The Ashes - 4th Test: The MCG

Day 1 - We attended the first day of the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground with Anna, Jamie and Richard. We had unintentionally purchased seats in the infamous 'Bay 13' section of the ground. And with a crowd of over 84,000 we were expecting a raucous atmosphere.

Aside from the cricket, one of the most entertaining spectacles inside Australian grounds involves inflatable beach balls. The grounds strictly prohibit beach balls and to the amusement of the crowd, very-serious-stewards chase the balls as they are slapped around the ground. We decided that the Boxing Day Test was the perfect day to finally release our Malaysian inflatable strawberry - you can see it in the photo below causing great concern to two onlooking stewards!

England had a great day in the field and bowled Australia all-out for 98 runs. This was a record lowest score for any Australian side against England at the MCG and did much to silence the Australian fans.

Day 2 - Mark attended with Richard and they sat in the top tier to enjoy some spectacular views of the game.

The unpredictable Melbourne summer weather was in full evidence as they sat shivering through the morning session, and needed sun cream for the last few hours of play. England had another great day, closing play at 444-5.

Day 3 - Mark and Richard plunged themselves into the crazy world of the Barmy Army as England continued to dominate the game.

Day 4 - Meg was back on the fourth day of the test as England took the final three Australian wickets to retain the Ashes. We sat with the Barmy Army and enjoyed a great party inside the stadium.

Most of the Australian fans had stayed away. And with the England supporters all grouped together, an amazing echoing atmosphere was created as we sang songs about England, the Barmy Army, Ricky Ponting and the unfortunate Mitchell Johnson.

After the game had ended, we stayed inside the stadium for over an hour singing. The players then did a lap of honour, followed by their unusual 'Sprinkler Dance' in front of us.

Due to our proximity to the Barmy Army, we feature in a few press photographs of the crowd.

After the game we headed into the city to the Barmy Army's 'headquarters' for a celebratory drink and a few songs.

Throughout the last few weeks, Mark's likeness to England cricketer Paul Collingwood has been stated by an astounding number of cricket fans. Meg has been congratulated for marrying 'Colly' and we were allowed to bypass the queue for a bar after a group of English fans outside began chanting "Colly" and patting Mark on the back! With all this constant adulation it was no surprise to find somebody trying to impersonate Mark. A doppel-doppelganger!

Two Collys together was always going to spell trouble for somebody. And sure enough, a few minutes afting finding each other, they teamed up with Richard to highjack a national news report on the Barmy Army. Below is a photo of the story - if you want to see the full report click on the link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtube_gdata&hl=en&v=j0vD5VB_QWI&gl=US

Ballooning over the Yarra Valley

Our first activity in Melbourne was a sunrise hot air ballooning trip over the Yarra Valley wine region - a 30th birthday present to Mark from his father. We were staying with Meg's cousin Anna, and her husband Jamie, who had kindly given us use of their car for the morning. After very little sleep, we set off from the city at 3:30am to make the one hour journey.



Upon arrival, Mark enthusiastically offered his assistance with inflating the balloon. This basically involved holding the mouth of the balloon open while air was blasted inside and then heated.

There were two other balloons taking flight from the same field and we watched as they majestically inflated. The balloon nearest to us had the message "Will you marry me?" on its side. This was concealed from the 3rd balloon until they had taken flight. It then rotated to be in full view of the 3rd balloon, at which point a marriage proposal was then made in the 3rd balloon.

Meg joked that this was arguably more romantic than dressing in a bear suit, getting down on a furry knee and using a cheese string. Fortunately Mark was unable to hear over the incredible noise of the burners!

Prior to our flight, there had been severe rainfall over Victoria which had cleared the air for great views from our balloon. However it had the disadvantage of making the fields extremely boggy ... as we would later find out!

We flew for over an hour, rising and falling to catch the different winds at each altitude. We had great views of the vineyards below, and the sun rising over the hills.

What had looked like a prime landing spot from 2000 feet, turned out to be a swamp from six feet! After landing we were enlisted to assist with deflating and packing up the huge balloon, and then lifting balloon and basket onto a nearby trailer. This took about an hour and left us with squelching shoes. Nonetheless, it was actually quite good fun and worked up a healthy appetite for our champagne breakfast back at the lovely Chateau Yering.

