Off to the farm for a Commonwealth summit

From Canada, meet the Jackson family: Khye, Howard, Cody, Kent, Janice and Colt. These were our wonderful hosts for the weekend. Janice is also on the teaching exchange programme, at a school in Griffith. She and Rachel met each other during our last visit to Sydney and we renewed acquaintances at their farm (for the year), about a 20-minute drive from Griffith itself.

Our car grew a beard on the three-hour journey from Albury to Griffith. Some of the not-so-main roads in New South Wales are littered with lightweight balls of dry grass blowing across the tarmac and we drove through a pile that must have been two feet high. No damage was done though.

The boys were so much fun, from the moment we arrived. While Howard and Janice went grocery shopping in town on Saturday, we stayed with Khye, Colt and Kent (above) while they finished their slushies. One of the food-court staff praised Rachel and I for the cleanliness of our table and our well-mannered children. We accepted the compliments without argument.

On Saturday evening, we were all joined for 'supper' by Cook and Cass, Australian friends of the Jacksons, and another English family who have recently moved to the Griffith area - permanently. This truly was a Commonwealth summit.

Sunday was a relaxed affair - as Sundays should be.

It was back to school for Janice and the boys on Monday morning, with Rachel also making an early start to spend time in the classrooms and observe the Griffith style of teaching. After visiting the library in town, I discovered the world's second-best sandwich shop where I purchased this magnificent roll filled with sliced beef, boiled egg and coleslaw. How better to accompany the sport sections from The Sydney Morning Herald (top) and The Australian (bottom)?

Once lunch was done, I parked outside the school and took a seat in Cody's Year 6 classroom for the afternoon Art lesson. Cook (sorry, Mr Cook) is the regular teacher but they had an Art specialist taking the class, which involved etching a design onto polstyrene - or some similar material - and making paint prints of it. My design was a Union Jack, Cody's a hockey stick. Do you think it was obvious who the foreigners were?

Of course, homework was on the agenda when we all got home. I helped Khye practice his counting - from one to 30 - and his letter sounds. Teachers, is this what you call 'phonics'?

Lots of cricket was played across the weekend. The garden served as an excellent square and the Jackson boys certainly belied the fact they'd been complete newcomers to the sport three months ago. The big kid in the yellow t-shirt spent much of the weekend batting, bowling and fielding too.

Colt (centre) ran evening farm tours on the quad bike, driving us out to the field where two horses lazily munched the grass. Away from the farmhouse, there was a real danger of multiple mosquito bites, so we went big on the bug spray before setting off. Khye rode up front as the co-pilot.

The whole Jackson family made us feel so welcome, they were so generous and you can expect to see them featuring on the blog again before this year is through.

We set off while it was still dark on Tuesday morning, headed for Cootamundra to meet our Albury football (soccer) team for the regional trials. In the photo, 12 of the 14 boys are from Albury and two were extra players from Young who joined us on the day. Of three pool games, the boys won one and drew two. Six were chosen to play in the 'Possibles v Probables' game at the end of the day and two made it through to the Riverina area squad which will play in Gosford (north of Sydney) at the New South Wales festival in May. For a group of lads from seven different schools who were only brought together two weeks ago, they played like a true team and did Albury - and us - proud. It was a privelege to coach them and see them develop even in such a short time frame. I may even help out the Riverina manager at the festival.

IN OTHER NEWS...

I am hopefully a step closer to picking up work after registering with two more recruitment agencies. One in particular seems significantly more proactive about getting me sorted.

We watched the grand final of My Kitchen Rules last night. It's a cooking show which draws the second-largest TV audience in Australia, a bit like Masterchef but more hyped up. We watched it most evenings and can thoroughly recommend it (if it ever gets broadcast abroad).

My best mate, Ed, is visiting Australia with work at exactly the time Rach and I are going to be away on holiday - gutted! But he and his wife, Helen, have another - longer - stay planned later in the year and we will definitely see them then. Other friends and family are also planning holidays to see us which is very exciting.

A winning Formula

Welcome back to our Australian adventure. We've been here for two months now and I hope you're still enjoying following our progress.

I want this blog to be an honest reflection of our time Down Under. I'm aware that most of the time it equates to our 'Best Bits', as the times we have the camera with us are those when we have stuff planned - mainly at the weekends. We have already met some awesome people and visited some spectacular places. Sport has featured a lot - as you'd expect. But the day-to-day stuff doesn't get highlighted that often. Rachel is doing well at her school, although teaching in a completely new place of course throws up regular challenges. I am still looking for work, which isn't ideal. I miss my work back home - not that I left a job to be here - so I need perseverance and patience in equal measure. Most of our friends, reading this, are thousands of miles away. But the internet makes the world a smaller place and your emails, skype calls, Facebook messages and tweets are a lifeline. Oh, and letters. Rachel loves getting letters!

