A golden trip to the Melbourne Museum

On the last day of my trip to Melbourne I decided to pay a visit to the museum and the one piece that stood out to me in the Melbourne Gallery section was the Welcome Nugget.

At today’s gold price ($1700 per ounce), the 2218 ounce nugget would be worth a staggering $ 3,700,000.

It just goes to show, there has been a Cornishman down just about every hole in the ground, where ever in the world you may go, whether they are mining the traditional tin and copper, gold, or even coal, the Cornish get everywhere.  

The Melbourne Cricket Ground, The first ODI Australia v India.

Being an avid cricket fan (much to the disgust of a lot of my friends), I had to visit the MCG at some point of time in my life, it is an amazing stadium if purely just for the vastness of the playing surface coupling with steep 3 tiered stands. 

The game itself was a good one, nothing amazingly special, some village moments from the Indians that would have been more at home at the infamous Clijah Croft. The Indian number 10 came out to bat and proceeded to put on his thigh pad out in the middle and that’s not to mention the fielding. A lot of the hype building up to the game was based around India’s T20 victory on Friday night stopping (now briefly) the rot of losses on the tour and could they build some momentum into the ODI’s. There was the talk about David Warner and the switch hit which he dispatched into the stands 108m away and was he going to do it again. Or would Tendulkar get his 100^th hundred at international level?

Matthew Wade scoring the first runs and Sachin going for the 100th Hundred.

The game itself was decided by some moments of brilliance batting from debutant Matthew Wade, and the 2 Hussey brothers who between them regularly dispatched the Indian bowlers to the fence after the rain delay. As the Indians came out to bat, chasing a decent total of 216 which wasn’t even rounded up due to the rain, Duckworth-Lewis what’s going on? Sachin Tendulkar came out to open up and he was greeted by a furore of cheering from the 20000 or so Indian fans out of the 30,000 attendance. It got me thinking about the atmosphere which was pretty amazing already even though the MCG was only at about a third of its 100,000 capacity, imagine going to a game either here or at Eden Gardens where the place is packed to the rafters with crazed fans wanting to see their idols? I think I will be coming back again as people say watching an Aussie rules game is amazing here too… 

Hopman Cup Perth 2012 Pictures Part 1

Caroline Wozniacki

More photos to follow tomorrow when I return from the golf course, bed time for me...

Hopman Cup Perth 2012

Hi all,

Sorry for the unexpected delay in recent posting, I could make up some blatant lie about technical difficulties or being too busy but quite frankly, I have just been too lazy (maybe a little bit busy also). In reality the FIFO (fly in, fly out) life of 9 days on site and 5 days off catches up with you and your quite busy on your 5 days break and in the blink of an eye lid they have passed. Especially when you’re trying to keep the meagre remnants of sanity from leaving you. Come on, who in their right minds flies for 4 hours on a small plane to a mine site in the middle of a desert with flies and dingo’s for company on a regular basis?

On my last couple of breaks, I have been in tennis mode, screw Wimbledon fever, I had definitely been gripped by the hype and excitement of the Australian Open build up and associated beginnings of the 2012 season. With the Hopman Cup being one of the social highlights to the Perth events calendar. I felt as an avid tennis fan I should attend and attend in style I did with tickets for the last round of matches on the Friday and the finals on the Saturday.

On the Friday I was treated to a good show between the Czechs and Danes which included a close game between the ladies world number 2 at the time and Wimbledon champion Kvitova and world number 1 Wozniacki. That was great to watch and to see Phill’s future wife in Wozniacki (sorry Rory McIroy) in real life again was a treat as she is a stunner, but just not as good as Kvitova on the court.

Friday‘s Matches

Match 1: Czech Republic v Denmark             (Petra Kvitova & Tomas Berdych v  Caroline Wozniacki & Frederik Nielsen)

Match 2: USA v Bulgaria         (Bethanie Mattek-Sands & Mardy Fish v Tsvetana Pironkova & Grigor Dimitrov)

On the Saturday we watched:

Czech Republic v France          (Petra Kvitova & Tomas Berdych v Marion Bartoli & Richard Gasquet).

That was pretty awesome too and seeing Gasquet unleash some ferocious single handed back hands. It was an awesome day out on the Saturday with the Frampton’s ending with Lucy Hopman’s speech and presenting the Hopman Cup to the Czechs was quite special. 

Also I reckon in the mens game the 3 below will have huge years and cause some big upsets and are future top 10 players. Definitely ones to watch:

Alexandr Dolgopolov

Bernard Tomic

Grigor Dimitrov

My Tanami Donga

For those of you who were wondering about the paradise that I live in up at Tanami...My flat.

Animals of the Tanami

On the way to work this morning, catching a lift with my south African friend we saw a kangaroo smack bang in the middle of the road!

They are rare up here so was quite a surprise and a hazard because the Kangaroo's are stupid and jump out on to cars.

Just 5 minutes later when I thought the safari was over as we got to the mine site gates, we saw the resident pack of dingos!

And I also saw a small owl while washing my ute this evening, so a successful wildlife day for me here at the Tanami.