City to Surf

The boys had the opportunity to participate in an even bigger run than the TC10k today. The Perth City to Surf run includes a 4km, 12 km, half and full marathon. This year 47,265 people ran.We couldn't really avoid running it, since the 4 km run started at Rio's school and ran past our house down to the beach. Rio's school team had the highest participation of any school, and managed to win $5,000 for their school sports program. It took Sol 21 minutes and Rio 22 minutes, with some energy to spare though not quite enough to go to squash afterwards. I unfortunately mis-timed my walk down to the finish line and Sol (red shirt, number 10 Rooney) passed me when I was just half-way there, so I didn't capture their moments of glory. But I did see at least half of the Manchester United team run past me along the way after Rooney and Ferdinand went by...

And Chris ran an alternate route to the finish line so he managed to catch the back of Rio's head as well.

Yesterday we went to our first Aussie-rules footy match between one of the two Perth professional teams, Fremantle Dockers, and a team from the east called Port Adelaide. Chris, Sol and Rio knew a bit about the rules beforehand, but I was a complete newbie. Luckily, I had our neighbours Glenn and Trish to explain things so that by the end, I could follow what was going on. The local Freo fans are very enthusiastic, in purple and white, with inflatable white anchors as their symbol - and they had good reason to cheer as Freo dominated the opposition 136 to 60. It's an extremely athletic game, with lots of running, jumping, kicking, tackling and catching. The players are tall, muscular, and can jump incredibly high (sometimes climbing on each other to do so). Though there is a lot of tackling, it didn't seem like a particularly violent game compared with North American football or rugby. The crowd was well behaved too, even though we had a crowd of Port Adelaide supporters nearby to exchange friendly jeers with. Sol wishes that we were staying for another season so that he could play Aussie-rules football. He had the opportunity to play something similar in gym class, when they did Gaelic football, which is very similar but with a soccer ball.

Last weekend was a sporting one as well, with the boys in a squash tournament all day Saturday at a club in downtown Perth. It was different from our usual tournaments, as it was one-day only. Matches were scheduled to start each hour, with 8 courts, but really you had to be there the whole time because they had more than 8 matches scheduled at a time so you never quite knew when you would be on It flowed fairly well but it meant that our heads were ready to explode from being in the squash court environment non-stop for 7 hours. Chris and I had to escape for a walk along the riverfront, which is very beautiful. Perth has done a good job of keeping riverfront and ocean front accessible to the public rather than privatising it off into housing lots, so there are lots of wonderful paths for walking, running and biking along the water.

We managed to get some city sightseeing in this weekend as well. Yesterday we went to the science museum, Scitech, where we enjoyed full access to the hands on exhibits because most people were out enjoying the sunshine instead. That was well worth while, because there were lots of great exhibits and all very interactive. (Dave Porter, I think you would have approved, although the Periodic Table they had wasn't nearly as much fun as yours at the Royal Institution.) Of course, the exhibit the boys spent the most time at involved kicking a soccer ball at a target and then watching your kick replayed on a screen in slow motion.

Today we were intending to go to the Perth Mint but didn't leave ourselves enough time to do that along with the shopping we needed to accomplish. We should take out shares in the local sports shop, Jim Kidd, because we can't go past it without picking up new cricket equipment. Today it was thigh pads and bat grips.

I was happy to finally show the family my office building and the lovely square that it sits upon. The Auditor General's Office is in the 7th floor of Albert Facey House.

And if they ever come downtown to meet me, they will easily be able to find my office by the unmistakable landmark in the square. Big metal tulips in Victoria, great green cacti in Perth... pretty representative of our respective ecosystems, I guess! (Is the photo quality good enough to spot the spies peeking out from behind the cactus?)

To finish off the day, we stopped at my favourite fruit and veggie market, in the neighbourhood of Subiaco. This picture shows some of the more standard produce on offer, but there are also all kinds of cool Asian and Oceanic fruits and vegetables that we have yet to explore fully. Plus several nice bakeries, tasty food stalls, a health food store with good bulk offerings, and the best - and cheapest - pita breads I've eaten. Haven't tried the Chinese massage yet, which is reputedly great, but Rio did get his haircut at a hole-in-the-wall barber today.

My last picture of the day is another creature, this one not quite as cute as the others we have seen. It has been a long time since I have lived in a climate that supports a large population of cockroaches, but this one gave Sol a good fright when he spotted it in the mirror, on the bathroom wall behind him. He didn't look long enough to realize that it was not a spider, though it certainly has hairy legs.