Woolies Self Serve Checkout

Scott & I went up the road to Woolies last night (it's open until midnight every night!) to do a little grocery shopping. They've installed the new Self Serve till points so we decided to give it a go! Very exciting!!! For 2 reasons.... Obviously because it's something new & secondly because where we come from, it would just be unheard of!!! Imagine putting in these self serve tills at Pick 'n Pay in Sefrika? Eish!!! They wouldn't last 5 minutes!



So how they work: As you can see above, there's no counter - basically there is a very wide isle between two rows of inward-facing till points. This is not ideal for large trolley loads of groceries - just a bit awkward with too many groceries and trying to maneuver a trolley from emptying to re-loading. There's not really enough space to have two trolleys at your disposal. So baskets are perfect cos you put the basket on the little basket shelf on the left.

The screen is a touch screen and is pretty much idiot proof. You press the start button on the screen and it tells you to scan an item. You scan an item and put it in the bag on the right. There seems to be a weight sensor under the bag (or possibly on the arms of the bag-holder) which will only allow you to scan the next item once the already-scanned item is placed in the bag. If you've got fruit and veg to weigh, you place the item on the scanner window which also doubles as a scale and press the button on the screen which says "weigh", choose from the alphabetic list and click the item you want. Eg: I had chillis - I pressed weigh on the screen. A new screen appeared with little thumbnail pictures of fruit & veg and the alphabet on the right. I pressed C on the right and checked through the thumbnails for baby red Chillis. The weight and price appears on the screen, you press okay and put it in the bag.

When it comes time to pay, you select your payment type - credit card / bank card with cashout / bank card without cashout /cash. I paid on my credit card - the screen said swipe, so I swiped and pressed okay. The screen said sign.......... hrm..... where to sign? No little slip of paper to sign....... Duh!!!! Check out the close up of the terminal - under the credit card machine is a little black gadget with what looks like a loop of wire to the right of it. That's the signing pad - the loop is attached to a solid plastic "pen". As you sign, your signature appears on the screen. There is a Woolies employee hovering around the self serve area. A little light goes on above my head once I've signed and she needs to verify my signature. (If I use a pin code instead, then she's not needed.)

The machine then spews out your receipt and off you go! Easy as pie!!!

I love this country! :-)

A Big Hello from Down Under San (Mupersan Down Under)

It’s been a while, a long while. Mandy has been an absolute star with keeping you all updated on the blog. I haven’t done any writing for a while, as I haven’t been up to much, besides getting a promotion or 2, and working pretty hard. My travels haven’t taken me out of Sydney for a while, and I have been kind-of confined to the city centre and the North shore, but with my latest “promotion”, I am getting around a bit more again - to the tune of 250km per day.

Now this doesn’t sound far, but when it takes 4 to 5 hours of this kind of travelling in traffic, it starts to get pretty tiring, and loooong. However, thanks to my trusty new IPod Nano, the trips are made much easier... I think I broke the last one; maybe it was the drop from 10ft up that did the trick. Or one of the electrical shocks I had while plugged into it when an idiot electrician switched the power on, on an open circuit. Either way, it has retired!

Below is a picture of the area I am currently driving (c/o Google maps)

Click on the map to enlarge

F- Home

B – Site 1, and Army base in an area called Holsworthy. Drive time from F to B is about 1.5 hrs, through city centre and a few tunnels. Quite a bit of fun in morning Traffic, as you can easily get caught in a tunnel with all the fumes. I sat in the harbour tunnel for 15 minutes on one of the days, with a few tons of water above my head, not a pleasant thought.

Residential houses near the Holsworthy station and base

Small apartment block in Holsworthy

Closer to the Base

C – Warragamba Dam, this is one of Sydneys major dams, undergoing a bit of reconstruction. This is on the outskirts of the Blue mountains and Sydney, with lovely views of the bush.

The dam control building where we installed

The dam under construction

D – The Baulkham Hills and Castle Hill area. A large number of SA immigrants seem to settle here, and it looks like a typical new Durbanville Hills / Johannesburg development. Not my cuppa tea, but each to their own.

Durbanville Hills, or is it Baulkham Hills.....? You decide

Baulkham Hills Houses

Cycleway, pedestrian & cycle bridge - heading to Castle Hill

Glass sided bridges - heading to Castle Hill

My trip home from Castle Hill takes me through St Ives, where a weary traveler has been known to stop for a bag of biltong, and some Nick Nacks at the local Saffer shop, very yummy.

One thing that I love about my work is the travelling. I get to see so much of the city, and all the different life styles. Mandy and I will hopefully be doing a bit more travelling around the state, and then interstate next year, s we still haven’t been to the Blue Mountains, although next weekend we are going to a town a few hundred Km’s up the drag to go swimming with wild dolphins. A story for another day....

Temperatures in the areas B, C and D have been up in the 35°C, with one in the 40’s that melted tar onto my tyres. Oh, and it’s still Spring! On the News last night there was talk of 50°C days over December, but this will be more in the interior. Its sounds a bit alarming, but on chatting to a few locals at the surf lifesaving club last night, it appears that this is quite common, after all one of the towns in the great outback, Coober Pedy, is built underground, to avoid the searing temps.

Coober Pedy

Coober Pedy Hotel

Coober Pedy Campground

Below is an excerpt from the camp ground pic.

"Okay, so the budget underground accommodation options aren't the prettiest, but they are cool and quiet. It's always a relief to escape the heat and the flies and the dust above ground."

And take note of the walls in all the pictures above, those beautiful rose colours and patterns. The underground homes people live in don't look like those budget places, rather they look like the flashy hotel in the first picture: tall ceilings, modern interior, and those gorgeous walls... Or, if they are older, then everything is rounded...

Well, that’s it for me today. The sky is grey, the see is calm, and we’re off to Shelly beach to go snorkelling, to get some practice in for next week’s adventure.

Chats soon

Mups