Go, go, go!
Two weekends ago I went on holiday. It was only a little (by Australian standards) road trip, but it was my first foray into the excitement of annual leave since starting my new job.
So bright and early at 7am on a Thursday morning I fired up Marvin and headed up to the Servo to fill him up with Super Unleaded Petrol (he is on a strict but expensive diet), oil, windscreen washer and Pringles. This in theory would get me to Canberra. It worked, by 9:30 I was in Capital city and ready to view the infamous War Museum. Unfortunately two things stood in my way, one; where the hell is the war museum? and two; said war museum only opens at 10am. Eventually after a high intensity cross examination of the tourist office staff I discovered that it was actually known as the war memorial (despite clearly being a museum not just a little statue!). After a quick walk up and down the impressive drive (see picture below) which took a little while as it is considerably longer than it looks it was 10:15 and I could enter the museum. It was very informative and very interesting, it’s hard to understand how any government could decide to send their country to war if they were made to visit places like this on a regular basis. Oh dear, just read that last bit back and I sound like a hippy. Gonzo will be very disappointed in me! Sorry! War mongering Nurton will be back shortly!
Canberra, looking away from the War Memorial.
Anyway, I can now report that Canberra was the only place that I have ever visited that was EXACTLY as I imagined it from how people had described it to me previously. From reading that statement you are right in assuming that that means it's a bit boring! Very quiet.
Anyway, another 800km later I rolled into Melbourne and successfully navigated single handed to Tony and Pauline's house, who once again were very kindly parenting me for the weekend.
Earlier in the week I happened to mention my planned GP trip to one of the principals testers in the office at work. He said that he was also going on the Sunday only with his Girlfriend, he then VERY kindly offered me his two grandstand tickets which were also valid for the Friday and Saturday. Of course I snapped up the offer and subsequently spent the rest of the weekend worried sick that I would lose his beloved (and rather expensive) tickets before I gave them back to him for Sunday! So anyway, Grandstand tickets in hand I met up with my boss (who works at the Melbourne office) and did some serious boss maintenance (read brown nosing!) and we spent Friday in the Schumacher stand watching the practice sessions and the other various events. Best of all was the speed comparison where they set off a BMW 320i road car then 40 secs later a V8 super car then 40 seconds later a BMW Sauber F1 car.... of course the idea is that they all finish at the same time, which means that being sat on the final corner in the stands is pretty damn awesome.
No only do you get a great view of the cars from the stand but also a huge big screen TV showing you the TV coverage.
A Renault F1 car passes under our noses. The noise is just incredible.
Onto the main straight.
V8 Utes. What a silly sport... huge engines, rear wheel drive, no weight over the rear end....a recipe for trouble/fun! Can you imagine what life would be like if they sold V8 utes in Milton Keynes, what with all those rain soaked roundabouts...
The atmosphere at the event was superb. Everything about it was great, including the food (lots of Bratwurst hot dogs!) and the musical entertainment. Pictured above is an Ozzie band called Wolfmother. My housemate Jo is a big fan so I thought I should take a photo to make her jealous. Note the Finnish Wolfmother fans with their flags. I have never seen a real life Finnish person before I came to the Grand Prix. Now I have seen thousand, I think they much just all spend their lives following the GP around!
On Saturday I took Pauline and Tony along with me (again using Jason's tickets to get them general admission). Pauline is a massive F1 fan but had never been to a race before, so she was absolutely stoked by the day. Tony, of course, was being grumpy about the idea of wasting a day looking at cars but was (I think) pleasantly surprised and particularly like the aerial flyover by the Aussie version of the red arrows and then a RAAF F/A-18 jet. See photo below. Above is a video that I took while we watch the Saturday qualifying. The noise of the cars breaking from 300kph+ to nearly a stop is something I will never forget, there is a lot more back firing than you can hear on the TV. Hearing the shear volume and the seeing the amazing deceleration of these cars is reason to come in itself.
A RAAF Hornet which did an amazing display of tight turns over the circuit before doing the best end I have ever seen at an air show, it just went vertical over the crowd and went straight up in the air so far that it was invisible.... now that's a cool job.
