Blogs from Bondi Junction, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania

Saturday, crunch day! Third test at the ANZ Stadium (Olympic Stadium). After breakfast S&D went to the market and I had a walk in Centennial Park. Lots of activity, picnics, soccer, dog walking, jogging and cycling, very busy. Nice sunny morning again. About 2pm we went down to the bars at Circular Pier and met up with Dave Gribble for a small sherbet. He was staying with friends in Brisbane and had come down for the big game. The whole place was awash with Lions fans wearing every conceivable combination of lions red, white, blue and green. Fantastic sight. We used our match day tickets to ride the Paramatta ferry to the ANZ. Picturesque ride under the SHB and half hour up the river. From the ferry terminal it was a half hour walk to the ... read more

Saturday morning was a laze around the apartment followed by, you guessed it, Spaghetti Bol! It was Match Day of course:) at 4.30pm we made our way to a Lions Supporters Village reception where we met up with our leprechaun friend, Graham from Northern Ireland. Andy Nichol, ex Lion, hosted the event where we had several speakers, Jeremy Guscott, Peter Winterbottom, Tyrone Howe and Roger Uttley. The highlight though was an acoustic session by The Manic Street Prechers, very good. Apparently there was enough free beer for 14 bottles each! More fish and chips and pies circulated to feed the masses. At about 7pm we walked across the road to the Etihad Stadium for the match. Another fantastic stadium shaped in an oval for the Aussie Rules Football, the retracting roof was closed. Again great view ... read more

Up and out of the Nathan by 9.30am and sightseeing begins. We were intending to use the Hop on -Hop off bus tour but found it didn't start till 11.30am. In fact they must have been cancelled due to the weather as we didn't see one all day. After 20 minutes walking the heavens opened and we had a torrential downpour for half an hour, standing in shelter we people watched as pedestrians played puddle hopscotch. This became a recurring trend throughout the day as it rained on several occasions. Never mind, there were lots of places to get out of the rain, including the HK Heritage centre and the huge, well laid out Ocean Centre mall. Mostly high end designer clothes and jewellery / watch stores. All were over staffed with bored workers waiting to ... read more

Well, one day to go and very excited now! Dave, Sue (The Derricks) and I have been planning this trip for a year. Sue has been fantastic at all the arrangements and bookings for the trip. We're doing a part package with HSBC, flights there and back and match tickets. Internal travel and accommodation we've done ourselves. It would seem we've saved ourselves a good wedge so more beer tokens to spend:) The adventure starts tomorrow night with the Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong . Two days sightseeing then on to Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, three provincial games and the three Tests against the Wallabies. I'll try and Blog as regularly as possible.... read more

The exchange rate between the Rand and the mighty Aussie dollar is now around 7 to 1. Which if memory serves me well, is around the same rate for dad at home looking after the kids vs mom doing the same. Which means that in the past month, with Alexa gallivanting all over the known world, chiefly via Hunter Valley (retreat), Perth (home) and Thailand (surprise Schoofess visitation for Hans’ 70th) I have built up a healthy 161 day credit. I have been warned, though, that such credits have a half life of only a few days, and are known to disappear rapidly in a puff of unwashed dishes or forgotten anniversaries, and have therefore cunningly decided to cash them in in one go by booking my fare to New Zealand to attend the greatest male ... read more