Friday 31st August
We were due to hop on the team bus at 4:30am Saturday morning, but... a late night Caramel Frappe session at Maccas ended in us deciding to just leave Friday night and drive down.....
There were a few reasons that this seemed like a good idea at the time. 1. Beserk (Kristel) wasn't going to come to the Gold Coast and bout, and I knew that if she didn't come, she'd regret it that night (we'd been through this for our Mackay bout when a couple of girls decided not to come and then were kicking themselves when it came to bout time). 2. I never sleep the night before a bout, I lay there, tossing and turning all night. 3. With the current road works in our area and the fact that they were planning on leaving at 5-6am initially - the fear of arriving late at the bout was a factor... 4. Road trip sounded like FUN! especially on a sugar high ;)
We packed our gear and got on the road about 9:30 or so... 8hrs to Gold Coast - plus roadworks.....
10pm - still able to smile ... still on a sugar high....
Yup... that's road... (thrilling huh? you're so glad you're reading my blog aren't you??)
Holly asleep... she swears she was wearing a blt... but I'm not sure I can work out exactly where it was... I was so glad I didn't see this photo until later when she was sitting up in the seat properly again....
Kristel trying to look excited about the trip... looking more nervous than ever!
11pm - Stopped at roadworks - no internet makes for a sad Holly.... apparently holding the phone outside the car doesn't make an ounce of difference....
Gin Gin - Midnight
Holly found some pretty zebra sunnies....
(for those who may have missed this - a ref in derby is called a zebra... holly is a ref... etc etc...)
Holly got hold of the phone and started taking self portraits...
While Holly was busy taking pics of herself - Kristel and I were playing in the abandoned kids play area.....
Sprung!
And, we're on the road again....
Ready to leave Gin Gin after a very quick stop....
Matilda - South Gympie.... 2:33am....
I think I'm the only person here who isn't looking like dying..... :)
Holly taking over the driving for a little bit...
Kristel trying to have a snooze....
Caboolture Service Centre - 3:52am...
Holly decided to have a snooze while Kristel and I did a loo run....
I found a limbo bar heading into the women's toilet.... of course, I limbo'd under it... and I sung the song too...
(I don't do things by halves you know!)
Kristel and I playing in the abandoned kids play area again!
Kristel's turn to drive.....
(oh, and since then, I have photographic evidence that Kristel has a lead foot... 102 in a 90 zone! bad Kristel!)
Gold Coast - 5:35am - We Made it!
Shelley (Poisonality) had offered for us to go and crash at her place when we arrived... but she was getting up at 6am - so we figured we should go and waste half an hour so that we let her get some sleep as she was spending all day working before she had to get ready for the bout... so, we found her place and then went for a drive to kill some time (and to get some breakfast)
In at Shelley's house.... 7:10am...
We'd already had coffee with Shelley at this point - we were just mooching around and wasting time.....
After a short attempt to try to sleep, we realised it wasn't going to happen, so we got showered and headed to the hotel to find where we were staying and to see if we could check in early.... unfortunately the rooms were all fully booked so our rooms definitely weren't ready... they said that they'd call us as soon as they got them cleared and gave us access to the building so that we could park and use the amenities (of course, we hadn't taken togs or we could have had a swim)...
When we were down in the carpark we ran into Gwen (Highland Fling) and her family - and they said that we could go and crash in their room - we went in there, and I tried to sleep... but Flings teenager daughter had the music cranked up so loud that I wasn't able to sleep - so I just lay there .... Holly and Kristel Managed to get to sleep - which I discovered after I got a call from the hotel saying that we could get into our rooms early... so, of course I woke them up so that we could go to our rooms....
We got all of our gear in our rooms and then decided we'd go out to find some lunch before trying to have a sleep so that we could get a decent sleep .... (HA!)
11:40 - Lunch at OMG Cafe
(I think that's what it was called, I should have taken a pic....)
Holly was not a happy camper.....
Kiri and Will had arrived as we were heading to lunch, so they came with us...
Kristel looking way beyond needing a sleep... and I look like I must have slept all night....