Of course by the Sunday (race day) I had given my extra tickets back to Jason, so I was just on my cheapo general admissions ticket. No problem though as once again the internet came to my rescue. About a week previously to this trip I discovered a website called Facebook which is like a cross between MySpace and friends re-united but all free without any crappy ads and good privacy. Anyway, turns out half of the people I went to school with are also registered and low and behold two of them are currently in Australia as well. So being brave I got in contact with Ed, my old GCSE geography desk buddy and extracted his Aussie mobile number. One short call and I had established that as part of his round the world hippy travelling he was currently working for an events company and his next gig was the GP. Super, so we arranged to meet up in Melbourne at the track. Above is a picture of the two of us. Note unbelievably that Ed is not burnt despite his pale skin and the incredibly strong sun shine we had that weekend. I guess he's just spent too long on too many beaches around South-East Asia that his body now thinks this amount of UV is normal!
The important thing to note about this photo is the official event staff pass that I have around my neck. This was Ed's reunion present to me, which he had "obtained" earlier in the day just for me. So thank you Ed, was super cool to feel important and know I could (in theory) go anywhere including the Pit Straight grand stands.
This final picture shows me trying to find a spot amongst the massive crowds to watch the race. I did briefly use Ed’s pass to gain access to one of the stands but it was so busy and I felt very guilty (and naughty) so I settled for watching from a grassy hill. Note bad at all although in all honesty I think watching the race is probably better done on the TV at home. But I would recommend the experience to anybody, the sound and speed of the cars is totally unbelievable. The best mix I think is to come on Friday and Saturday when the crowds are small and the tickets cheap, and get close to the cars. The race would only be really worth it if you had a big group of mates, staked out your viewing spot early and got on the cans as early as possible.
Also the drive…. Would I do it again? Yes, it was not as bad as 2000km sounds, although you really do have to stick to the silly 110kph speed limit as the cops like to hide their V8 patrol cars in every other hedge (I saw 6 over the weekend alone). Would be very pleasant if you had somebody to share the driving with.
Right then this post is now at 1500 words, far too long I know, but hopefully it goes a least some way to plugging my bloging gap.
So bright and early at 7am on a Thursday morning I fired up Marvin and headed up to the Servo to fill him up with Super Unleaded Petrol (he is on a strict but expensive diet), oil, windscreen washer and Pringles. This in theory would get me to Canberra. It worked, by 9:30 I was in Capital city and ready to view the infamous War Museum. Unfortunately two things stood in my way, one; where the hell is the war museum? and two; said war museum only opens at 10am. Eventually after a high intensity cross examination of the tourist office staff I discovered that it was actually known as the war memorial (despite clearly being a museum not just a little statue!). After a quick walk up and down the impressive drive (see picture below) which took a little while as it is considerably longer than it looks it was 10:15 and I could enter the museum. It was very informative and very interesting, it’s hard to understand how any government could decide to send their country to war if they were made to visit places like this on a regular basis. Oh dear, just read that last bit back and I sound like a hippy. Gonzo will be very disappointed in me! Sorry! War mongering Nurton will be back shortly!
Canberra, looking away from the War Memorial.
Anyway, I can now report that Canberra was the only place that I have ever visited that was EXACTLY as I imagined it from how people had described it to me previously. From reading that statement you are right in assuming that that means it's a bit boring! Very quiet.
Anyway, another 800km later I rolled into Melbourne and successfully navigated single handed to Tony and Pauline's house, who once again were very kindly parenting me for the weekend.
Earlier in the week I happened to mention my planned GP trip to one of the principals testers in the office at work. He said that he was also going on the Sunday only with his Girlfriend, he then VERY kindly offered me his two grandstand tickets which were also valid for the Friday and Saturday. Of course I snapped up the offer and subsequently spent the rest of the weekend worried sick that I would lose his beloved (and rather expensive) tickets before I gave them back to him for Sunday! So anyway, Grandstand tickets in hand I met up with my boss (who works at the Melbourne office) and did some serious boss maintenance (read brown nosing!) and we spent Friday in the Schumacher stand watching the practice sessions and the other various events. Best of all was the speed comparison where they set off a BMW 320i road car then 40 secs later a V8 super car then 40 seconds later a BMW Sauber F1 car.... of course the idea is that they all finish at the same time, which means that being sat on the final corner in the stands is pretty damn awesome.
