One Day Cricket

It hasn't been a good summer for Australian cricket. Losing the Test series and one day series to South Africa, the Chappell-Hadlee series against New Zealand offered a chance for redemption. But Australia was 2-1 down in the best of 5 series coming into Game 4 at Adelaide Oval today.

I took a day (well afternoon/evening) off from unpacking to spend the day at the cricket. Given it was a Tuesday, the crowd was small, but the weather was fine and the view great from the southern hill.

The flags were all at half mast in memory of those who died over the weekend in the tragic Victorian bushfires. All proceeds from today's game went to the Bushfire Appeal.


Here's the Australian team observing a moment's silence before the start of the game.

New Zealand won the toss and batted first. Here's Nathan Bracken (Australia's current best one-day bowler) going through the motion.

These balls reach almost 100 mph!

This is the famous Adelaide Oval scoreboard, which has resisted modernisation over the years. Everything you need to know about the state of the game is on the board somewhere. What's unusual about this photo is some yobbo who's climbed on top of the bar in front of the scoreboard to rescue an inflatable toy they'd been throwing around. He got up there quickly, but took more than 10 minutes to get back down.

New Zealand recovered to score an impressive target of 244 runs.

Here's the show that was put on as the sun set. The flight path to Adelaide airport passes just to the north of the Oval and you get a great view coming in.

Australia came into bat and started well, but lost some quick wickets, including a ridiculous run out of the in form Brad Haddin by David Hussey. Fortunately he focussed and got on with the game and lead Australia towards victory.

The electronic scoreboard next to the 'old' scoreboard is used to graphically display when something goes on.

There's also a third umpire who uses video to determine the result of a near decision with the help of the 20 million cameras situated around the ground. We waited anxiously for this decision near the end of the innings.

YES!

And Australia comfortably won, with a 6 winning the game with 10 balls to spare. No problem.

It's Here

Our sea freight has finally arrived. Lots of boxes, just when we had fit everything into the house, another 124 items show up! We'll be living with boxes again for another few weeks!

Hot in the City

After making comments to friends how pleasant the first few weeks back have been, summer has hit. Yesterday was 43.7 (110), the hottest day in Adelaide for 5 years. And today, with a forecast of 44 (110) again, we hit 45.7 (114), the hottest day in Adelaide for 76 years. And the forecast for the next 4 days is above 40 (104) and above 38 (100) for the next week!

Back to School

3 weeks and 1 day after we hit Adelaide, the kids went back to school. And there was much rejoicing. Didn't help it was already 36 degrees (97F) when we took this photo at 8:30 this morning. But the kids had a great day at school, catching up with their friends.

Australia Day

"Australians all let us rejoice for we are young and free."

Today is Australia Day, the day we celebrate the arrival of the first fleet in Australia in 1788.

The tradition is to have a BBQ and we did just that today at a friend's place today, with a pool as well. The kids didn't leave the pool all day apart from time to eat.

Tour Down Under

This week the Tour Down Under has been held on the roads of Adelaide and neighbouring hills. It is Australia's version of the Tour de France and this year had extra impact with the return of Lance Armstrong to professional cycling.

As part of the Tour, their is a day where anyone can ride the same course (or part of it) on the same day as the professionals. The bike group that I used to ride with before heading to the US (and will again once my bike arrives back) known as Mud Sweat and Gears entered as a team and had over 50 members riding, as young as 11 and as old as 83. There were three distances available - the full 155km, 97 kms or a 30 km loop. The majority of our riders did the 97kms.


Here's the group photo for the group doing the 30 km ride.

The jerseys look cool, especially with the team name on the back.

On the way to the ride.

The finish line for today in Angaston in the Adelaide Hills.

Some of the team's riders as they approached at the end of the ride.

A family affair.

This guy had an L plate on the front. At to make it even better, a photo taken of him made it to the front page of the Advertiser.

Some of the team still had enough energy to celebrate their completion of the course.

The gentleman in the middle of this picture is 83, and did the 97 km ride. He was the center of a story on the local current affairs program earlier in the week.

We even had a foreign import from northern California who found out via the internet about the ride and joined us (there were also a couple from England but one was an expat Australian).

This gentleman currently reads the weather on the local television channel, but found time to do the ride with our team.

The group photo (although there were still a few missing/AWOL at the time).

The weather was perfect for the ride and the scenery through the Barossa Valley was spectacular. I'll be riding next year.

We're Here!

We touched down on time, with ALL our luggage in sunny Adelaide to be greeted by a host of thousands (well tens) of family and friends. Great trip, but a long time from Rome to Adelaide (about 40 hours!), wiht 14 hours in the QANTAS Club in Hong Kong.

More later!