All over the place

I’ve been clocking up the miles just recently, taking in the East Melbourne suburbs on Thursday and Friday, but making it back to Canberra in time on Friday night to see a good part of the cricket on TV which, for once, I was glad of! Saturday was spent in Canberra where there was a multicultural festival in the city centre, full of food and entertainment from all over the world – I have never seen Canberra centre so busy or so cosmopolitan come to think of it. You really get used to having lots of space and not having to walk round avoiding bumping into people!

On Sunday afternoon I caught a flight up to Sydney, where it rained and rained and rained! Getting off the plane and on to a bus (a gap of 2 or 3 metres) was enough to get a southern hemisphere soaking. There wasn’t quite enough rain to save the Aussies however, as England miraculously won the one-day cricket competition. I think I am pretty good luck – I was in Sydney when England won the first game against Australia, then in Melbourne the day they won the second and then in Sydney for the third.

I was in Sydney again for some training on Monday and Tuesday and, whilst I didn’t get much time to see the city, I was staying in a quite luxurious room overlooking Darling Harbour.

It was nice to wonder down that way as I hadn’t really been around this area in my trips to Sydney so far in this stint down under.

On Monday night I experienced a pleasant enough meal in Chinatown followed by a cuppa watching the world go by on George Street. Tuesday was mostly spent in an office and then back to Sydney airport again, where the good people of Qantas managed to find me a space on an earlier flight so I could get back to Canberra at a decent hour.

So Canberra is home again, but not for long – Saturday and my two week odyssey to Victoria and Tasmania commences. I can’t wait! This will probably be my last post in a while as I am not sure they have computers down in Tasmania. Excellent! Look out for news and copious lashings of photogenic highlights from down south in a few weeks!

Neilio

The S C Glee

What were the odds? Well about $7 according to the Aussie in front of me who placed a bet on it. It was a beautiful November spring day at Manuka Oval where I saw England set the scene for a summer of despair. It’s been all downhill from there but on Friday night a miracle occurred and I was there to witness it at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Thanks to a combination of factors – a Friday morning meeting in western Sydney and England’s poor form making tickets on ebay easy to come by, I made it to the one-day international between Australia and England. England made 292, a paced innings with a great century by Ed Joyce and some good hitting at the end, Dalrymple with an entertaining 30 in 18 balls. Here’s some of the action shots…

Ooh ahh Glenn McGrath (about time you retired innit?) squaring up Ian Bell.

Here is Joyce towards the end of his knock.

And the Aussies attempting to bat after the break! Gilchrist was out the very first ball of the innings and you could sense the shock reverberate around the SCG (I guess it would’ve been entertaining if he stayed in a bit longer).

By time the sun went down and the lights came on, the game was drawing to a bit of an anticlimax, England taking regular wickets, though at one stage Hayden and Symonds looked like they could reel it in, until Symonds got injured, possibly his stupid hair got in his vision and he got hurt.


Despite this, the low strength beer which was the only one available was starting to set in, the crowd were doing the Mexican Wave (despite it being banned in all cricket grounds in Australia…probably cos it’s Mexican and not true blue Aussie), and sections of the crowd were in competition to form ‘worms’ out of empty plastic beer cups. This was the one closest to me.

And pretty much that was that. The English fans dotted around the place were overjoyed…more relief than anything that they came all this way and at least saw one victory. It was all very good-natured and a fun day and night, setting up a fine weekend in Sydney.

The Victory Weekend

The weather was just about ideal for a weekend of milling about the harbour, taking walks through the bush, eating ice creams and fish and chips and getting slightly red from the sun. On Saturday I met with someone I didn’t even know, Caroline, a friend of a friend of a friend so to speak, but we met without hassle in Bondi Junction and went to check out some of the sights.

First off was a bus which took us down to Bondi Beach then along to Watsons Bay, at the southern tip of the harbour. Here there are lovely views back to the city and sheer cliffs dropping down to the pounding Pacific.

There was time for white chocolate and raspberry ice cream before catching a fast ferry from Watsons Bay to Circular Quay. A quick change onto the ever glorious Manly ferry led us to a spot of lunch and a walk around part of the middle harbour, across beaches and through bush reserves. It was pretty tiring actually, in the heat of the day, so it was nice to cool off my feet in the ocean at the end of the day, have a cold beer, eat some fish and chips and watch the sun go down from Manly Wharf.

The ferry back to Circular Quay as the lights came on was immensely soothing and relaxing and a long tiring day meant an early nights sleep!

On Sunday morning, I caught another ferry (it’s the way to go!) to Taronga, where the zoo is. However, I didn’t go to the zoo, just walked around from there through Bradleys Head, part of Sydney Harbour National Park. On boarding the ferry, I noticed a huge cruise liner docked in the quay, it was so huge it seemed to tower over the Harbour Bridge!

The walk around to Bradleys Head was pleasant, through shady bush with paths leading off to little sandy coves. The view is another good one.



And before you knew it, it was time to head back, the ferry retracing its wake to Circular Quay, passing the sights and the massive cruise ship, taking me onto a bus and a train and a plane and to the dusty heat of Canberra and a well earned late afternoon kip!