Follow Swallow: Day one
Follow Swallow: Day two
Keep up to date with all the movements of North Melbourne Syd Barker Medal winner Andrew Swallow in his new blog: Follow Swallow.
This week Andrew's on the Gold Coast for the Kangaroos pre-season training camp.
I was able to sleep in this morning which was nice for a change. Warren Benjamin wasn’t snoring for once. At breakfast I mixed things up again and went back to baked beans and poached eggs on toast, it was good. There was also some fruit salad with a bit of yoghurt. It’s there so I feel like I have to eat it, and I feel like I’m healthy if I do.
Ben Speight reckons he hates food - he told me he ‘hates eating’ but I think he means to say that he’s a picky eater. On the flip side, Lachie Hansen says eating is ‘the greatest invention ever’. Warren Benjamin has a strange habit of eating weetbix with yoghurt on top - I don’t even want to try that.
I went to Wet ‘n’ Wild for the first time today. I was actually looking forward to a day of doing absolutely nothing but it was too good a chance to pass up. I was initially concerned about the heat and long queues, but we got in pretty quick and ended up having a ball. Lachie was very excited.
I went on the ‘Kamikaze’ ride with Ben Ross - you slide up and down in a tube…it’s like a half pipe. There was the ‘Aqua Racer’ which we all thought Robbie Tarrant would win because he’s got the biggest legs, but Konrad the Russian came from nowhere and won a couple of races. Everyone kept cheating by going before the green light - the biggest cheat was Ben Ross. He can’t play a game without cheating.
Later in the afternoon I did some washing with Matty Campbell. I’m pretty good with the domestic duties and helped Matty with his clothes. I watched some of the cricket as Australia knocked over Pakistan before my brother David came and picked me up. He’s up here with the AFL’s new Gold Coast side.
David and I went in to Surfers Paradise and had a bit of a stroll around. It was great to see him. There’s a five year age gap between us and I’m in contact with him now more than I ever have been.
We did some shopping and I was looking for a singlet but couldn’t find the one I wanted. I was after a white one with something cool on the front but couldn’t find anything. I like shopping, but I have to be in the zone to shop. I don’t like going shopping if I don’t know what I want. I’m a pretty conservative shopper, while my wife Elise is a conservative, but regular shopper.
Dinner was at a Thai place in Surfers paradise and it was very nice. I had a chicken stir-fry with cashews and coconut rice. For dessert, we headed over to the Cold Rock ice-creamery where I ordered boysenberry ice-cream with gummy bears and Oreos. It was a day off today in every sense so I can eat what I want. Even Paul Turk our strength and conditioning coach was spotted having ice-cream tonight.
We bumped into Drew Petrie, Brent Harvey, David Hale and former teammate Daniel Harris who were all eating at a little Indian place. Harro (Harris) is also playing with the new Gold Coast side.
Ben Warren was also in the area and he had access to a car so he offered to come and pick me up and take me back to our accommodation. I met him at a nearby McDonalds but when we were 100m from the car and he told me he’d lost his keys. We retraced his steps for 10-15 minutes before he ended up finding them in his pocket. It was the first thing I said to him before we started looking - ‘check your pockets’. He patted himself down but said “They’re not here”. That’s typical Ben though.
We finally arrived at the Sports Super Centre and the rest of the boys were playing a game of indoor cricket. Majak was nowhere to be seen - it was 9pm and he was already in bed asleep.
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