No only do you get a great view of the cars from the stand but also a huge big screen TV showing you the TV coverage.
A Renault F1 car passes under our noses. The noise is just incredible.
Onto the main straight.
V8 Utes. What a silly sport... huge engines, rear wheel drive, no weight over the rear end....a recipe for trouble/fun! Can you imagine what life would be like if they sold V8 utes in Milton Keynes, what with all those rain soaked roundabouts...
The atmosphere at the event was superb. Everything about it was great, including the food (lots of Bratwurst hot dogs!) and the musical entertainment. Pictured above is an Ozzie band called Wolfmother. My housemate Jo is a big fan so I thought I should take a photo to make her jealous. Note the Finnish Wolfmother fans with their flags. I have never seen a real life Finnish person before I came to the Grand Prix. Now I have seen thousand, I think they much just all spend their lives following the GP around!
On Saturday I took Pauline and Tony along with me (again using Jason's tickets to get them general admission). Pauline is a massive F1 fan but had never been to a race before, so she was absolutely stoked by the day. Tony, of course, was being grumpy about the idea of wasting a day looking at cars but was (I think) pleasantly surprised and particularly like the aerial flyover by the Aussie version of the red arrows and then a RAAF F/A-18 jet. See photo below. Above is a video that I took while we watch the Saturday qualifying. The noise of the cars breaking from 300kph+ to nearly a stop is something I will never forget, there is a lot more back firing than you can hear on the TV. Hearing the shear volume and the seeing the amazing deceleration of these cars is reason to come in itself.
A RAAF Hornet which did an amazing display of tight turns over the circuit before doing the best end I have ever seen at an air show, it just went vertical over the crowd and went straight up in the air so far that it was invisible.... now that's a cool job.
Of course by the Sunday (race day) I had given my extra tickets back to Jason, so I was just on my cheapo general admissions ticket. No problem though as once again the internet came to my rescue. About a week previously to this trip I discovered a website called Facebook which is like a cross between MySpace and friends re-united but all free without any crappy ads and good privacy. Anyway, turns out half of the people I went to school with are also registered and low and behold two of them are currently in Australia as well. So being brave I got in contact with Ed, my old GCSE geography desk buddy and extracted his Aussie mobile number. One short call and I had established that as part of his round the world hippy travelling he was currently working for an events company and his next gig was the GP. Super, so we arranged to meet up in Melbourne at the track. Above is a picture of the two of us. Note unbelievably that Ed is not burnt despite his pale skin and the incredibly strong sun shine we had that weekend. I guess he's just spent too long on too many beaches around South-East Asia that his body now thinks this amount of UV is normal!
The important thing to note about this photo is the official event staff pass that I have around my neck. This was Ed's reunion present to me, which he had "obtained" earlier in the day just for me. So thank you Ed, was super cool to feel important and know I could (in theory) go anywhere including the Pit Straight grand stands.
This final picture shows me trying to find a spot amongst the massive crowds to watch the race. I did briefly use Ed’s pass to gain access to one of the stands but it was so busy and I felt very guilty (and naughty) so I settled for watching from a grassy hill. Note bad at all although in all honesty I think watching the race is probably better done on the TV at home. But I would recommend the experience to anybody, the sound and speed of the cars is totally unbelievable. The best mix I think is to come on Friday and Saturday when the crowds are small and the tickets cheap, and get close to the cars. The race would only be really worth it if you had a big group of mates, staked out your viewing spot early and got on the cans as early as possible.
Also the drive…. Would I do it again? Yes, it was not as bad as 2000km sounds, although you really do have to stick to the silly 110kph speed limit as the cops like to hide their V8 patrol cars in every other hedge (I saw 6 over the weekend alone). Would be very pleasant if you had somebody to share the driving with.
Right then this post is now at 1500 words, far too long I know, but hopefully it goes a least some way to plugging my bloging gap.
posted by Nurton at 6:11 PM
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