Challenges and triumphs

Transcript

Peter Fletcher

[00:00:00] Peter Fletcher: Welcome to the WA Property Q& A, the podcast where I explore the ins and outs of buying property in Western Australia. I’m your host Peter Fletcher and each week I interview local property experts to help you to develop a deep understanding of the nuances of buying property in WA. From market trends to legal considerations, no topic is off limits.

But before we dive in, a friendly reminder, while we provide valuable information, it’s important to note that nothing discussed in this podcast should be construed as personal investment advice. Always remember to seek the appropriate professional advice for your specific circumstances. Now, let’s get started and unlock the secrets to successful property buying in WA.

Welcome, Christina Mandanici, to the WA Property Q& A Podcast. Thanks for having me, Peter. Well, you might not say that after. So good that you’ve taken a bit of time to come and join us. No What I’m keen to, to do today is just to find out who you are and what motivates you to do what you do.

[00:01:13] Christina Mandanici: Okay.

[00:01:13] Peter Fletcher: So my my intro, shall we call it, you’re a principal along with your husband, Robert at Paddington Realty.

[00:01:25] Christina Mandanici: Yes. But he’s only Robert when he’s in trouble.

[00:01:28] Peter Fletcher: Robert!

[00:01:30] Christina Mandanici: No.

[00:01:32] Peter Fletcher: Jolly good. Which is most times. Yes. Most days. Most days.

So you’ve you’ve operated in Allenbrook and then now you’re in East Perth. Prior to that, you were in Melbourne. Is that right?

[00:01:43] Christina Mandanici: That’s correct. Yeah, we were we both lived over there, both worked in real estate, although in slightly different roles.

I, Rob was a property manager and we had another business over in Melbourne prior to moving to Perth, which was called Bespoke Real Estate. And that’s why we ended up selling that rent role and moving to Perth.

[00:02:01] Peter Fletcher: What brought you to WA?

[00:02:03] Christina Mandanici: Rob was, oh, so my family were based in Perth already. I’d been to uni over in Perth and then moved to Melbourne for love, for Rob. And

[00:02:15] Peter Fletcher: I thought you’re going to say, Oh, I thought you must’ve had somebody before Rob. No. Me moved to Melbourne.

Right. Okay. No, I won’t go there.

[00:02:22] Christina Mandanici: Moved to Melbourne to be with Rob and we got married, worked over there. Rob at the time, when we moved, well, when I moved back to Perth, when Rob moved to Perth, he was the managing director for a mining exploration company called Lithex Resources, and he was flying out of Melbourne on a Sunday night and coming back on a Saturday morning.

Basically doing a, like a reverse FIFO job and after three months of that we went, yeah, no, This isn’t sustainable for a relationship. So we packed up and moved to Perth.

[00:02:54] Peter Fletcher: So you were living in Melbourne?

[00:02:56] Christina Mandanici: Yep.

[00:02:57] Peter Fletcher: Rob was flying to Perth.

[00:02:59] Christina Mandanici: To Perth

[00:03:00] Peter Fletcher: for work. Work, yep. And then flying back for

[00:03:04] Christina Mandanici: Spending the weekend jet lagged and tired because the time difference is a real killer.

And yeah, it just, was it like it, it was a great opportunity. For Rob. But it wasn’t that we, I missed him. And all my family were over here at the time. So it was, it kind of seemed a logical step to move closer to my family for a bit and get to see them. And

[00:03:30] Peter Fletcher: You didn’t think about buying a dog at the time?

[00:03:33] Christina Mandanici: We already had a dog.

[00:03:35] Peter Fletcher: Oh, that’s right. I think I remember.

[00:03:37] Christina Mandanici: Yeah. Yeah. We had, we had little Oscar. He was a dash hound multi shih tzu cross.

[00:03:43] Peter Fletcher: That is some combination.

[00:03:45] Christina Mandanici: Yes. He’s very cute.

[00:03:47] Peter Fletcher: So Rob was in real estate over there in Melbourne, is that’s what he was doing before you

[00:03:52] Christina Mandanici: That’s what he was doing before before we moved he was doing lithics and kind of managing both at the same time.

I had worked for a little bit as a Saturday receptionist at Barry Plant in Glenroy. Part of that was because We didn’t see each other very much on the weekends because we both worked full time during the week. And then, yeah, they needed a Saturday receptionist. I thought, at least I’ll get to see Rob. And some money at the same time.

So, I worked Saturday reception there.

[00:04:23] Peter Fletcher: So when you were in WA, you, you didn’t practice real estate over here?

[00:04:27] Christina Mandanici: No, I,

[00:04:27] Peter Fletcher: basically just fresh out of university and.

[00:04:30] Christina Mandanici: No, I were, I had worked procurement jobs in Melbourne and when I moved over to Perth, I worked for a company called Flair for, gosh, lots of different mining companies, BHP, FMG.

A couple of other smaller ones doing procurement work. So, it’s people say I’m very good at shopping, but it, this was basically shopping on a very big scale.

[00:04:52] Peter Fletcher: Yes. Christina, you studied viticulture. And winemaking.

[00:04:58] Christina Mandanici: Oh, analogy. Yes.

[00:05:00] Peter Fletcher: Yes. Yes. You notice I avoided that.

[00:05:06] Christina Mandanici: I did notice that. It’s

[00:05:08] Peter Fletcher: So you obviously, like you were thinking you’d go down that path of.

[00:05:12] Christina Mandanici: Oh God, no.

[00:05:13] Peter Fletcher: No?

