Melbourne

We stayed for two days with Caron, Michael, Claire and Ryan who were incredible hosts. Not only did the arrange for a double mattress to be brought in for us and provide us with chocolates and other treats but they also bought us tickets to the Commonwealth Games. They tempted us with the perfect family life - a Victorian house, picket fences, 2 lovely children and 2 cute cavalier spaniels called Eva and Milly. (Ricky thinks we can maybe manage pets when we finally get home). Thank you Caron and Michael for having us while Ryan was still trying to figure out what planet earth is and how he got there, Claire was trying to ensure nobody had forgotten her and Milly and Eva were having to resign themselves to a further step down the pecking order. You really spoilt us rotten, and while it was only two days, by the time we left we were starting to feel part of the family.

Melbourne is a beautiful modern city with a number of controversial modern designs of questionable aesthetic appeal, but at least it’s courageous enough to try. Melbourne was hosting the Commonwealth Games and the city had been turned into a giant festival full of plays, musicians, mimes, walking puppets, galleries, and more. There was so much to explore. Thanks to Caron and Michael’s generosity, we were lucky enough to attend the Commonwealth Games in the MCG stadium. While we were somewhat sceptical at first, we were soon swept up by the atmosphere of the stadium, the crowd and the cheering. We were standing there shouting “South Africa!” when we won gold in the men’s shot-put and silver in the woman’s 100m. It was an awesome experience with a scintillation 5000m finale during which Kenya managed to hold off Australia.

While generally the Ozzies were very friendly and helpful, the Ozzies partisan TV coverage of the games was extremely irritating. When SA won the gold medal in the swimming for the relay, the coverage only showed Australia receiving the silver medals - forget about the rest. They were quick to suggest that if Thorpe had swum, they would have won. This was typical of all events. Their commentators never showed any sportsmanship towards any other competitors and nor did they acknowledge other nations achievements.