Dear Cricket Australia,

Cricket has been a massive part of my life.  I love the game.  As a child I played whenever and wherever I could.  At 13 I attended my first Ashes Test, at the Oval in 1977, when Ian Botham made his debut.  As a teenager I would lie in bed in the middle of the night, listening to TMS commentary on matches from the SCG, the MCG, the WACA and other Australian grounds.  Visiting the SCG on Saturday was almost a pilgrimage, a visit to a sacred place.

For most, if not all of my adult life, Australia were the world’s best cricket team and it appeared as if its cricket administrators were the best, too.  Australia produced great cricketer after great cricketer, as if it did, actually, have a production line.  In 2005 your dominance over England was broken but the impression that you knew what you were doing continued.  As T20 cricket grew in importance, you developed the Big Bash.  The Indian Premier League may be an extraordinary phenomenon, driven by the vast TV money available for cricket in India but the BBL was, it seemed, the model T20 competition.  A better standard than the IPL, world class international players, great TV coverage and packed stadiums.  Even the ever so conservative English Cricket Board is considering copying your city based structure.

I’m lucky enough that my sons all, to a greater or lesser extent, share my love of cricket.  When looking to buy souvenirs of my time in your great country, one of them suggested that he would like a Sydney Sixers shirt (for the unitiated, the Sixers are one of two BBL franchises based in Sydney).  I was visiting the team store at the Allianz Stadium, immediately next door to the SCG, to buy a rugby T-Shirt.  The store has shirts and memorabilia from each of the Waratahs (rugby union), Roosters (rugby league) and Sydney FC.  It also had shirts for the Swans, who play at the SCG.  Sadly, no cricket stuff.  Nor is there a store attached to the SCG.  I was, it was suggested, better to try a store in the city.  The first store I was sent to had wall to wall replica shirts, of every sport you could imagine.  But no cricket stuff.  I could, sadly, have bought an Arsenal AFC shirt but no Sydney Sixers.  The same story at another store, though they would, I was told, be getting Sixers stuff in “nearer Christmas”.  That store did, it is fair to say, have a couple of Australian Cricket team tops on sale, and a fairly horrid flat billed Sixers cap.

The Big Bash is a great success.  Why is it so bloody difficult to buy a top and put money in your coffers?  Oh, and while I’m at it, that whole Mitch Marsh at number six thing?  It was very funny for a while but now even the English would prefer you picked a proper cricketer.

A view of the city and Opera House from Milson’s Point

Today was my last full day in Sydney.   Before arrival here I was concerned that my itinerary was unbalanced and that 9 days here was too many.  That I hadn’t allowed enough time in Tasmania, or Melbourne, or for the Great Ocean Road, or to enjoy Adelaide and its wine country.  I may well end up not having as long as I would like in any of those places but I’m very pleased I had the time I did in Sydney and I shall miss the city.

After yesterday’s trip to Newcastle I was tired and I hadn’t got the early night I had planned as I chatted to Nick for a while and then started to prepare my bags for tomorrow.  As a result, I allowed myself a lie-in before setting off to the Allianz stadium to buy a souvenir for my eldest son.  While at the stadium on Saturday I had taken some photos of team tops and sent them to him and he had chosen a Waratahs T-shirt.  I also hoped to pick up a Sydney Sixers (one of two Sydney sides that plays in the Australian T20 competition the Big Bash.  That was frustrated, as you’ll see from a seperate post.

On the way to the bus stop, I popped into a cafe that had caught my eye previously for breakfast.  It turned out to be a good choice:

With an excellent latte I had salmon fishcakes, poached eggs and a “superfood” salad, served with a single slice of some of the best smoked salmon I have ever tasted.  I’m pleasantly surprised how healthily I’m eating here and, more importantly, how much I’m enjoying it.  Finding a breakfast like this in Newcastle upon Tyne would be a minor miracle.  In Sydney, places like this seem to be on every street corner.