A load more photos have just gone up on the front of our fridge-freezer. Are you on there? Click to enlarge the pics.


So, onto the blog itself. I was fortunate enough to watch the practice sessions at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on Friday. I travelled by train from Albury, which 'boasts' one of the country's largest covered platforms. Having bought my ticket, I was told the train was running 'a tad late'. An hour late, in fact. So that's why I had enough time to read up on station trivia...

The train journey itself was very smooth. They announced over the intercom that hot meals would be served, read out the menu and staff then came to take our orders. Does this happen anywhere on the UK rail network? I've certainly never come across it before. I went for the spaghetti bolognese, which was marginally cheaper than the chicken schnitzel and beef teriyaki. Superb service.

I spent the night at Rob & Jan Bell's house. In the morning, one train and one tram got me to Albert Park in good time. I was there before the gates opened at 10.30am.

The V8 Supercars (above) were a good aperitif before the main event - and they gave us a hint of the noise that was to come.

I got to watch the first practice session from the James Boag's Draught Superbox after entering an online competition earlier in the week. The scream of the engines was phenomenal and I quickly reached for the $2 earplugs I had bought on my way into the park. They were little more than two lumps of plasticine, though, and didn't stay in place, so I had to tough out the noise. Later in the day, I realised my iPod headphones were a decent alternative. It took a while for the action to get going, but by the end of the session all the cars were out and the track got pretty busy.

Away from the track, there was a 15-minute freestyle display by a touring group of dirt bike riders called the Crusty Demons. The guy with the mic revved up the crowd and gave a running commentary while the bikers went through a series of 'daredevil' stunts. They were excellent value and their deafening soundtrack, which featured Darude and Limp Bizkit, further added to the experience.

As you can see, the weather in Melbourne wasn't fantastic. There were sunny spells, but when the rain arrived, it really lashed down. Away from the grandstands, there are limited covered areas. Some people huddled under umbrellas and ponchos, while I found shelter underneath the F1 simulator (like the ones you see by the beach) with a handful of other blokes. The ground quickly turned into a swamp and it made driving conditions pretty tricky too.

Really good crowds across the weekend, in excess of 300,000.

Jenson Button went on to win Sunday's race for McLaren.

This was my vantage point during the second practice session.

More food on the train home. This time, a Devonshire Tea. The only negative: dried fruit in the scones.

We hosted a meal for the first time when a group of friends from church dropped by Park Avenue. It was great to share our home with people who have been so welcoming since our arrival in Albury. Pictured (left to right) are Gemma, Ray, Amanda, Cameron, Michelle and Rhi.

This brilliant little man (in green) is Zach, Cam and Michelle's son. Zach turns one at the end of March and although he's a man of few words - very wise - he's definitely nailed "ball", which suggests Australia has produced another sportsman of the future.

IN OTHER NEWS...

Rachel and I are taking a schoolboy football team, representing Albury, to a regional competition. Last week we ran trials for boys in Years 5 and 6, from schools across the city, and from a group of around 25 we selected a squad of 14. We will run a training session on Tuesday [March 20] before travelling to Cootamundra - Google it, it's a long poke - for the tournament seven days later. Early days, but thoroughly enjoying it so far.

Aussie Rules and public ovens

The floods have gone and the sun is back. Albury's weather changes have not been subtle during our time here. I expanded my Australian sport portfolio at the weekend by watching an Aussie Rules game for the very first time. Two of the professional AFL clubs travelled to Lavington (a 10-minute drive from our house) for a pre-season game. In white, Gold Coast Suns. In orange, Greater Western Sydney Giants.

Both clubs are young in AFL terms. GWS are making their debut in the competition this season and Gold Coast only have one year's experience under their belts. Nevertheless, the locals turned out in big numbers to support the game. There were still people queueing to get in at the end of the first quarter and the crowd was later announced as 6,740. In my mind, the game equated to QPR and Norwich playing a friendly in Maidstone.

I picked up the rules as the game unfolded. One thing which struck me was the vast expanse of the playing area and the fitness levels required in games comprising four quarters of 25 minutes. Even with 18 players on each side the oval is a huge area to cover. The Suns did manage to notch up a point inside the first 30 seconds.

Gold Coast score. Spot the ball. (click to enlarge)

I took up a different vantage point for each quarter. The Giants, who are looking to pick up members in the Albury area, did a good job of promoting themselves around the ground. You can see the kids' zone behind the bar area. The red and black box to the left is a cash machine, brought in by NAB (National Australia Bank), who sponsor the pre-season competition.

The two sides were pretty evenly-matched and it was a close contest throughout. Play became ugly and scrappy when it broke down in central areas but it was largely engaging, even for a complete outsider like me. The crowd were never furiously vocal, breaking into applause and muted cheers whenever GWS, the nominal home team, scored. The most enthusiastic man in the whole ground was the DJ, who had Lavington pumping to the beats of David Guetta for much of the afternoon.