So. What, why? I

[00:05:16] Christina Mandanici: selected that as a uni degree basically in a, as only an 18 year old can do, I didn’t get the marks that I wanted for the course that I wanted to study at ANU in Canberra and basically threw a tantrum at the time and went, well, if I have to go to uni, I’ll just pick something that sounds fun.

And that’s how I ended up in Viticulture and Oenology.

[00:05:37] Peter Fletcher: Right. Has this, has Viticulture and Oenology helped you select wines better?

[00:05:44] Christina Mandanici: No, not really. No? No. Yeah. I still pick by the label.

[00:05:47] Peter Fletcher: In shadow de cardboard? Yeah.

[00:05:51] Christina Mandanici: Not quite that far. Yeah.

[00:05:53] Peter Fletcher: Okay. So, you’d never use that degree, really? Look,

[00:05:57] Christina Mandanici: it’s come in handy a little bit.

We’ve had a few properties in the Swan Valley that we’ve sold and leased out and some of my Farming knowledge has come in handy as, we sold a vineyard a

couple of, I want to say a couple of years ago, but yeah, that COVID gap kind of, it’s more like almost a decade ago and that was handy, but yeah, it’s not a, not something I use day to day.

[00:06:20] Peter Fletcher: Okay. Okay.

So you go to Melbourne you meet Robert. And you start a business over there Bespoke, yeah, and then you decide to come over to WA.

[00:06:31] Christina Mandanici: Yep.

[00:06:31] Peter Fletcher: And you start Paddington over here.

[00:06:33] Christina Mandanici: Yeah, a few years down the track. So Rob when he was looking at his exit strategy from Lithex Resources, we sat down and had a bit of a discussion of, yeah what next?

I’m always looking forward to the, what next? I’m very much a forward focused thinking person. And Rob said, well, what do we know? We know real estate. So let’s do that again. And that’s how we. Ended up forming Paddington Realty.

[00:07:01] Peter Fletcher: You spent some time over overseas, is that right? That’s correct. Yeah.

[00:07:05] Christina Mandanici: In Malaysia for a little while.

[00:07:07] Peter Fletcher: So you and Rob?

[00:07:08] Christina Mandanici: No, just me.

[00:07:09] Peter Fletcher: Oh, just you?

[00:07:09] Christina Mandanici: Yeah, so, and what, I actually did some schooling over in Malaysia at a British school.

[00:07:13] Peter Fletcher: Oh, right. Yeah. Okay. This is when you were still at home?

[00:07:18] Christina Mandanici: Yes, when I was a teenager.

[00:07:19] Peter Fletcher: Okay, wow. How did you get over there?

[00:07:22] Christina Mandanici: My stepdad was working over there, so we moved, my brothers and I both moved, all moved over with my stepdad and yeah, we went to school and got to explore Malaysia and it really became like home.

[00:07:38] Peter Fletcher: Is it am I allowed to ask what sort of work that your stepdad was in? Oh yeah, he

[00:07:43] Christina Mandanici: worked for a construction company.

[00:07:45] Peter Fletcher: Okay.

[00:07:46] Christina Mandanici: Yeah. An American construction company. Right.

[00:07:47] Peter Fletcher: So he wasn’t like a spy or anything? No.

[00:07:51] Christina Mandanici: No.

[00:07:51] Peter Fletcher: Australian ambassador or something? No.

[00:07:53] Christina Mandanici: Nothing. Nothing as exciting as that.

[00:07:55] Peter Fletcher: Okay. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So in construction?

[00:07:58] Christina Mandanici: Yeah. Yeah. They were working on building a silicon wafer chip factory out in Butterworth, so on the mainland from Penang, and we lived in Penang.

[00:08:08] Peter Fletcher: Wow. And the Australian Army spend a bit of, a fair bit of time in Buckingham. Yes, they

[00:08:12] Christina Mandanici: do. They do. They do indeed.

[00:08:15] Peter Fletcher: Wow. Some people say they’ve had a fairly miserable time or a good time in Buckingham.

[00:08:21] Christina Mandanici: I think that you either have a miserable time or you absolutely love it.

[00:08:25] Peter Fletcher: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay.

[00:08:27] Christina Mandanici: Huh.

[00:08:28] Peter Fletcher: Okay. So Paddington Real, Realty, how did it get its name?

[00:08:33] Christina Mandanici: Very original. We, when we first moved to Perth, lived on Paddington Street in North Perth. And we were sitting there trying to come up with a name and the process is very creative and you sit there and you kind of make a list of things that sound cool and we were, yeah, Paddington works.

And we like Paddington Bear. So. Yeah.

[00:08:53] Peter Fletcher: Okay, so when I first heard about this name I thought you must have had something to do with Sydney.

[00:09:00] Christina Mandanici: We often get phone calls from people looking for houses in Sydney. Really? Yes.

[00:09:05] Peter Fletcher: Oh, well there’s your next branch office.

[00:09:07] Christina Mandanici: Yes, that’s, that could be.

[00:09:09] Peter Fletcher: Yes. Okay. So, you’ve grown your business now to it’s a nice, good little business.

Yeah. Would that be how I would describe it? Yep. It’s not enterprise, Starship Enterprise or anything. No, it’s not. It’s a nicely run, compact, good size business. Yeah. Mainly in property management or property management and sales.

[00:09:34] Christina Mandanici: We did have a period where we did do some sales I worked doing sales up until the birth of our daughter, Valentina about seven years ago, and I still maintain that’s why she was earlier than she was meant to be born, because it was definitely, towards the end there were some high stressful transactions that we were involved in.