We headed to a supermarket after lunch to grab supplies for the bout... protein bars, water & bananas....
Apparently you aren't allowed to wear hoodies in this store.... bad Kristel!
(after taking this pic - we then saw a sign on the other side of the aisle saying "no use of cameras or phones in this store" - - - ooops!)
The view from our hotel room....
Bout time!
We got to the centre - and the one girl from Tweed asked if we wanted facepaint before the bout.... I'm not really big on that kinda thing - but I let them put a paw print on me.... (with the whole Teddie name - I figured a print would work)
I didn't get any pics between then and the end of the bout - I was a little busy - though I should have taken pics while we were all sitting and watching Tweed play the Gold Coast B team...
We were slaughtered - we played the Gold Coast A team - half time the score was 12 to 150... full time score was about 48 to 310 (or something) - I'm sure there's a scoreboard somewhere with it - but I can't think of the exact score at this point... but everyone who watched the bout said that it was a brilliant bout to watch and the scoreboard didn't reflect what they were watching.... so at least we didn't look like we didn't know what we were doing on the track....
(that was our 5th bout as a league - against a team who had bouted 38 times in that year - and had been going for two years prior.... so we were very happy at the end of the bout)
PARTY TIME!
Top: Me, Beserk, Bettie
Bottom: Voodoo, Kittie
It was now time to hit the town....
Off to Hard Rock Cafe....
Mr Voodoo
Nordy & Mick
Shreds & Beserk
Candy & I
Will & Kiri
Menace, Dunc & CeeBee
Menace, CeeBee & Dunc
Menace & Dunc
Miriam & Voodoo
Me, Miriam, Voodoo & Block Ness
Dunc & Topsy
Me, Monie Bones & Voodoo
Johnny Smash & I
Me, Kaneage & Candy
Candy, Slay'er, Beserk, Bettie, and two gold coast girls (yup - that was the sum total of them at the after party while we were there....) and Kittie
Poisonality & I
Mia & Sarge
Oh No! the NO HOODIE store again....
Oh yeah! We're the Radstone Rebels!!!!
Sunday - Road Trip back home......
We dropped Holly at the Ettamogah Pub so that she could go and ref a couple of Black & White Scrims with N80 - a ref we'd met the night before (though, Holly already knew her....)
N80, Beserk, Me & Bettie
From the time we left our Hotel on the Gold Coast Beserk had pointed to every single theme park to say "ooh, lets go to Wet'n'Wild... Oooh, lets go to Movie World... Oooh, lets go to Dreamworld...." etc etc, you get the drift....
So when we go to Ettamogah Pub - we went "well, we can go to Aussie World...." - which got the Sulks on "IT'S NOT THE SAME!" ehehehehe... so we had to take a sulky photo....
Then we realised there was a "no standing" sign... and given that the Radstone Rebels had started rebelling the night before with the "No Hoodies" we had to make sure that we rebelled wherever possible....
No Standing!
More Sulking.... and also standing ... standing and sulking... she had this down pat....
attempting to enter the "No Entry"
Entrance on other side of the pub?
I think not! lets go OVER the fence...
Still sulking that it's not one of the big parks...
drinking the undrinkable water... GO BESERK!
We then found an icecream shop... EXTREMELY Yummy!
No food or drink in this store... I dare you!
We all bought pie's to take home to the families for dinner...
As we were leaving...about 160 Can-Am Spyder bikes came in....
And we're on our way again!
We found trivia questions on the drive... (the "make you stay awake" signs along the Bruce Hwy)
Kristel thinking about the answer...
Laura also pondering....
Then we stopped at Sexie Coffee near Maryborough....
there is NOTHING Sexie about their coffee, let me tell you!
Radstone Rebels are at it again!
Even their cups aren't Sexie!
We were once again, glad that we hadn't been on the bus, we got back into town nearly two hours before the bus did.... and we'd been able to have dinner with our family and get our kids to bed.... (the joys of three mothers with little kids in one car.... :))
A brilliant end to a brilliant weekend... :)
