Sydney Synopsis

Sydney:

With Sydney behind me, it is time to try and sum up my feelings, memories and experiences of the place that I called home for the past four months or so. My prevailing memories are good ones indeed; I had a fantastic time, a brilliant and totally worthwhile experience, something that I am truly glad that I did.
The people were great, in particular the lads that put me up for the majority of my time in Australia and were good friends to me throughout, but also Kaye and Alex, Jonny while he was there, ever single person who I met from Easts, Dan Bell, Michael Stevens, Craig and towards the end of the trip, Ashley. The place itself, wonderfully diverse; in many ways not overly dissimilar to London or other major world cities, although the proximity of Bondi Beach not to mention the number of delightful coves and bays that surround the city, set Sydney apart.
The cricket was also good; enjoyable, worthwhile and at times challenging. On the one hand I had hoped to play a slightly higher standard, to be truly challenged by and exposed to hard hitting, quick bowling, tough Australian cricketers – a stereoptype that truly truly exists from my observations of First Grade cricket; on the other hand I can be proud of myself for seeking out a good ‘grade’ club with a good reputation and terrific facilities, impressing at training and being immediately selected for Saturday cricket and rising rapidly through the grades, culminating in a century n my penultimate game for the club – something to remember me by.
Good piss in Sydney? I hear you ask. I had some big, some bad and some memorable nights out in Sydney. The concept of the schooner is one I failed to fully understand, but one I fully embraced, while it seems that Sambucca is a language spoken all over the world. The Fun Boat trip on Christmas Eve, Scu Bar nearly every Monday and a few good Saturday nights in the Argyle are particularly memorable, as is the rather disconcerting Sydney Mardi Gras parade and the night out that followed.
Any good sorts in Sydney? The answer would be yes. At Bondi the standard of girls was fantastic, full of beautiful, friendly, tanned, toned girls, more often than not the girls were so good looking it was intimidating, although that did not stop Jonny’s regular shouts of “cooo-weeee” at passing girls. Of the girls that I got to know a little better , few stick out in the memory. The American girl Kelly who introduced me as ‘Larry’ to all of her friends amused me, as did ‘Leatherhands’- so named because of her heavily tanned skin and her deceptive handshake which convinced Rupert that she had just handed him a briefcase. The ‘Swede’, Theresa was a constant thron in our side, appearing wherever we went, lingering awkwardly on the outskirts of our group, by the end of the trip she became less of an annoyance and more of a source of amusement; after Mark, the object of her affections, started seeing Michelle, Theresa would introduce a new man to us each time she saw us with the familiar line ‘this is my guy’.
Towards the end of my time away Mark met Michelle- quite possibly his ‘soul mate’, Tom met a slightly plump, slightly obsessive Canadian traveller named Ryla and I met Ashley. I don’t know whether to look on my time with Ashley as a missed opportunity, bad timing if you will, or that it was a nice ‘holiday romance’, fun while it lasted and all that. Nonetheless she was a great girl who genuinely made me laugh and I will keep in touch and am sad to leave her behind.
And so to New Zealand, when they finally allowed me to fly that is. A great country, it seems to be a blend of England and North America. Green and with a distinctly English climate it is sparse, remote and its cities few and far between. I am glad that I extended my trip via New Zealand, it would have been silly not to see this place, it is truly beautiful, even from the wrong side of an Intercity Coach window. As I write I’m sat in a Starbucks in Auckland, sipping a hot chocolate. These companies truly are multi-national; you can’t travel two miles without seeing a McDonalds or a Sunbway, even Woolworths are everywhere. In a strange way though, it is comforting, it reminds me of home a little. Home, I will be there soon. But not yet.