Gav’s Blog - Gavin Hudson’s Blog

Hey everyone, thanks for all the emails and the St. Valentine’s Day greetings, very nice (Yes Jon, I still love you pet, don’t worry!) and always nice to hear about what you’re up to back home. I’m still having a great time in Sydney; I’ve moved hostels from the very clean and nice YHA (but a bit dull) to the Wake Up! Which comes highly recommended - both near central station in Sydney. Aaanyway.

Sydney’s a really good city, lots and lots of English around, but still plenty of places to go and meet locals, and the natives seem pretty friendly towards us residents of the mother country and not at all fed up with the amount of us over here. I suppose it’s a bit of a swap from them coming over to London - and yes, you do see plenty of Pommies behind bars here! Seriously though, people just seem dead friendly and happy - it’s like all the nice people from England with few of the idiots and a lot less of the aggression. People chat to you in bars, and introduce themselves rather than that awkward English thing of never asking anyone’s name. Everyone here seems to be on a working holiday visa, and few people seem to have any problem finding all sorts of work, as well as getting apartments, it just seems that sort of place where you take someone’s word that they’re clean or good at working, rather than spending 3 weeks checking out references when you could all have been doing something more useful!

On Thursday we went to Manly (We being me and a couple of Norwegian guys, Jørgen and Henrik) by taking the 45 minute ferry ride across from Sydney harbour. The ferry journey itself was great and value for money at £6 return. Manly is a really nice little town with a surfy vibe, and feels a bit like how I’d imagine 1960’s California to feel, with its wide central street, old looking art-deco houses and shops and a fantastic beach. It’s a popular place for ex-pats to stay, and I can see why.

Thursday night there was a big party – it was all good fun, but not really for public consumption! Highlights included bumping into my sister Vicky’s best friend from 8 years ago, who I probably hadn’t seen for about the same time, and another of the girls, Christina wearing a matching shirt to mine, which made me feel a bit special at the time. It was a 60’s free love party, if you’re wondering, and whilst the love wasn’t free as such, there seemed to be plenty going around and there was also a free barbeque, so everyone was happy!

Yesterday (Friday 15th Feb) I went to one of the worlds’ great cricket grounds, the SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground) to watch New South Wales against Victoria in the Sheffield Shield/Pura Cup competition. This is the premier domestic competition in the world in the long form of the game, between the two best teams, and I’d say there were less than 300 people there, all told at the SCG! It’s the same everywhere where people just seem to want to watch the crash bang wallop* of one day cricket, but it seems a real shame, especially as it was only £3 to get in, and the cricket was some real top quality stuff on a nice sunny day for working on that tan! It was a great days play and I saw Brad Hodge get a fantastic 118 for Victoria, only ended by what can best be described as a shocker of an umpiring decision when he looked well set for a double ton, ably supported by David Hussey at the other end who got 87 in a 190 run partnership for the 3rd wicket. All in all a great day, helped by a few beers and also by watching England beat the Kiwi’s and Australia beat Sri Lanka, including a very emotional ton by Adam Gilchrist at his last ever game at his home ground. He’s got to be just about the greatest wicket keeper to play the game, and a true gent too – always walking when he was out rather than waiting for an umpire to make a decision. He’ll be missed and even this bloody Pom was glad to see him get his hundred.

Tonight I’ve got a rather intriguing party to go to – we’ll see how that works out! – And then tomorrow (Sunday) I’m off to Melbourne for a few days before I head over to New Zealand. I booked my flights only yesterday, and to save the 12 hour bus journey the flight only cost about £55, which is less than a late booking on a train down to London from Manchester would cost! I don’t know an awful lot about Melbourne, except that it’s where Neighbours is filmed and that it’s supposed to be a nice City – I’ll tell you in a few days I suppose!

Right, take care – as always it’s good to hear from you, so keep the emails coming, and have a look at the photos on the side there. TTFN!

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