Slabbs is Visiting!

A fellow Rugger, amazing Sydney tour guide and host, and good friend, Marty "Slabbs" Rodgers will be in the States later this month and the first part of November on business. He was able to set aside some time to visit our neck of the woods on November 5th and 6th, so we have set up a little party for him. It's going to be fun to see Marty again even though it's only been a month since we said our good-byes at the Final Dinner in Sydney on October 3rd. He's good people, and I can only hope we can do as well hosting him as he did for our merry band of travelers to his country during our tour. Cheers Marty! CYA soon buddy!

Marty is in the center in this picture

Looking Back...

As I reflect on my recent journey Down Under for the Festival I can't help but smile. I am currently in the midst of downloading over 1,500 photos to our Club's Flickr page, and at times while going through them, I smirk, and even laugh occasionally when I look at them. While in Sydney it seemed like the days just flew by. While looking at the photos, I recall just how much myself and my team mates were able to do and see during our tour. It's actually kind of amazing when you stop and think about it.

The countless new friends we made, the apparel and pin trading, the three fun matches we played in, the beers we consumed! There's just soooo much to reflect back upon. This blog was my attempt to hopefully capture some of what we were able to experience for everyone who stops here to read it. There's no way I can accurately detail everything, but hope I've managed to get the main theme of one of these tours across. to everyone. They truly are about fun, fraternity, and friendship.

I occasionally check my blog stats and am quite surprised by the amount of visitors this blog continues to have. To date, there have been over 1,000 views Needless to say, I am flattered and pleased that what I have posted here has been viewed by so many people from all corners of the world. It really is quite humbling when I stop to think about it.

My main goal of this blog was to keep family and friends up to date on my travels while on tour. That was accomplished, and much more. I think I'll continue to post in the future not just about The Olde Barking Dogs and our travels, but about my Club team here in Iowa. I have been with River City Rugby since 1992, and trust me, I have lot's of memories and photos to share from those 18 years! We'll see which way this goes in the weeks and months ahead.

Once again, thanks for stopping by, and I'd love for people to leave some comments about what they think of this blog, and maybe where they are from and how they heard about it. My curiosity has been peaked on that front. Cheers everyone!

Getting More Pics Posted!!!

I now have about 500 or so pictures from our Sydney tour posted to the Club's Flickr page! I think there are about 1,000 or so left to go, so keep checking back for new pics when they get downloaded. Cheers, Bill

My Blog Stats

Wow, I've really had quite the readership for my blog. Here's the stats to date:

United States 660 Australia 132 Russia 19 Canada 18 Lithuania 16 South Africa 16 United Kingdom 12 Netherlands 4 Brazil 3 Cook Islands 2

Link to Sydney Photos!

I have managed to get over 100 out of at least 1,000 downloaded to my Club's Flickr page. This link will take you directly to the Sydney Collection:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rivercityrugby/collections/72157624984031261/


Save it to your favorites and stop by there once in awhile to check for new photos as they get added.

Cheers!

I'm Home!

Wow, what an amazing tour. I arrived back in my hometown of Mason City, Iowa with my team mate and roomie in Sydney, Al Hayward about 4:00 p.m. on Sunday after another lovely group of three flights. All together, we had about 18 hours in the air, but only traveled less than seven hours by the clock. Jet lag seriously kicked my hiney yesterday afternoon (Monday) at work, but I managed to get a couple of reports done and caught up somewhat on the pile of paperwork on my desk that awaited me.

These tours are have been quite the adventures for me. Since the first one in 2005, I have been lucky enough to meet so many great people that I now count as good friends from all corners of the world. I really don't think there is another sport of any type that can result in that.

In the next week or so I will go through the countless photos taken during my tour and get them set up into a collection on my team's Flickr page. When that project is complete I will post the link here for everyone. Here's a couple from the day of our last match on Friday:

Stop back by this week as I'll add some final thoughts on my tour, and also to get the link to the photo collection I'll be posting. Thanks again for taking this journey with me! I can't wait until the next one!!

Last Match Day

Well, today was our last match day, and I'd have to say, the best one of the week. We played a team called the Downunders, and it was fun on all fronts. Clean play, good sportsmanship, and massive jersey trading after the match. I was fortunate enough to notch a try due to the unselfishness of my team mates as the final play of our match! No new injuries to report, so that is always a big plus.

Our match was at 11:15 a.m., so we had ample time the rest of the afternoon to mingle, trade, and have a generally fun time. Since we had our team dinner scheduled for 8:00 p.m., the last seven Dogs caught a bus at 6:00 p.m. heading back to our Hotel. We sat mostly in the front, and a few other teams were in the rest of the bus. As we began our journey The Dogs sang a song, then the rest of the bus sang one. This continued all the way back for a half hour. Great fun an fraternity!

The Dogs gathered for our week end team dinner at a nice establishment on the Wharf. A sociable two hour affair ended with week end awards being handed out. Several of us then walked around the Wharf back towards Star City. A very relaxing and enjoyable stroll.

Tomorrow is free for us to do last minute things before we have the Closing Ceremony at the Convention Center tomorrow night. That promises to be an amazing end to an amazing week. On Sunday we will part ways and head home.

I look back on this tour with a smile. It's been mind boggling what this 50 year old Iowa Rugger has been able to do and see in 10 short days. I know I haven't been able to post as much as I would have liked, but there has been so much to fill the days. Keep checking in here over the next few weeks as I compile photo albums for each day of our stay and post them to my home Club's Flickr albums.

I will put a few up tomorrow, and post a final time before I pack my bags and head Northeast. Thanks to everyone who has followed me on this journey! Time to hit the rack and get ready for my last full day in Sydney.

A big shout out to the Eastwood Charcoals and all the other teams who treated all of us Dogs so well during our stay here! It's true what they say, Rugby is a brotherhood unlike any other around the world. Thank you my brothers. Until we meet again down the road. Cheers!