Andrew Walker for carltonfc.com.au
It was Friday morning and I was in the navigators seat in Hoops' (Ryan Houlihan) car trying to find our way to Jet City Tullamarine for our chartered flight from Melbourne to Busselton.
It was our normal route to Tullamarine Airport, usually we fly Qantas on our interstate trips, but with the NAB Challenge game in Bunbury the AFL had been good enough to hire a charter flight, and instead of leaving from the regular Melbourne Airport location, we had to find our way to Jet City's Headquarters on Operations Road.
Luckily for us we found ourselves following a convoy of Carlton players and officials cars to our destination. Unfortunately Paul Bower didn't have the same luck, getting himself lost on the way and briefly holding up our flight.
I must admit there were a few skeptics amongst the playing group as to the size and amenities on our chartered flight. Vicious rumours began circulating that we would have to stop to refuel in Adelaide, and these were confirmed by the cabin crew once we boarded. All in all though the boys were pretty happy with the jet that wasn't much smaller than your regular Qantas plane.
A past great of the club and former South Bunbury player, Syd Jackson, joined us on our flight over. It was really nice of the club to bring Syd over. We are training and playing on the South Bunbury oval.
As usual some of the boys were playing on their PSP's while others read the papers. After about on hour on board we landed in Adelaide to refuel, following a short stop we were off again, this time heading for Busselton.
Lunch was provided after we left Adelaide, and then most of the boys took the opportunity to have a snooze. Eddie and I got some great shots of the boys sleeping!
We arrived at Busselton airport at 3.00pm WA time and headed to the bus for our 50km drive to Bunbury. Our first stop was Hands Oval, Bunbury and it was nice to get out for a bit of a run after being either on the jet or in the bus for most of the day.
I was really surprised to see a heap of Carlton fans at Hands Oval to watch us train. I know we have a really strong supporter base in Western Australia, but wasn't sure how many fans would actually head down to the South West for a NAB Challenge game, let alone a training session.
The ground was in great condition, we trained for just over an hour it was a good sharp session.
During training we noticed a heap of smoke in the distance. The fire and smoke caused a blackout throughout Bunbury and the local region. We still managed to have dinner when we returned from training. The hotel staff had lit candles around our meals room, so it was a romantic dinner for over 50 players and officials.
The power was switched back on at around 7.30pm just in time for most of the boy to sit back on watch the NAB Cup Grand Final.
Breakfast will be served between 7am and 9am tomorrow morning, followed by a team meeting and a walk before we head to the ground.
I am really looking forward to the game tomorrow afternoon having watched the boys play the first three NAB Cup games from the sidelines, I am really keen to get out there and get a couple of kicks.
"Walks"