And we, again, we had another one of those sit downs and a conversation of, what’s our child going to be like when she’s born? And you can never predict these things and we wanted to make things as easy for ourselves as possible and went, right, let’s pull back, let’s scale down. A bit and focus on the things that we’re really good at and we know that we can do and do well.

And that for us was property management. So we took that step back in the business and refocused so that we could both focus on our family and on the business rather than trying to have fingers in every pie and not doing everything well. Is

[00:10:32] Peter Fletcher: having a family in real estate, is that a real fight for you?

How does that work for you?

[00:10:37] Christina Mandanici: I think it works well. I, for us, I think we have a degree of flexibility as business owners that isn’t there as a staff, so that’s an extra layer into it. I’m not required to be at a job nine to five and neither is Rob. We can tailor Our work around, around Valentina and things that we need to be at for her.

And I think our owners, we’ve done a we are a family focused business and the owners that we bring on board with us match our values. So I, for example, I took a phone call. My, our daughter had a family day picnic and church service. And I took a call from an owner and said, I’m literally walking into church.

I’ve got to go to this school thing. And they said, that’s cool. Call me back at the end of the day. It wasn’t a, why are you not here to take it? Yeah, I’m here on the phone now. You should be servicing me now.

[00:11:30] Peter Fletcher: It was that

[00:11:30] Christina Mandanici: understanding that, yes, there’s work, but yes, there’s also family.

[00:11:34] Peter Fletcher: And do you find that so real estate has been a good space for you to grow, to raise Valentina?

[00:11:43] Christina Mandanici: Oh, she’s, yeah, definitely. She’s either, well, she’s not gonna have a choice. She’s gonna, she’s a property manager in training. She’s very good at leasing as well. We’ve got that flexibility. We do take her along to two things. She’s come to Home Opens from, I think her first Home Open, she was six weeks old and we’ve just, she’s fitted into our life really well.

[00:12:04] Peter Fletcher: What’s the main challenge you face as a mum in property?

[00:12:08] Christina Mandanici: Oh, as a mum in property? I don’t know so much of a challenge as I have heartbreaking moments. I’ve had, I can think of one house in particular I went into where there were locks on the kids bedroom doors, which, Yeah, kind of, from the ins if they were lockable from the inside, that’s one thing, but this was, the locks were on the front, so the kids were being locked in their rooms and that, that’s a moment where you kind of, where I went out to the car and definitely had a little,

[00:12:38] Peter Fletcher: had a

[00:12:38] Christina Mandanici: little moment because they’re kids, they can’t.

Adults are meant to be there to protect kids, and when they’re not, that’s, that, that’s probably the hardest part for me.

[00:12:48] Peter Fletcher: What did you do about it, or what can you do about it? There’s not much you can do.

[00:12:52] Christina Mandanici: Thankfully, oh, thankfully, the tenants had vacated so it was a final inspection, even though they’d left a lot of stuff behind, but it was, and that was hard too, because the stuff that was left behind was the kids stuff.

Mum and Dad’s rooms were completely cleared out, but, kids become attached to their toys, and, there were lots of kids toys and kids clothes, and, Mum and Dad have thought about themselves, but not about the kids, and that’s hard.

[00:13:19] Peter Fletcher: Does this happen a lot in property management?

[00:13:21] Christina Mandanici: I think everyone has a story where it’s happened to them once or twice. On the whole, people are fabulous. People are inherently good and families, they look after properties and they do the right thing by each other. But when you have the mo Moments like that stick with you.

Definitely.

[00:13:37] Peter Fletcher: There being good moments though? Lots of good moments, I imagine? Of course,

[00:13:40] Christina Mandanici: of course. So we wouldn’t still be doing this if there wasn’t lots of good moments. What’s the best part of your job? Depends on the day. Probably the best part of my job is helping people find their home,

helping people manage their investment, but also helping people find their home.

[00:13:58] Peter Fletcher: So you had a moment with the lock the house with the locks on the doors, and that was a kind of a, that, that’s a very negative experience. From a positive experience, have you ever had a moment where you went, that just made me feel so good?

[00:14:12] Christina Mandanici: No. There’s lots of them. Can you think of one? It’s hard to kind of pick one and I think because on the whole we do have lots of positive experiences.

It’s hard to cherry pick one or two out because it’s, that, that’s the wood that you can’t see.

[00:14:28] Peter Fletcher: Just remember the, one of the moments in my career, it was early on where I sold this property in Kalgoorlie and it was just a pretty mediocre property. And I knocked on the door of this couple’s where they were renting to tell them that offer had been accepted.

And when I told Jenny that her offer had been accepted, she just, she started to cry and she said, I don’t know who to kiss first, you or Joe. And, kiss him. But it was just like a really good moment. It was just like, yeah. You’ve just had a massive impact on someone’s life.

[00:15:03] Christina Mandanici: And I think that we get caught up in the day to day of our jobs and don’t realize just how much of a big impact we make on people’s lives, especially with the Perth market, the way it is at the moment, how tight it is to get to.

To get a rental where, when we’re able to tell people that they’ve been, their application’s been successful, I think we forget just how impactful that can be for some people.

[00:15:29] Peter Fletcher: Yeah. In some cases it’d be the difference between, well, we’re going to be sleeping rough in a week’s time or thank God we just got that property.

So you’ve just done something very interesting.

You’ve not long ago come back from Everest Base Camp.

[00:15:47] Christina Mandanici: Yes,

[00:15:47] Peter Fletcher: that’s correct. What on earth possessed you to decide to do Everest Base Camp?

[00:15:55] Christina Mandanici: It’s always been on my list since I were, that, that mythical list that everyone has of things they want to do.

