News
Australia - Week 4
Posted December 16, 2008 09:23 AM
Our final week in Australia began with our last full day in Busselton. The day after any IM race is always a busy one, checking out race photos, picking up finisher's merchandise at the expo tent, attending the awards banquet plus we also had the "oh so fun" task of disassembling and packing our bikes plus packing our suitcases for our flight to Sydney the next morning.
The awards banquet at IMWestern Australia is a complete blowout! The Australians really know how to drink, and most started with beer earlier in the day and continued right on through to the evening. All participants were issued four (yes 4!) complimentary drink tickets so even before dinner was finished the energy and noises levels in the room were ramping up noticeably. By the time the awards were over and the dancing began (with a live band playing) the place was absolutely coming apart at the seams... Knowing that we had to get up really early the next morning for a 4 hour drive to Perth to catch our flight (and to give our aching eardrums as break), we opted to head home at about 10pm. Apparently the party continued for many more hours and included some wild and crazy antics on the dance floor, including the 24 year old male winner leaping off the stage and being "crowd surfed" over people's heads....
Our flight to Sydney passed quickly and we made our way to Hunter's Hill, a very lovely and exclusive area where we were staying for the final 4 nights of our trip. In 2001 we took a 6 week 25th anniversary trip to Fiji, New Zealand and the Cook Islands. While on a week long cruise through the Fijian Islands we made friends with a wonderful Australian couple (George & Shannon) who we've kept in touch with, via Xmas cards, ever since. They had told us that if we ever visited Australia we must come to stay with them, so when planning our trip last year we lined up the final few days to spend with them. They made us totally welcome and we used their house as homebase for some day trips spent at the Sydney Harbour. We landed in the lap of luxury with George & Shannon as their house is approx 6,500 sq ft set on a hillside and cascading down 8 levels! It has an amazing view of Sydney Harbour and is only a few minutes away from one of the harbour ferry terminals so we would walk each day and catch the ferry downtown - a 17 minute ride away.
Unfortunately the entire time we were in Sydney the weather was atrocious. Some of our plans for tours downtown were scuppered due to the heavy rain and wind, however we did complete the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb which took 3.5 hours including the pre-climb orientation. It was really windy and cold while we were up there but we survived! Here's a short video showing what we experienced. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiQV2PtusSo
The next day we took a tour of the Sydney Opera House which was fascinating, and spent hours just walking the streets of Sydney (in the pouring rain and driving winds...)
All too soon we were heading for the airport on Saturday morning and boarding the plane for the 13 hour flight back to Vancouver (thank heavens for those tailwinds on the way home, which knocked 2 hours off the return leg).
So now we're home safe and sound, settling back into a normal routine though finding ourselves extremely fatigued from the race and the travelling. It was an amazing four weeks and we really loved our time in Australia. We reconnected with old friends and made some wonderful new ones. Couldn't ask for a better time!