The Giants came through to win by 13 points, their first victory as an AFL club. In the watered-down environment of pre-season, you can never really pass judgment on any aspect of a game (or the sport itself, in my case). I sense I need to watch a few games in Melbourne to experience the AFL in all its glory. But one stark difference, from football, was evident. The crowd was a fairly comprehensive cross-section of society, from young children and teenagers to couples, single blokes, groups of girls, and senior citizens. If the same is true at Aussie Rules games around the country, then the sport is definitely doing something right.

On Sunday, something completely different. Friends from church invited us to join them in Hovell Tree Park where two wood-burning ovens had been fired up for use, free of charge, by members of the public. Our inexperience of such occasions was glaringly obvious as we unwrapped a ready-made pizza from Coles supermarket. Catherine, married to minister Chris, showed exactly how it should be done. Home-made dough and a plethora of toppings (out of shot).

This man from the council, bearing a striking resemblance to France rugby union international Sébastien Chabal, manned the ovens.

His timing was impeccable, barely any food came out burnt. Aside from pizzas, people had brought loaves of bread to be baked, potatoes for roasting and even whole chickens. It was an education. And we will be back.

Flooding and faux hooliganism

Summer in Australia is definitely over. The rain has been crashing down for the best part of a week in our region and huge areas have been hit by flooding. In the last seven days, Albury has had 256mm of rain and we're grateful for a decent drainage system to keep the town moving. Elsewhere, they've not been so lucky. Some kids got trapped on Mount Buffalo (two hours south of us), which has had an incredible 525mm, while the papers have been full of nightmare stories and photos from waterlogged homes, roads and bush land elsewhere. The photo above, which appeared in the Border Mail on Friday, was taken in South Albury, two kilometres from our house.

The big story has been in Wangaratta, an hour's drive south-west of Albury. Two of the big AFL clubs from Melbourne were due to play a pre-season game there on Saturday and 10,000 tickets had been sold. St Kilda travelled up by bus on Friday night but Essendon waited until Saturday and flew. Their plane couldn't land at Wangaratta or Albury Airports, so they had to turn round and go home. Real shame for the local Aussie Rules fans and generally a big mess.

We spent the weekend in Melbourne with Rob and Jan Bell. You may remember them from our first Australian blog post. Despite the drizzly weather we ventured out to a spot called Arthurs Seat (above), south of the city at the lower end of Port Phillip Bay. We had lunch, bought some pic-n-mix sweets and marvelled at the intricate topiary of the Enchanted Maze Garden.

Down a steep, twisty mountain road to the beach. We couldn't believe these lifeguards had really put the flags out to mark the safe swimming area on such a grim day.

Back at the Bells' I booked tickets for the A-League game between Melbourne Victory and Newcastle Jets at AAMI Park. This was to be our first taste of Australian 'soccer'. We caught the train into the city, both wearing green rain jackets borrowed from our hosts.

Victory are by far the best-supported club in the league, averaging gates of 21,000. This was a must-win game if they were to have any chance of dragging themselves into the top-six and reaching the end-of-season finals. Managed by former Ipswich boss Jim Magilton, they have under-achieved big time this season and I was intrigued to see them for myself.

We sat with the noisier element of the home support behind one of the goals. The away fans were segregated into the far corner of the ground, but there even appeared to be factions and cliques within the Victory supporters. A group behind us held banners and chanted 'back row hooligans' while those you can see in the picture above waved banners, flags and scarves and were whipped into a semi-frenzy by an abominable character yelling into a megaphone. Around us, the range of accents - and even languages - was extensive. The British expats brought a touch of gallows humour to proceedings, eastern Europeans broke into sporadic song, an Irishman hurled abuse at the referee and the young Australians towards the front of the stand flitted between chants from all nations. In their search for footballing identity, Victory have aimed somewhere between the Premier League, Serie A and the more hostile outposts of the Champions League atlas, falling painfully short of them all. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but the biggest football club in Australia could do worse than concentrate on being simply 'more Australian'. It was easy to see why the A-League will never rival the AFL. Three bottles, thrown in the general direction of their own goalkeeper, was a low point on an afternoon when Melbourne Victory did themselves no favours on or off the field.

A 3-1 defeat effectively ended Victory's season, with Newcastle - who occupy sixth spot - putting further distance between the pair. Harry Kewell boshed home this penalty to make it 1-1 but the Jets had scored twice more before he missed from the spot on the stroke of half-time. A former colleague of mine covered the League Two clash between Oxford United and Swindon Town later that day and I would suggest we both watched a similar standard of football. There were 12,457 inside AAMI Park and 11,825 at the Kassam Stadium, for a game in the fourth tier of English football. Nowhere else in the world does the love for any sport run so deep.