The Ashes - 3rd Test: The WACA

From Adelaide we flew 2000km to Perth and touched down in the last of the eight Australian states / territories. We were beginning to get an appreciation of the vast size of this country having covered some huge distances to pass through them all (Queensland, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, Tasmania, Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia).

The third test of the Ashes series was taking place at the WACA (Western Australian Cricket Association) ground and with England 1-0 ahead and the Australian team in apparent disarray we were confident of another victory.

We attended Day 1 with Mark's friend, Richard, who had travelled out from England for the Perth and Melbourne tests. We travelled to the sold-out venue without tickets and were fortunate to obtain great seats in the Inverarity Stand for their original cover price.

As with the Adelaide Oval, the WACA ground has a manually-operated scoreboard which gives the ground good character. England had a great morning and had taken 4 wickets by lunch. They made slower work of the Australian tail but managed to bowl them all out for 280 runs with 15 overs of the day remaining. England's opening batsmen then came in and managed to survive until the close of play for 30 runs.

The next day we headed to Fremantle on a pilgrimmage to the Little Creatures brewery. Having finally discovered an Aussie beer which actually has some flavour we thought we ought to pay them a visit and show our gratitude! Unfortunately, with one ear glued to our portable radio we were disappointed to hear that the England cricket team were falling apart without our support.

While in Perth we stayed with Mark's cousin David, his wife Abby and their two daughters Jasmine and Bethany. On Saturday we went for lunch and somehow found ourselves in an English-style pub watching cricket. Unfortunately the England collapse continued, which was even more frustrating as we all had tickets for the fourth day of the test.

Day 4 turned out to be a disaster for England and within 45 minutes of the start of play it was already over, with Australia winning the test and levelling the series at 1-1.

Next stop Melbourne for the Boxing Day Test at the imposing MCG.

The Ashes - 2nd Test: Adelaide Oval

Next stop on the Ashes tour was Adelaide in South Australia. We had tickets for Day 2 of the cricket which went very well for England. The Australians had been bowled out on Day 1 for 245 and we watched as England made over 300 runs for a loss of just 2 wickets.


We went to the game with Meg's cousin Sam who is over from the UK working at a high school in Adelaide, and his Australian friend Nick. We watched the day's cricket from the general admission grass bank which provided no shade from the scorching heat of 39'C.


The Adelaide Oval is a beautiful cricket ground and its centrepiece is its 100 year old scoreboard. The board is four-storeys high and requires at least six people inside to keep score during a cricket test.

In the afternoon we spent a session in with the Barmy Army singing Jerusalem and God Save "Your" Queen. It was all good fun and invited some amusing Australian responses.

Mark's friend Travis was also in Adelaide visiting his brother's family and we spent some time on the beach (in the rain - see photo below) and in a few bars and restaurants in the nearby area of Glenelg.

From Adelaide we headed off in a camper van to visit the Barossa wine district and then down the Yorke Peninsula. Due to some budgeting concerns we decided to take things easy and disappear into the bush for a few days to read, relax and recharge our batteries for the next leg of our journey.

After a few days in the Innes National Park at the southern tip of the Yorke Peninsula we made our way back towards Adelaide.

Central Australia

Next stop on our tour was the iconic outback town of Alice Springs within the vast red desert and barren rocky ranges of the Northern Territory. On our first day in the 'Red Centre' we travelled to Uluru (Ayers Rock) and walked the 9km perimeter of the monolith.

After a peaceful walk around the rock we headed to a nearby vantage point to watch the sun set over Uluru. To be honest the vast numbers of other tourists lining up to spectate, combined with heavy clouds meant that the sunset didn't really live up to expectations. We then headed to a nearby camping ground to have a beer and a bbq, and a sleep beneath the stars inside 'swags'. These were basically a waterproof sleeping sack which we unrolled directly onto the red sand.

The next morning we woke at 4.15am and headed back in to the national park to a secluded spot to watch the most beautiful sunrise over a silhouetted Uluru. The sky changed from red to gold in spectacular style and completely made up for the previous evening's sunset.

Next stop was Kata Tjuta where we did an early morning walk through the Valley of the Winds. The scenery was awesome and we felt like we were walking through the filmset of Land of the Giants or Jurassic Park.

Having woken early we managed to complete the walk before it became too hot. We did however need to take some fairly drastic measures to keep the flies away!

After a second night in our swags we were back on the road to walk through Kings Canyon before visiting a camel farm to ride across the desert and back to Alice Springs.

Next stop Adelaide for more cricket!