I’ve always wanted to do it probably since I was about 12, 13 years old and I’ve, like a lot of people, have that voice inside my head that tells me I’m not good enough, or I can’t do that, or that’s not achievable for you. And I spent a lot of my life telling myself that there’s a lot of things that I can’t do.

And. That’s not true.

[00:16:23] Peter Fletcher: Is that right? Yeah.

[00:16:24] Christina Mandanici: So, yeah. It’s been on my list. What appealed to you about base camp? It’s, it was the closest I could get to the top of the world without getting to the top of Mount Everest.

[00:16:35] Peter Fletcher: Is that something, is Everest something that you would It’s on my list.

Really? Yeah. Wow. Okay. Wow. So you decide to do Basecamp, when, how long ago did you decide?

[00:16:49] Christina Mandanici: So I originally booked the trip in July of 2019 to do it in April 2020.

[00:16:57] Peter Fletcher: Good timing.

[00:16:58] Christina Mandanici: Perfect timing. Obviously, the universe had other ideas on that plan. So I think I had the longest build up and training to doing the trip of anyone that I, certainly of anyone I did the trip with, there were people that had booked it sort of three weeks before the trip departed and I was sitting out there at four years.

[00:17:18] Peter Fletcher: Wow. You’ve only just come back. A hundred

[00:17:22] Christina Mandanici: and four, 15 days ago I came back.

[00:17:24] Peter Fletcher: Wow, you’re counting them? Yeah. Counting the days?

[00:17:27] Christina Mandanici: I’m counting the days down to the next adventure as well, so. We’ll

[00:17:31] Peter Fletcher: come to that. So give us the story of Koso. Your trip up base camp.

[00:17:39] Christina Mandanici: Wow. It was the most amazing experience I have ever had.

And it’s something I’ve found really hard to put into words. It’s from landing in Kathmandu.

[00:17:52] Peter Fletcher: Which

[00:17:52] Christina Mandanici: it. Which. Just Kathmandu airport is a whole nother experience. Is that

[00:17:58] Peter Fletcher: the one on the edge of the cliff?

[00:17:59] Christina Mandanici: No, that’s Lukla.

[00:18:01] Peter Fletcher: Yeah. That’s another flight.

[00:18:02] Christina Mandanici: That’s another flight. And I was lucky enough to be in seat 1A on that flight from we flew not from Kathmandu, but from Ramachep.

So we had to do a bus ride from. Kathmandu, we stayed overnight at the Quality Beach Resort, which, Nepal’s a landlocked country, so it’s I

[00:18:23] Peter Fletcher: wondered.

[00:18:24] Christina Mandanici: It was a, an interesting

[00:18:26] Peter Fletcher: Clearly a real estate agent to name that. But,

[00:18:29] Christina Mandanici: but it was quality with a K.

[00:18:31] Peter Fletcher: Oh, really? Yes.

[00:18:33] Christina Mandanici: And they were filming a Bollywood video while we were there as well.

It was it was definitely an experience, the Quality Beach Resort. Then we took the bus the next morning to Ramachep Airport it’s about four hours out of Kathmandu. And we flew, I was in seat 1A from Ramachet to the flight.

[00:18:51] Peter Fletcher: It’s all very, like you’re just running true to form, like this rich real estate agent flying in first class.

[00:18:57] Christina Mandanici: Yeah, I no, I I was given some cotton wool for my ears. 1A meant that I was the Co

[00:19:03] Peter Fletcher: pilot.

[00:19:04] Christina Mandanici: Basically the co pilot the planes are tiny and I was on the left hand side, right behind the pilot and got the door of the cabin is just a curtain, so it didn’t even close. And I got to watch the whole thing from the front of the plane as well as out my window and wow, it was amazing.

Yeah. The views of Everest as we flew in were amazing. So, so

[00:19:29] Peter Fletcher: this was from cat Mandu to LOLer. Yeah. Is that right?

[00:19:33] Christina Mandanici: Yep.

[00:19:34] Peter Fletcher: So you, you land in LOLer and LOLer is the World Air Airport that’s built on the edge of a cliff, basically. Yeah. It’s the

[00:19:42] Christina Mandanici: world’s most dangerous airport.

[00:19:43] Peter Fletcher: Nice. Yeah.

Yeah. Why did you wanna do this again?

[00:19:47] Christina Mandanici: Because it’s an adventure. And it, it was, I love roller coasters and thankfully Valentina does as well. And yeah, Rob stands down the bottom holding our handbags and he’s not a roller coaster person, but it’s, it was a, It was 19 days of a rollercoaster and it was amazing.

[00:20:08] Peter Fletcher: So, was it frightening coming into Lukla? Not at all. Wasn’t?

[00:20:13] Christina Mandanici: No.

[00:20:14] Peter Fletcher: You just you got nerves of steel.

[00:20:18] Christina Mandanici: There were people on the trip with us who were, closing their eyes and praying and so forth. But I was watching the whole thing.

[00:20:25] Peter Fletcher: So tell me about the hike from there to base camp.

[00:20:29] Christina Mandanici: So, we, first day we walked from Looklett to Monjo which was a surprisingly warmer than I expected it to be.

I was in a t shirt for most of it. And just really pretty we used to walk past cherry blossoms and really like postcard villages and horses and yaks and it just. What really struck me though, was there was no noise, no background noise and there’s no motorbikes, there’s no cars, there’s just not that constant hum of busyness.

And that was the thing that stuck with me for the rest of the trip, just how quiet it all is.

So Monjo onto Namche, up the Namche Hill, which was not my favorite part of the trip. The hill is, it was definitely a challenge. It also started snowing while we were So, it was, I was definitely one of the slower people in the group on that day.

