4 Year Old Drummer
You simply have to watch this:
It’s kinda scary.
Awesome Tour of Sydney – The Blue Mountains
Photo credit: pikerslanefarm
Mountains have always held an attraction for me when away on holidays. In Italy recently we were able to see the foot of the Alps from our hotel and they looked amazing. That’s why I’ve picked Sydney’s Blue Mountains for my last challenge.
The Blue Mountains have their foothills just west of Sydney and form part of a larger World Heritage site. So what’s unique about the area beyond the stunning vegetation and scenery? Well there’s:
Katoomba Scenic Railway
It’s got the steepest railway line in the world with an incline of 52 degrees over a distance of 415 metres. It was originally built to bring coal from the valley floor but was turned into a tourist attraction in Check out the video:
Jenolan Caves
These limestone caves are believed in some circles to be the oldest discovered open caves in the world. They attract in the region of 250,000 people every year. One of the caves within the complex features a river which had to be crossed in a small boat until they built a concrete bridge in 1923
Photo credit: iansand
The Three Sisters
One the most famous rock formations in the world are The Three Sisters. There is a legend that says that three sisters fell in love with three men from a neighbouring tribe, but marriage was forbidden by tribal law. Battle ensued, and the sisters were turned to stone by an elder to protect them, but he was killed in the fighting and no one else could turn them back. The nearby Giant Stairway descends into the Jamison Valley through 1000 feet and 800 steps.
Here’s a documentary produced by high school kids in Australia about the Blue Mountains:
While there an array of amazing things to do in Sydney, if I get to go, I’d be spending a few days in and around the Blue Mountains. Maybe I might see some koalas or even a cousin of the Ozzipean Party Spider. 
I’ve learned a lot about Sydney over the whole Awesome Tour process and I’d like to thank the guys from New South Wales Tourism and 1000Heads for the opportunity. Best of luck to all the competitors, I wish I could be there to raise a pint with ye, but I can’t. All the best guys and cheers.
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Your toast to Arthur
To mark the occasion of Guinness 250, I’ve come up with a unique idea and Guinness decided to go with it. At 17:59 (BST) on 24th September, we’re asking you to Twitpic a picture of yourself and your pint. You can include your mates, your local landlord, whoever, the more creative the better. We’re using the hashtag #guinness250 so make sure your Twitpics are tagged as such. If you have a Twitter account then you have a Twitpic account by just logging in at their site. You can then email photos to Twitpic by getting the address from the Settings section. What’s the upside? Guinness is prepared to pay €250 for the best Twitpic. Not bad for a couple of minutes work at best eh? So, to Arthur!!
Awesome Tour of Sydney – The final week
It’s the final week of the Awesome Tour of Sydney which means it’s time for one final push. The brief:
create a visitor’s guide for Sydney; it could be a city guide or a guide to a specific location, attraction or event, using knowledge gained from the last 5 Challenges for inspiration. As usual, the medium in which you present this will be entirely up to you – whether a Lonely Planet-style handbook, a spoof tourist-information video, or maybe the sort of post you might come across on a travel blog. You can choose as many or as few of the topics we’ve covered to base your guide on.
Remember that those who help me are in with a chance to win a ticket themselves. So what was your favourite thing I threw together over the past few weeks (the Internationals Rule game, the Sydney Harbour t-shirt, the ANZ Stadium, the Ozziepean spider)? More importantly, what would you like to see if you got the chance to go?
Awesome Tour of Sydney – The Italian GP
Time is something I’ve been really tight on the past few weeks. I’ve been in Romania for a wedding, at a 4 day music festival in Laois, and jetsetted off to Italy for the Grand Prix. The brief for the 5th Sydney challenge was to: “run your very own Sydney-themed event”. I’ve had to bend the rules slightly due to my schedule. Hopefully that’s cool. Instead of running my own Sydney-themed event, I turned the Italian Grand Prix into a celebration of all things Mark Webber. Mark drives for Red Bull and is a native of New South Wales. Here’s a video of him driving the Williams F1 car over the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 2005:
You really get no clue on how fast those things move until you see them up close and personal. I travelled over on the Wednesday with Elly and George for a full week. You may remember Elly from her idea to build my ANZ Stadium replica. We made a trip to Italy’s biggest shopping centre and got all the stuff we’d need. Party gear, a few towels, champagne and things like glue, scissors and such that I’d normally have access to. Here’s what we got:
Have you figured out what the towels are for? Correct, they’re the colours of the Australian flag. The blue towel forms the base with white and red towels cut into bits to make the Union Jack, the Commonwealth Star and the Southern Cross. Glue brought all the bits together nicely. We were in at the track on Thursday for a pit walk and I almost got Mark’s autograph (he just left as we got to him). 
Here’s Mark going through a lap of the Monza circuit which has seen a few changes this year:
On Friday, we cheered him on through first practice where he placed 9th. Formula 1′s qualifying system has changed in that the hour is split into 3 qualifying phases (click for details). Mark would need to be quick enough through the first two phases to make the third and he was, coming out 11th in the first phase and 6th in the second. Here’s the man himself with my makeshift pit board indicating his time:
It all comes down to the last qualifying phase to decide the positions for the top 10 though and unfortunately Mark didn’t have his quickest of the runs finishing in 10th. We retired back to the hotel after the session (via a beautiful meal, loves me Italian food).
Sunday was race day so I donned my Sydney outfit from Week 2. The Formula 1 race was due to start at 2pm but we knew it’d be busy with people literally camping out overnight on the seats. Since we had general admission tickets, access to the grandstands was out (they’re ridiculously expensive) so we found a nice spot around by Lesmo 1 corner. We’d made the decision to rent a Kangaroo TV thing, which allows you to watch live race coverage on it, so myself and George went off to get that whilst Elly kept our seats. After an hours walk down to the F1 village, we returned and bidded our time until the driver’s parade and anticipated the race start proper. As I mentioned earlier, Mark was starting 10th on the grid so from a position like that it’s easy to get tangled up with someone in the first lap. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened as his car was involved in a crash at the second chicane before he’d even reached our part of the circuit. It was his first retirement of the season.
After the race finished we made our way out onto the circuit and up to where he’d crashed out. Two Italian lads spotted the Aussie flag on my back and were big fans of the New South Wales native (even though their first love is Ferrari) so we took this shot:
Here’s myself, Elly and George at Curva del Serraglio just before we left the circuit:
All in all, a great week away. Hope Mark does a bit better this weekend. We’re coming close to the end of the Awesome Tour of Sydney so watch out for another post on that later today.