At Sydney Again, not Entirely Flawless Though!

Okay, so now when you read that title, did you think I had got a blow out, and was strandard in the outback for a short while, as the spare was also low??? well actually……. again what a great story that would have been…the only thing I can say is I did the full 14hr drive in one hit (i was so miffed at having to drive the bloody car back to Sydney), I jumped off the plane at brisbane airport and straight in the hire car and drove, fuelled by a drink called “Lift” and obviously “V”.

So far so good, I pulled up at a great hostel (not quite as good as Gilligans) called Wake Up in Sydney central, this was to be my home for two nights, before moving up the road to a place called “the maze”…..here is were the problems started…..when I say problems I don’t mean fights etc, the weather!

Okay now I am going sound very british here, but when you come Australia, you immediatly think sun, sea and sand, well okay yes I did….but alas we thought it rained bad in Manchester (okay up until the last month over there anyway) well I have never seen so much rain and it was “….big ol fat rain”, okay now your looking at this post confused, I mean its just rain right…okay? I can see what you saying, but keep in mind there has been a drought here for 8yrs or something, and the some of the reservoirs were only one third full, well they needn’t worry about them anymore.

Again you look confused….well this is what happened, I signed in to “The Maze” for a week….one to see the State of Origin game in the Sydney stadium and it looked a lively, yeah granted it was lively, but it was dank, dark, damp place, with no power sockets in the room and the constant smell of damp lingered without rest bite in the air, causing havoc with my asthma.

The first night came, rain battered the streets, people darting all over the place, to find what little cover they could, every street a wind tunnel, we took refuge in our room, after the compulsary beer or three, I drifted off to sleep.

Now there was dripping water in my dream, but it wasn’t in my dream it was coming from the window, and falling on a plastic bag I had on the floor, I must have left the window open…..I moved the bag and adjusted the window, obviously no noise now, then I heard a trickle, I clammbered out of bed and walked toward to noise, sure enough there was rain trickling in from the ceiling, so somewhat dazed I fumbeled for the light switch, the walls were wet! I found the light switch and switched it on….water was running down the walls, through the light fitting and a damp swamp was forming on the carpet, Barry woke…and the ceiling fell in heavily ladened with water, the swamp was now a river, with a waterfall and all!!

I grabbed the drenched back packs and chucked them on the bed!! so my jeans were wet but my backpack was drenched, I put on my jeans and we stormed down the stairs to reception, were politly (well not exactly) told of our disaster, to which were promptly moved over the hall way,water now seaping to the hallway carpet, frantically we chucked our stuff in our new room, damp and all and told the reception guy, that they would be paying for our washing!! To which he agreed….. and then continued to sleep.

Well sure enough, in the morning the manager inspected the water logged room, and gave us the money for the washing.

After that night, we ended up with chest infections….but that was not going to ruin my State Of Origin experience!! In case you don’t know, this is THE biggest rugby league spectacle, when the states of New South Wales and Queensland clash! Now I chose clash, as that is exactly what it is and to add to it I was going to watch it in the Sydney Stadium, 110,000 people stadium! What a night that was! Players, who usually week in week out play for same team split in to where they are from….you would not have thought that some of them play together!!! Only problem is I forgot my camera, we took pictures on Barry’s phone but alas he recently had his phone nicked!! Gutted!!!