But what,

[00:21:34] Peter Fletcher: was it a struggle because it was so steep?

[00:21:36] Christina Mandanici: So yeah, struggle cause it was so

[00:21:38] Peter Fletcher: steep.

[00:21:39] Christina Mandanici: We

[00:21:39] Peter Fletcher: carrying your own gear.

[00:21:40] Christina Mandanici: Oh, so the gear that I was carrying was my day to day gear. So yeah, my. Wet weather gear, warmer layers but our actual, our big duffel bags were being carried by Sherpas who’d leave before us and porters who’d left before us in the morning.

[00:21:54] Peter Fletcher: You’ve got to admire those people.

[00:21:56] Christina Mandanici: They are amazing. One of, I, I have said to a lot of people, I really want to take Valentina back because one of the things that stuck with me from the trip is just how mindful The Nepalese people are. Everything, especially up in the Khumbu Valley, everything that gets up there is carried in on the back of something.

So we saw people carrying legs of an animal that were dinner for that night on their backs to. Giant sheets of plywood to, yeah, donkeys carrying gas bottles so that there was fuel for the houses in the villages.

[00:22:33] Peter Fletcher: And the Western tourists. And the

[00:22:35] Christina Mandanici: Western tourists. And just how. Every, you have to be, everything you have to be really conscious of if, yeah, the Mars bar that you’re buying at the shop, how did that actually get there?

And I think Valentina’s a very lucky little girl and, just any, anytime she wants something, just the immediacy of how we can get things here in Perth, in the Western world. And that’s not the case in Perth. In the Khumbu Valley and in Nepal.

[00:23:05] Peter Fletcher: Yeah.

[00:23:06] Christina Mandanici: So.

[00:23:07] Peter Fletcher: So you got through that day okay, despite the snow.

Did you attempt to channel Wim Hof and just walk up there and.

[00:23:17] Christina Mandanici: I did have a t shirt on when the first snowflakes fell because it had been quite warm up until we literally turned a corner and it went, Oh, this is now really cold. But yeah. Pulled on jackets very quickly though and walked with snowflakes falling and it just was, thankfully the snow started falling when I got to the top of the hill so I could appreciate the, how magical it was.

I think if they’d fallen about midway I might have, Stopped and sat down and wanted to give up, but.

[00:23:49] Peter Fletcher: Did you ever want to give up?

[00:23:50] Christina Mandanici: I had a moment where I thought that it was over, that my trip was done for.

And I’m calling it the rock cident. The rock

[00:23:57] Peter Fletcher: cident? The rock cident. Oh wow.

[00:23:59] Christina Mandanici: So after we’d walked from, walked into Namche, we had an acclimatization day.

Namche, we walked to Fortsie with more snow, but then from Fortsie to Pangboche No, sorry, it was after Pangboche. We had a group rest stop and I sat down on a rock and then the rock was not as flat or good for sitting as I thought it was. And I ended up tumbling about two metres down an embankment and split my chin open and bruised myself pretty significantly across my stomach and chest and.

And I hit my head and rolled me a twist of my ankle and did some damage there. But I sat back, when I got back up, I kind of went, Oh yeah, this is going to sound very dramatic. This is the end. I didn’t, it definitely winded me. And I really didn’t see how I was going to continue on from that rock.

[00:24:57] Peter Fletcher: Wow. Yeah. But you did.

[00:24:59] Christina Mandanici: I did. I did. Hell. The ankle. Yes. The ankle.

[00:25:06] Peter Fletcher: First up. The head.

[00:25:08] Christina Mandanici: Yeah.

[00:25:09] Peter Fletcher: It sounds like you, you might’ve had concussion.

[00:25:11] Christina Mandanici: I think I did. I definitely, I ended up the rest of the group continued on without me and I stayed behind with one of our very beautiful shepherds Kanchi, and the expedition leader, Alan, stayed with me as well.

And we. Sat and had a drink and something to eat and gave it a, probably about half an hour, 45 minutes and just sat there and then plodded on. It definitely was a plod into Dingba Shea from there. A

[00:25:40] Peter Fletcher: plod, yeah, right. Your ankle?

[00:25:42] Christina Mandanici: Yes, so, I did a bit of damage to my ankle in the fall and Subsequent the next day, I also fell down some steps and went splat in the tea house.

Although they think that’s cause my ankle was unstable from having fallen off the rock. I ended up with a hairline fracture in my tibia and the ligament between my tibia and fibula has is no longer together. It has snapped or separated. And yeah. It’s I managed I’m essentially managed to walk to base camp and back with a broken ankle.

Jesus.

[00:26:20] Peter Fletcher: Yeah.

[00:26:21] Christina Mandanici: But I did also have three layers of socks on really good high North face hiking boots on and I’d strapped it. So it was very stable. It was essentially in a moon boot or a cast. So.

[00:26:35] Peter Fletcher: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Good on you for keeping on going.

[00:26:38] Christina Mandanici: Well, I had no idea till I got back to Perth. Like, it was swollen and it was a bit achy, but I didn’t

[00:26:43] Peter Fletcher: realise.

If you cracked your ankle, it

[00:26:46] Christina Mandanici: wouldn’t be comfortable. No, it wasn’t. But yeah, it was cold and I’m not a person who enjoys the cold. So, it sort of

[00:26:53] Peter Fletcher: was just all. You’re not a person who enjoys the cold? And so you go to Everest Base Camp. Yes. Like, that is just, You’re clearly not a smart

[00:27:03] Christina Mandanici: person.

No, well, it’s funny. I think I’ve been colder in Perth this winter since I’ve got back than I was when we were in a snowstorm at minus 20 at base camp.