I took the bus to Paddington, which is the smartest stretch of Oxford Street:

and then walked down to the stadium.  Sadly, the store at the ground sold merchandise from the local rugby union, rugby league, Aussie Rules and football teams.  It did not stock anything related to the cricket teams, whether NSW, the Sixers or the Thunder (the other Big Bash side).  The extremely helpful attendant suggested a sports store in the city, so I headed into town.

After visiting a couple of sports shops, I walked up to the historic The Rocks quarter of Sydney.  This area lies at the south end of the Harbour Bridge and was one of the first areas of Sydney to be developed.

The Rocks now lies in the shadow of the bridge and the views of the Bridge from the Rocks drive home just what an enormous structure it is.

On a whim, I decided to walk across the Bridge to the other side.  The Bridge carries not just a six lane highway and a train line but also a dedicated cycle lane and a footpath.  From the footpath it is possible to enter the northern pylon and climb to the top.  From up there the views of the city were spectacular.

At the North end of the Bridge lies the suburb of Milson’s Point, where the Olympic swimming pool enjoys views of the Bridge and City.  It also has a couple of restaurants and I sat in one enjoying a soda and bitters and enjoying the view.

The pool is right by the Milson’s Point ferry stop, so I jumped on a ferry back to Circular Quay and walked up to the Opera House.  I had seen the Opera House frtom a distance and had walked up to it on Monday.  I hadn’t, however, realised quite what a complicated structure (or, as it turns out, structures) it is.  It’s a very striking and quite beautiful building, its compliacted shapes really appealing to the mathematician in me:

So that was my last day in Sydney.  I’m planning to eat tonight in a Vietnamese cafe that the lads in the house recommend and may post on that, if it’s memorable, and I may reflect later on my time here but I have loved this and will miss Sydney.  Next stop, Bridport TAS.  I imagine I’ll notice a contrast!

The flight booking company I used to book flights and hire cars for this trip (well worth using, by the way, they managed to save me £100s on what I had found myself on the internet) had booked all my flights with Quantas, which brought an added bonus.  Quantas have a baggage allowance of 30kg, which can be split between as many items as you like.  That meant that I could get my clubs and a small suitcase within the limit, so avoiding the need to pay extra for the clubs.

This meant I had to pack economically.  Inevitably, that means I got it horribly wrong.  I brought two pairs of chinos, neither of which will see the light of day in Sydney and two pairs of golf trousers (again, entirely surplus to requirements here).  Two pairs of golf shorts was good but only one pair of casual shorts was not.  Just two t-shirts was stupid and why I brought two shirts is completely beyond me.

It was, therefore, with surprising pleasure that I saw this evening that the weather in Tasmania at the end of this week will be much cooler than Sydney and that there is likely to be some rain.  I may actually get to wear some of the stuff I brought!

Mereweather Beach, Newcastle.  Just like Whitley Bay.

Newcastle Golf Course was founded in 1905 and is regularly rated in the top 20 courses in Australia.  The city of Newcastle is a couple of hours North of Sydney and is in an area known for coal mining.  Newcastle Harbour is a very substantial harbour from where coal from the immediate area and from the Hunter Valley is shipped.  Away from the harbour Newcastle is also something of a seaside resort.  The golf club is actually located in the suburb of Stockton, reached by crossing a bridge across the harbour.  The theme of taking names from North Eastern English towns continues outside Newcastle, where the towns of Hexham and Morpeth sit.

Scott had arranged to avoid the worst of the morning city traffic by picking me up from the northern suburb of Pymble, which is on one of the main commuter lines into Sydney.  I got the train out while he battled the traffic.  At Pymble I had time to find a cafe and order breakfast:

A wonderful combination of tomatoes, chorizo and bacon, topped with a couple of eggs and baked, served with a couple of slices of garlic bread.  A great start to the day!  Scott was delayed by heavy traffic, so I had a second coffee and took my time to finish.

