Merry Christmas!!

We wish you a merry Christmas....from the Melbourne Airport! Though not as high-class as Singapore (free internet) there are still pay kiosks that allow us to check e-mail as we breeze through Melbourne on our way to New Zealand. We've had a great time thus far traveling with Heidi, Larry and Laurie and are looking forward to more adventures.

We have also learned a few things during our first 'hosting' experience here in Australia:

• The trams in Melbourne are actually very easy for visitors to use....once they find them
• There are NO kangaroos on Kangaroo Island in South Australia
• The wine in McLaren Vale is top notch and generally affordable
• There are more places open on Christmas Day than you would think in Adelaide
• The sun does actually shine in Australia during the summertime (however not often when guests are visiting)
• Having to kill time in airports is the same no matter which airport you are in
• Airport food is graded on a scale of 'nearly edible' to 'hasn't grown its own legs yet'
• There is absolutely no chance of a white Christmas in an Airport in Australia
• The radio stations in Australia are still fully functional through the holidays and do not break from their standard format for Christmas carols (we had to sing our own)

We hope you have a lovely Christmas and a happy New Year!

Happy Holidays

It has been a busy month for us here in Melbourne, and it has shown in our blog. Between work, Christmas parties (yes, they are still 'Christmas' parties here), looking for a new apartment, and planning for family visits and travel over the holiday break, it seems that we have been flat out over the last couple of weeks. That all topped with our home computer being on the fritz has helped us slide with our regular communications.

A quick update - work is work and it's taking up a vast majority of Josh's time now that he doesn't also have to focus on Ironman training; we enjoyed a 'Bollywood' Christmas party with Accenture at the National Gallery of Victoria, complete with body art and Tarot card readings; we had a lovely evening with the Arana crew at The Waterfront at Station Pier; and after looking at a couple of different apartments we've decided on one in St Kilda, and although it isn't as nice/big as what we currently have we hope that it will be a good location (and fortunately it does have a second bedroom and bath for visitors!)

Last night we welcomed some of the family - Larry, Laurie, and Heidi - to Melbourne after they spent a couple of days exploring Sydney. It's so wonderful to see them after a year! They will be staying with us until Saturday when we all head to South Australia (Kangaroo Island, which has recently been in the news due to major bush fires so we'll see what's left when we get there, and McLaren Vale, a very well known Australian wine region) and then on to New Zealand for a week. It should be great fun!

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Ironman Pics

The Ironman and WA Holiday pictures are up on flickr now for your viewing pleasure - but they won't have full comments/descriptions until later in the week. Enjoy!

More Than We Bargained For

Today we spent our last day of vacation in the Margaret River Valley of Western Australia (and yes, we were able to find last minute accommodation last night so we didn't have to sleep in the car!) Our day started with a beautiful drive through the Karri Forests, followed by a fantastic lighthouse tour at the southeastern most point of Australia (the tallest mainland lighthouse in Australia, the third tallest lighthouse overall). Then the rain started. We found soup for lunch at a local tavern and headed out for our drive back to Perth. We had planned in 2-3 hours for driving back to the airport, more than what should have been needed on a good day. Well, today was not a good day. There were massive rains that slowed traffic through our whole journey. As we neared the city we began to realize that making our flight was going to be near impossible. We were trying to stay calm and assess our options, and then traffic started stopping - brake lights everywhere - the car in front of us started skidding - and there we went - crashed right into a bright orange ute. And there were many more fender benders in front of us. Fortunately, there were no injuries and minor damage to the other car. Our rental had a ding in the bumper (which we've learned will probably cost us roughly 500 Euros!), but the time it took to exchange details and sit through the post wreck traffic sealed the deal for us missing the plane (mind you, we were running trying to get at least one of us onto the plane at the last minute, but it just wasn't happening). Luckily someone was watching over us today and, after all of the drama of the afternoon, an angel in the form of a Qantas ticketing agent helped us get things straightened away with our tickets so we can get home tonight with slightly less impact to the pocketbook than may have been required.

So now we have a 5 hour wait in the airport until our flight (yay for the Internet), and we will be getting into Melbourne in the early morning hours to face a quick turnaround and head to work - but at least we will make it home! We've done a lot of traveling in the past year and we have to feel lucky that we've managed to have all good experiences as long as we have - hopefully getting through this not so good one will set us on the right track for our many coming travels!

Well Thats Done

The brief update (for those that don't want to read comments) is that I finished Ironman Western Australia in a total time of 12hours, 37minutes and 16 seconds. My splits were roughly 1:10 for the swim, 6:10 for the bike and 5:15 for the marathon - throw in some extra for transition and rounding and there you go. Overall, things went really well - the swim was FANTASTIC and definitely a highlight of the day since I was expecting a 1:30-ish. The bike was tough, but I took it easy, stayed well hydrated and visited almost every single porta-loo on the course. The marathon was a different story though and I started off only 'ok' instead of 'good' and it went downhill from there. For quite a while I couldn't tell if it would be better or worse to just puke everything up or not - decided not and walked for a while to soothe the tummy. In the end I got it going again (slowly) and was able to enjoy a jog down the finish chute, high-fiving all the kids and cheerleaders that they had lining the finish. The sunburn souvenirs that I have are pretty interesting, and there are some lingering pains, but thanks to all the support from friends and family both near and far it was a journey I won't soon forget. I don't plan on repeating it anytime soon either (though my coach says I'll change my mind in a week)!

More pictures and such will be posted once we're back in Melbourne. For now, we need to figure out where we're staying tonight since our B&B misplaced our booking!!

The Day Before

Hello all - as you know, this is the big weekend, the goal of the last five months, the big trip of the spring, the peak of all the training and sweating....this is Ironman Western Australia weekend. We wrapped up work in a hurry on Thursday (including last minute packing of brand new running shoes), got on our flight and had smooth sailing into Perth where it was pleasant, sunny and a gentle breeze welcomed us to our 'vacation'. We spent the evening and Friday morning exploring downtown Perth, especially enjoying a walk through King's Park Botanical Gardens with an outdoor breakfast, before hitting the road for Busselton.

The first thing we noticed when we got into town and went to race registration, was how easy the swim was going to be - one lap around the Busselton Jetty. Sounds easy right? Yeah, this jetty is so long it has a turn, rest stops and I'm sure that I heard about a bus to take you from one end to the other. It is also one of the most photographed man-made structures (along with the longest wooden structure) in the Southern Hemisphere. The next thing we noticed was that there are definitely a LOT of very fit people here - many flashy bikes, tanned legs and shiny sunnies on display. Even at the carbo-dinner last night, when last years winner said 'its not too late to pull out!', nobody seemed to take it seriously. Now that we're this far (I've been weighed, tagged - #475, stickered and photographed) its time to get going and get the job done. Tomorrow is the day, I start at 6:15am and if all goes according to plan I'll be done before sunset. One lap of the jetty, three 60k loops of local biking scenery and three 14k loops of running along the beach (yes, in brand new shoes!) followed by the finishline. It almost doesn't sound that bad - perhaps I don't know enough to be scared just yet, ask me at 6:14am tomorrow and you'll probably get a different answer!