[00:27:13] Peter Fletcher: Is that right? Yeah. You got down to minus 20. Yeah.

[00:27:15] Christina Mandanici: So. What was

[00:27:15] Peter Fletcher: that like?

Cold. You can’t tell me that didn’t feel cold.

[00:27:20] Christina Mandanici: No. It did feel cold.

But so the company that I went to Everest Base Camp with is a company called Everest One and they are one of the very few companies that have permits for trekkers to actually stay at base camp.

So the majority of people who do the base camp trek, they, we’ll walk to the base camp signs. It used to be a rock, but the Nepalese government have this year erected a beautiful sign with Sir Edmund Hillary on it and it covered the rock with this sign. So most people go there, take their photo and then walk back to Gorak Shep.

Which is the next settlement from before base camp and we got to walk past everyone who was there at the sign and getting their photo taken and actually spend two nights staying at Everest base camp with some people who were making summon attempts.

[00:28:13] Peter Fletcher: Wow. Yeah.

And so when you’re staying there, like what do you do?

You’re staying there for two days.

[00:28:20] Christina Mandanici: We, what did we do? We went, we were fortunate enough to go for a walk through the lower sections of the Kumbu Icefall. So the,

[00:28:30] Peter Fletcher: so that’s the part that when you look at from base camp, you can sort of see this, it looks like

[00:28:35] Christina Mandanici: a sea of kind of icy, jagged rocks which is the Kumbu glacier, which is the sort of the entry pathway up through to summit Everest.

Yeah. So we,

[00:28:47] Peter Fletcher: Did you feel out of breath up there?

[00:28:49] Christina Mandanici: Not at all. That was my biggest concern and my biggest worry. Heading into the trip. Cause obviously Perth’s at sea level and there’s not really anywhere here in Perth to experience the oxygen level or, yeah, we’ve, someone joked at me the other day that I should go up the scarp to train for base camp, but that’s not really at any altitude.

And I, or. I was really worried that I wasn’t going to cope with the altitude. However, we were testing our oxygen saturation levels every morning and night, and even when I was at base camp, my oxygen was at about 89%.

[00:29:26] Peter Fletcher: Okay.

[00:29:26] Christina Mandanici: Which there was a really cool chart that I snapped a photo of at Namche which said that at base camp, your oxygen.

On average, oxygen levels are supposed to be between 70 and 75 percent. So, yeah, levels that here in Perth would send you to hospital and supplemental oxygen, but I was fine. Definitely not down anywhere near that, but that’s the normal for up there.

[00:29:51] Peter Fletcher: How far above sea level

[00:29:54] Christina Mandanici: is base camp? 5, 380.

Something meters, where we, where our tents were though, we were sitting closer to 5, 400 meters.

[00:30:05] Peter Fletcher: What’s the death zone? Do you know that?

[00:30:07] Christina Mandanici: It’s above 8, 000 meters. Oh, 8, 000? Well, maybe, yeah, it’d be above eight.

[00:30:14] Peter Fletcher: Is it? Yeah. I don’t know.

[00:30:15] Christina Mandanici: I don’t know.

[00:30:16] Peter Fletcher: So, so between base camp and the top of Everest. Yep. It’s still a big climb.

[00:30:21] Christina Mandanici: Yes. Yes. Do

[00:30:22] Peter Fletcher: you get a sense of the enormity of it when you’re sitting there? Because like my experience of Everest is television and it doesn’t seem that big.

[00:30:36] Christina Mandanici: Oh, it’s enormous. It just, our tents, where we stayed, looked out across the Kumbawa Icefall. We were actually the closest camp to the start of the pathway up the Kumbawa Icefall.

And it just, you know that when you’re at the beach and it’s a really foamy sea it looks like the, it looks like it’s flowing down at you, which. Which it is. It

[00:31:03] Peter Fletcher: is in slow motion. It is

[00:31:04] Christina Mandanici: in very slow motion, but it just, words can’t describe it. And definitely the photos that I took in no way show just how big and majestic and amazing it is up there.

[00:31:19] Peter Fletcher: So you spend two nights?

[00:31:21] Christina Mandanici: Two nights. Explored the Kumbawa Icefall, had coffee in the restaurant tent, full, there was a, I had to laugh before I went on the trip, I’ve got some army mates who very kindly got it in their heads that the trip was going to involve tents, sleeping in sleeping bags the whole way, and eating army ration style pack meeting meals.

So we had a picnic where they brought their ration packs and to prepare me for the trip.

[00:31:51] Peter Fletcher: And so you’re at this restaurant.

[00:31:53] Christina Mandanici: Oh, we were in the, this domed tent where one wall was clear perspectives to see out and across the Kumbawa Icefall. And there was A barista coffee machine and a barista on site and we had steak for dinner one night and it was I hope

[00:32:09] Peter Fletcher: you remembered that somebody carried that up.

Yes,

[00:32:12] Christina Mandanici: and that’s the thing, it’s, again that consciousness of everything, even down To waste. It’s they’ve got quite strict rules on both Everest and at base camp about the disposal of waste, both food and rubbish down to human waste and it all is carried down on the back of someone.

[00:32:31] Peter Fletcher: Is that right? Yeah. Okay.

[00:32:32] Christina Mandanici: Yeah. Sorry.

[00:32:33] Peter Fletcher: So people just don’t go behind the nearest rock and

[00:32:37] Christina Mandanici: No, well, for number one, you definitely can, but number two is done in, it done into blue barrels and you can’t cross contaminate because you pay per, you pay for the weight that comes down. So it’s it, going to the bathroom is definitely an interesting experience at base camp.

