It was a different start to the day; my body clock was still on Melbourne time, so when you wake in WA at 6am and have an hour up your sleeve what do you do? I decided to grab my ipod, jump in the bath and listen to some country music. A relaxing start to a big day.
I joined the rest of the boys for breakfast an hour or so later and followed that up with a walk down the main street of Bunbury with Richard Hadley. It was a good opportunity to have a bit of quiet time and just have a look around the town. There are some really good people in Bunbury, in particular 'Skins' who works in the Bunbury Fishing store. He was a really good bloke and extremely popular with the locals. We had a long chat about fishing and I have a few ideas about where to head to fish when I next visit south west WA.
When I returned from our walk I went to see Lauren our myotherapist who gave me some soft tissue treatment. I spent about half and hour on the table, just getting myself ready for the game. I headed back to my room briefly then headed downstairs with Jordan Russell (my roommate) to meet the rest of the boys for our pre-game walk.
We went down to the park and had a bit of a stretch. We spent some time watching a local cricket match and witnessed a wicket fall. As the new batsman made his way to the crease, Fev shouted across the ground "hit a six off the first ball and I'll give you $100," the young fella gave it his best shot but unfortunately for him he lost his wicket.
Back to the hotel and we headed to the lunch room for our final meal before the game, following lunch we had a brief team meeting, followed by some individual time. During this time some the boys got some additional treatment from our medical team.
I passed Stevo as he headed out of the hotel, he was off to get a few photos around Bunbury to send back to Channel 7's Sunrise team. Their newreader, Natalie Barr hails from Bunbury. It wasn't too long before individual time was over and it was time to check out of the hotel and board the bus for Hands Oval.
I was really eager to get out and play; the game couldn't come quick enough.
The oval was packed and when we made our way out onto the ground we joined by the mascot for the day Carlton O'Keeffe, that's correct, Carlton is actually his first name!
Unfortunately we didn't come away from the match with a victory, but from a personal view point, I was rapt to get through a full game. The body feels pretty good at the moment and I am now looking forward to the home and away season.
Following the match we made a dash for Busselton airport. We checked all our luggage in and then headed for the tarmac. There was a bit of a delay as some paper work needed to be finalised, but by about 9.45pm we were off. A light meal was served on the plane, then it was 'lights out.'
As I write, there are only 3 other lights on in the plane, Juddy is sitting on the other side of the aisle with his light on reading a book, Gibbsy has his on and so does the doc, while Jamo sits over my right shoulder correcting my punctuation. Thanks mate!
Let's hope the remainder of the flight goes according to plan and can I say a little quicker than yesterdays. From Tullamarine to Bunbury on the way in was timed at seven hours and five minutes.
All in all, the game in Bunbury probably wasn't the ideal way to finish our pre-season campaign, but what I can tell you is that around 10,000 people enjoyed a pretty good game of footy, and I think I will be heading back to south west WA to check out some of 'Skins' top secret fishing spots in the near future.
"Walks"
PS - Just wanted to finish this on Sunday back in Melbourne as I know there will be plenty of tired boys around - we arrived back in Melbourne this morning and it was 4:00am when we got our bags and left the airport to get home. Ratts was right, it was a long trip!