From Pymble the drive was more straightforward and we arrived in Stockton only slightly later than our tee time.  The pro-shop staff were extremely accomodating (and, in one case, bizarrely impressed by the fact that Stockton and Newcastle were both towns in the North East of England).  We headed straight out for our round on what felt like the hottest day since I arrived in Sydney.

Newcastle GC was a treat.  Located on very sandy soil, close by the sea (but never in site) it is draped over wonderfully undulating terrain.  Unlike NSW it rarely plays straight over ridges but it does use the contours very cleverly.  A great example is the brilliant 5th hole:

The fairway here is steeply banked from right to left, before the banking reverses to left to right.

I had been concerned from some reports I had read and photographs I had seen that the original design of the course had been somewhat compromised by be being narrowed by corridors of trees.  I was delighted to find a course that never seemed too narrow (indeed, many of the playing corridors were deceptively wide but where there was, nearly always, a distinct premium for hitting the right part of the fairway.  There were, however, warnings of hazards I am not so familiar with on golf courses:

I was told by the pro shop staff that these warnings need to be taken very seriously. Snakes are frequently seen in some areas of the courses and the species here are extremely deadly.  Similarly I had been told yesterday at NSW that entering the scrub to look for balls was fine but it was advisable to take a club and make plenty of noise!  Scott recounted the tale of golf course architect Bill Coore, who had spent 10 days on the site of the Lost Farm course he and his collaborator Ben Crenshaw built in Tasmania (and where I will be on Thursday) walking the dunes while planning the routing of the Lost Farm course.  He later visited, with his wife, a museum where there was an exhibit about the local snakes, whose venom can be lethal within 10 seconds.  The exhibit ended with a recording of the noise the snakes make.  Coore apparently turned as white as a sheet as that noise was one he had been listening to for the past 10 days, without wondering what it was!  Fortunately today I played pretty well and rarely visited the scrub!

I’m delighted to report that my game continues to improve.  Scott (who is a pretty good 6 handicap) and I played a match and, although I never led after the first, we were all square on the 18th tee.  I then proceeded to three putt the 18th to lose the match but a round of 87 on a course I wasn’t familiar with, from the white tees and with a good breeze blowing was quite satisfying, despite the loss.

After the game we chatted with the club manager and discussed proposed changes to the course.  The plan is to sell off some land near the main road (on which the current 16th, 17th and 18th holes are located) for the construction of a supermarket and build new holes on land adjacent to the current 11th, 12th and 14th.  There’s no doubt that 16-18 are on the least interesting land on which the current course sits and the new land shares the wonderful contouring of the best parts of the current course.  A couple of other current holes (notably 1 and 11) will also be lost in the planned re-routing and both of these are good holes.  If done well, the changes could improve an already excellent course.  If not, then a currently superb course may suffer.

I was surprised (and somewhat disappointed) to learn that Newcastle Golf Club is short of members.  The area is not wealthy and there is much competition.  This is a course that would, I think, comfortably be top 50 in the UK.  It’s annual subscription (there is no joining fee) is the equivalent of less than £1000, significantly less than that at my home club in Newcastle upon Tyne.  Some of my friends compare golf courses with the ten round test.  Given ten rounds on either course, how would you split them.  In a comparison between my home course and Newcastle, it’s a 10-0 whitewash.

After a beer, we headed into Newcastle for a bite to eat.  We came upon the Mereweather Surfhouse, perched at the southern end of Mereweather beach (one of two fantastic beaches which Newcastle boasts:

where we sat on the balcony, which offered a fantastic view of the beach.

Scott enjoying a beer and the view

Sadly, we then had to head back to Sydney and say our goodbyes.  It has been great to catch up with Scott over the past week.  As with all really good mates the 6 years since we last saw each other seemed to disappear immediately.  That said, I hope (and intend) that it won’t be 6 years before we catch up again.