[00:32:55] Peter Fletcher: Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. So when it was minus 20 were you outside when it was minus 20? Yeah,

[00:33:03] Christina Mandanici: we, I walked from the dining tents down to my tent in the middle of the snowstorm.

[00:33:08] Peter Fletcher: Yeah. Okay. So not far, but far enough. Far

[00:33:12] Christina Mandanici: enough to be worried that I was going to slip and fall and injure myself again.

[00:33:18] Peter Fletcher: Yeah. Okay.

[00:33:19] Christina Mandanici: Yeah. But in saying that, I was dressed in, I had a thermal singlet top on, a thermal long sleeve top, a fleece jumper, a micro down vest, a micro down jacket, and then a big puffer down jacket. So

[00:33:35] Peter Fletcher: that’s six layers. Wow. And were you didn’t feel cold there? You felt okay?

[00:33:40] Christina Mandanici: Yeah, I felt, definitely felt okay.

My fingertips, I forgot my gloves in my tent. So my fingertips definitely felt it, but yeah, it was definitely a bit chilly. But.

[00:33:50] Peter Fletcher: I remember getting out of the car when I was up in Onslow and it was 55 degrees. And it was like, I got out of an air conditioned car and Very quickly, I went, wow, this is hot.

I hope I, the car doesn’t lock on me because like, you’d, that you could be in a spot of bother. Did you have that moment, a moment like that when you were up there?

[00:34:16] Christina Mandanici: No, not really. Cause I, anytime we moved between tents and the dining tent, we always kind of went there, we never went just one person.

So there was safety in numbers. And everything’s so bright. So, the dining tents were, whilst they were white domes, they were very well lit and there were like flood lamps. Bathroom tents are bright green. Our tents were bright yellow. The color definitely was there to see.

[00:34:44] Peter Fletcher: Were there any heroes on the trip that wanted to wear shorts?

[00:34:49] Christina Mandanici: We did actually. There were some guys from. Newcastle who were doing the Laer Peak after Everest base camp, and actually someone here from Perth who summited Everest after we left, he walked up with us to base camp Connor Coleman, sorry.

Yeah. War shorts. Connor wore shorts the entire way. Really? At base camp? Yeah.

[00:35:12] Peter Fletcher: Really?

[00:35:13] Christina Mandanici: Yeah.

[00:35:14] Peter Fletcher: Okay. Interesting. I think

[00:35:16] Christina Mandanici: from memory they were even daisies of cots, low shorts.

[00:35:20] Peter Fletcher: Was that a. What was the motivation, do you think?

[00:35:26] Christina Mandanici: I think it started originally, like I said before, it was quite warm for the first couple of days of the trek and shorts, I was walking in in yeah, gym tights and there were even moments where I went, Oh, I wish I had shorts on because it was quite warm.

And so the guys were wearing shorts and then it kind of became a badge of honor thing amongst the guys at who can go the most days wearing the shorts and then can they make it to base camp and.

[00:35:56] Peter Fletcher: And they did? And

[00:35:56] Christina Mandanici: they did.

[00:35:58] Peter Fletcher: And they wandered around in minus 20 with?

[00:36:01] Christina Mandanici: To be fair, the day we arrived in base camp, it was not quite that cold and it definitely wasn’t snowing then.

By the time it snowed, they had long pants on.

[00:36:08] Peter Fletcher: Oh, they, yeah. They did. They did. But they got to base

[00:36:10] Christina Mandanici: camp in shorts.

[00:36:12] Peter Fletcher: Yeah. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Huh. Okay.

So you spend two nights in base camp, trek back down the hill? Yes. Reasonably uneventful?

[00:36:22] Christina Mandanici: Very uneventful.

[00:36:23] Peter Fletcher: Yeah.

[00:36:24] Christina Mandanici: Long days because you do the trip up in 12, 13 days and then you come back down in four.

Okay. Yeah, the reason for the slow up is you need to acclimatise to the altitude. And going slowly is the best way to acclimatise. But then on the way back down, it’s,

[00:36:44] Peter Fletcher: yeah, it’s

[00:36:44] Christina Mandanici: go and honestly, there was, it felt very slow going on the way out because the shepherds who were with us and the guides were very conscious of making us walk slowly, which for me, I’m not a slow walker.

I like to go. That slow acclimatize. And then the way back down, it was, we were almost running.

[00:37:07] Peter Fletcher: There’s a video on your Facebook of leaving Lukla.

[00:37:10] Christina Mandanici: Yes.

[00:37:11] Peter Fletcher: It’s sort of

[00:37:11] Christina Mandanici: like, it’s one of

[00:37:13] Peter Fletcher: those paragliding moments where you run off the edge of a cliff and.

[00:37:17] Christina Mandanici: So I didn’t get seat 1A for that flight. I got seat 1B.

[00:37:21] Peter Fletcher: Slumming

[00:37:21] Christina Mandanici: it. Slumming it. And yeah, I got, which meant 1B, the plane configuration was 1 2 so 1B literally was looking right through the cockpit window and it was one of the most exhilarating flights of my life.

[00:37:38] Peter Fletcher: Mmm.

[00:37:39] Christina Mandanici: Loved every second of it.

[00:37:41] Peter Fletcher: Wow.

So you get back to Perth and how did Was there a, have you had any sort of sense of let down or?

Oh God,

[00:37:49] Christina Mandanici: massively. Really? Yeah.

[00:37:51] Peter Fletcher: Okay.

[00:37:51] Christina Mandanici: Walk us

[00:37:51] Peter Fletcher: through that.

