Difficult Is Worth Doing: Australia

Ok, James has told me it's up to me to write this one as I have not written a blog in ages. So here goes!

Well back in England way before we left James was getting giddy because he'd worked out we would be down-under by the time the rugby league world cup was on (the best sport to watch ever). So months in advance James had looked up when the matches would be on and with his old work colleague -Jamie, had arranged to meet at the England v New Zealand match in Australia on Saturday the 8th of Nov and go together. Jamie and his girlfriend Michelle are big Leeds rhino fans as well and since quite a few of the rhino's player are in the England squad and my favourite player ever Rob Burrow was playing, I was very keen to go.

Luckily due to great bosses we were able to take Friday off as well and pop over to Oz for a long weekend. (It is so weird thinking of popping over to Oz. I still think that it should be the other side of the world). We arrived on Friday morning and checked into the backpackers hostel - It was very good and clean! So far on our travels i have not found a hostel I didn't like. It was also very central in Sydney, which was fantastic as it meant everything was within walking distance (not so good for James, who after the marathon had found that he had badly sprained his foot and although the adrenaline had masked the pain on race day he was in masses of pain for 2-3 weeks and it was especially painful walking round Sydney for 3 days). We went and met Jamie and Michelle straight away and walked to the port and took photos of the bridge and opera house and then went to a bar and had a lovely lunch. We walked over the bridge and checked out the other side and just enjoyed catching up with friends (the first people we've seen from our life in England) and being tourists in a new city. It was hot and i managed to burn myself even though i was wearing sun tan lotion. That evening we went to a pub with live music which was very good and James in his cheerful state took loads of random pictures of the the band.

Saturday arrived and we did some more sightseeing and went to a market then we got on the coach to go to Newcastle to watch the match.

The match was good and I loved the build up and picking out some of the Leeds players. I had never been to international match in any sport and it was a great buzz. We were in the stands mixed together with the Kiwis and there was a friendly atmosphere and banter. There was a couple and the wife was a Kiwi and the husband was English and they bickered throughout the match and made everyone laugh.

England lost the match but I think James and me didn't find it too sad as what better team for them to lose to than our new home team, and they went onto thrash the Ozzie's in the final to take home the world cup, yay!!

We said our goodbyes to Jamie and Michelle after the match. They were moving on up the country to Cairns in the morning, so they would be in place to watch the next game on their world cup tour.

On Sunday James and me caught a ferry over to Manly and had fish and chips on the beach and probably burnt ourselves some more while watching people surf and skim board (James particularly like one lads skills and took some sneaky photos) before catching our plane home to New Zealand.

All in all a good weekend, but we're both in agreement we made the right choice moving to NZ instead of Oz and we're glad to be home!!