businesses rely on daily.  You are probably using services every day that are being managed and monitored by Nastel products.  For example, if you are shopping for a trip, buying a computer, paying a bill or taking out money from an ATM, there is a good chance that Nastel played a role in ensuring that service was readily available!