[00:37:52] Christina Mandanici: It’s been hard. I’m someone I like to have the next thing planned. I like to know what I’m doing next. And when I first got

back, it was hard because I didn’t immediately have, I don’t know, I had a few little things planned, but I didn’t have.

I’d just come back from this massive adventure and I didn’t have the next one planned yet so I struggled a bit. It definitely, it was hard getting back into work and routine and, yeah. I had to actually do things again, like decide what’s for dinner and yeah, just those mundane things that I didn’t have to think about while I was there and also deal with the background noise.

I didn’t realize just how much day to day life is distracted by background noise. Whether it be from vehicles or, I love her dearly, but a child talking incessantly in the background or just those day to day things that we think are normal, but up there, there wasn’t any of that noise.

[00:38:57] Peter Fletcher: Has this trip changed you at all?

[00:39:01] Christina Mandanici: That’s a hard one. I don’t think I’ve actually stopped to think about that. It’s definitely, I haven’t come back and said, right, I’ve done that. We’re done now. It’s definitely pushed me on to do more and I think it’s allowed I think it’s given me the okay to let go a bit. At home, particularly, Rob is an amazing dad and always has been, but I don’t think I give him enough credit for what he can do.

I think I tend to have a I tend to swoop in and it’s all right, I’ll do it because it’ll be quicker if I do it. And I just, sort of that life admin stuff I’ve taken on. Because I felt that I had to, but Rob had almost a month without, with being sole parent and running the business still and keeping life functioning and going and he did an amazing job at that.

So I’ve, that’s been one thing that I’m, I’ve definitely, that, that’s something that’s changed for me that I’m letting go and letting other people do or letting Rob do more, definitely.

[00:40:11] Peter Fletcher: As now you’ve had this experience, what would you tell 12 year old Christina?

[00:40:18] Christina Mandanici: Well, firstly, you can do it, and you’re going to do it.

I don’t know that I’d change the timing of it, though.

Because I think if I’d gone and done the trip when it was a sort of like a gap year activity when I was younger, in my late teens or early twenties, I don’t think I

would have appreciated it as much as I did now, being life is busy and hectic and there are so many responsibilities, it’s hard to kind of list them all, but to be able to have the chance to step away from that and I think now is the right time to have done it.

So you’re going to do it, but you’ll do it at the right time.

[00:41:01] Peter Fletcher: Yeah. Okay. You mentioned a couple of times about the quietness. Are you doing anything to generate that level of quietness now?

[00:41:13] Christina Mandanici: No, but I should be. I think I’m now back into the routine of the busyness of everything that I, and that might be something that helps me cope.

That’s probably the wrong way of saying it. It makes it sound like it’s a big problem, but helps me deal with the, kind of that post adventure ennui.

[00:41:36] Peter Fletcher: What’s next?

[00:41:37] Christina Mandanici: Oh, so I’m doing Coast Trek in October with my. It’s a team of lovely ladies from the Everest Babe Camp. It’s we’ve got Sam Bevan, Rosie Zieber, and Lindsay Black. We’re doing, so we’re doing a 35 kilometer walk from Dunsborough to Yelling Up, roughly, or Yelling Up to Dunsborough, I think it is So that’s raising money for the Heart Foundation.

And then after that, I’m trying to work out diaries with Rob so that I can go and do Mount Kinabalu probably in either late January, early February, and then it’s Mount Kilimanjaro for July next year.

[00:42:23] Peter Fletcher: Kinabalu?

[00:42:24] Christina Mandanici: Kinabalu in Malaysia.

[00:42:25] Peter Fletcher: Huh And then Kilimanjaro. Yep. . Are they, Kilimanjaro is one of the seven, is that right?

That’s correct. Yeah. Loo, is that No, it’s,

[00:42:35] Christina Mandanici: it’s not, but it’s a lot of stairs, so it’s a good Is that where you

[00:42:38] Peter Fletcher: see the ape the big apes? The gorillas.

[00:42:41] Christina Mandanici: The gorillas?

[00:42:42] Peter Fletcher: No.

[00:42:42] Christina Mandanici: No.

[00:42:43] Peter Fletcher: Okay. I don’t know these things.

[00:42:45] Christina Mandanici: It’s an, it’s a good training trip for Kilimanjaro. It’s also two days, so it’s a nice quick one that I could do it in an extended long weekend rather than some of the bigger ones.

Part of our problem here in Perth is trying to find training trips to do with altitude and obviously we don’t have any altitude really here to deal with. So Kinabalu, then Kilimanjaro.

[00:43:14] Peter Fletcher: What would you say to someone in your circumstances that has been putting off doing something like this?

[00:43:23] Christina Mandanici: Do it ju to steal the line from Nike.

Just do it. But it’s really easy to find excuses and reasons why not to do something. It’s a lot harder to actually go and do it and. In, it’s always in the harder things that we find the most joy.

[00:43:43] Peter Fletcher: Christina Mandanici on that note, thank you so much for being on the podcast. You’re

[00:43:47] Christina Mandanici: welcome, Peter.

Thank you for having me.

[00:43:50] Peter Fletcher: You’re welcome. And that wraps up another episode of the WA Property Q& A. We hope you found our discussion valuable and gained some valuable insights into the world of property buying in Western Australia. Remember, While we strive to provide useful information, it’s crucial to consult with the appropriate professionals before making any investment decisions.

Don’t forget to tune in next week for another exciting episode where we continue to unravel the mysteries of the WA property market. If you have any questions or topic suggestions, feel free to reach out to us. Until then, happy

property Hunting and remember to seek the right advice for your personal circumstances.

Thank you for listening.