Snakes on a plane? ... no, on your child!

Day 2:

... started at a much more gentlemanly hour with an 8 oclock breakfast (bacon eggs hash browns cereal toast and about 40 ltres of juice!!!!). A few words with the chefs should put us less in a sinking boat and more in a racing boat mode!

The boys soundly beat the girls on the room inspection tour, well at least that’s what they told me!

And although it didn’t come out till later in the day (so to speak) it would seem that the “Parental Cringe Awards” have a new leader overnight. First some background, our accommodation is cabin style with shared bathroom facilities and to be fair the bathrooms are a long way from the rooms. And also to be fair we did insist that the team drink lots and lots (and lots!) of water. And in the interests of further fairness it is hard to climb down from a top bunk in pitch black. And continuing in our fairness crusade at least our hero didn’t let go on the floor, in bed or on his roommates. And in the final salute to fairness everything that goes down the sink goes into the sewer anyway.........and the name of our hero? (Every boys mum silently praying “ please no please no please no” ) The Midnight Sink Pee’er of Darwin is........ CENSORED

Anyway off to the middle of the Darwin CBD for a tour of the Crocasaurus Cove. This is like an aquarium/croc zoo/reptile house type of place. Crocodiles, snakes lizards turtles and all manner of Australian nasties were there. As you can see from the photo’s there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth but all the swimmers had a go. Even some of the managers got to hold onto an Aussie snake (???).

After Crocosaurus cove we had a picnic lunch. We visited the Dawrin entertainment Centre to get our accreditation badges and all the team were also given a free backpack. The team then let loose on the shop keepers of Darwin and brothers and sisters (and a surprising number of girlfriends, boyfriends and “just friends”) will be pleased to know that many gifts were purchased. Bargain of the day to Richard Rumbal for his $20.00 Ford racing team shirt (marked down from $55 Janice!!!).

All the team made it back to the meeting spot early so the shops must have been done !!We made our way back to the pool where the swimmers had an hour rest time in the shade meanwhile Roger went to a general Managers meeting. While we were resting the Australian Paralympic Development Team were going through their paces.

Our afternoon workout was punctuated by the arrival of Team PNG, around 40 strong they piled into the lane next door to us and their presence did not go unnoticed, especially “that really cute one” !! (Nup, sorry parents not telling).

Our workout was a lot more focussed tonight and as the 120 strong Northern Territory team filled the 2 lanes on the other side of ours the international flavour of the event started to hit home. I could tell by the glint in the eye of the other teams that our gear will be sought after!

After a great dinner we had a team meeting outlining the plan for tomorrow, then we had a managers meeting and now at 10.30 I’m just about ready to hit the hay.

Tomorrow THE OPENING CEREMONY, 14000 SPECTATORS, 25 COUNTRIES WITH 2500 ATHLETES AND US!!

Andrew (Crocodile Coach Dundee)