Tuesday 11th October brings to you Anchormen Kibble & Craven!
We are now 15 days into the trip and the team have gotten into a strategic routine! Up at 7am to the warm sunshine and birds singing, don the chinos and polo shirts and head down to the officers mess for breakfast.
At 9am the bus departs for our adopted training home Penrith Emus stadium, where without fail the pitch had been freshly hydrated in reclaimed water! Training started with us basked in sunshine. Normally this would be seen as a positive, however everyone had to endure Lance 'Hellboy' Tallet's honking rig in the flesh.
After some defensive run-throughs the forwards cut away to hit the scrummage machine 'Ard, while the backs kissed it off in the sun (again..... forwards opinion) from a backs point of view, we spent valuable time perfecting our trade!
'Big' Ben Gilpin finally decided he felt like training after 15 days of chinning it off and preceded to annihilate the scrum machine. The session was a productive short sharp session with valuable team run throughs preparing us for the big game Thursday!
In the afternoon a team of intrepid explorers headed for the blue mountains. Charlie the team bus driver decided to give us a sniff of the delightful views on offer in this picturesque part of the country, stopping at echoes point to view the spectacular Three Sisters rock formation also giving chance for Rory 'the flash master' Wood to have his picture taken with the local wildlife (an actual life-size koala)
After we prized Rory away from his new found friend we headed to our destination Scenic World Blue Mountains in Katoomba!
On arrival it became apparent who were the men and mice of the group when we had to climb aboard the world steepest rail train to descend the mountain side. On the way down Tom 'Cornbeef calfs/Lego hair' Gardner gave out noises only dogs could hear, much to the amusement of the group! (pic)
On reaching the bottom we followed a short nature trail through the eucalyptus rainforest, although only a short walk Ben Gilpin's exertions at training proved too much, and he was ably assisted along by 'Horse Face' Tallet.
The short trail lead to a cable car which returned us to the summit 300 meters above much to Karl 'Blackout' Craven's excitement, Charlie the car operator literally had to wrestle the safety bar from him. 1600hrs we started the return journey back to Glenbrook when Craven decided to entertain a section of the bus with his new found blackberry app '5001 knowledgeable facts' which turns out are not that knowledgeable and Jimmy 'skip rat' Bargett took it upon himself to share his fountain of knowledge with us instead!
On return to Glenbrook Marco-Pierre Williams, RAF Cook extraordinaire, fired up the barbie and we all enjoyed steak and sunset on the veranda, while Team 'Essence' had a sausage-fest!!!!!
Oh and as we write Tim 'coaches-head' Cocklan, 'Legohair' Gardner and Lloyd 'Quentin' Owen are wrestling each other in their pants!!
