
Highlights of 2024
2024 was a year to remember for a lot of different reasons. At the turn of the calendar every year I like to take the time to look back on everything I had done and the memories I had created and enjoy them once again, but also to use them as motivation for the year ahead and the things I want to achieve.
Here I go through a list of my top 7 from 2024

Munich Marathon
I guess not everything always goes to plan, or maybe sometimes the plan we set out isn’t actually achievable, so writing this less than 12 hours after completing the Munich Marathon I haven’t really decided how I feel looking back at it.

NRL Greatness
Greatness, it’s rare that we take the time to appreciate something in all of its greatness in the moment, we normally wait till time has passed and then reflect that based on what has occurred since, that the performance displayed greatness.

Ironman 70.3 #20
I read somewhere that doing an Ironman is 90% mental and 10% and while I’m not sure if those percentages are correct I do believe that being able to complete one requires you to have a significantly stronger mind than it requires you to have strong physical fitness.

MooTri Race Recap
Okay so it has been a while since I did my last triathlon, at last count it was around 1460 days, to be precise.
I think for many people life got away from them during COVID as routines changed, lock down restricted us from activities we did, and in general we just reprioritised some things over others. For me one of the things that changed was that during lockdown triathlon was a hard sport to do, big races got cancelled and the desire to endlessly train and prepare for a race that might not go ahead meant that I probably didn’t stay as active as I could.

Munich Part 1
I wouldn’t go as far as saying we are now experts at finding our way around town, but we have got it pretty sorted in terms of getting around via public transport and we’ve been enough times now that we have started to develop some of our own little favourite ways of getting around.

Travelling Again - 2024
What can I say, I like to travel. I also like European football, so what could be a better combination than travelling to watch European football? And that’s exactly what we did.
This time we decided to do things a little differently to last to hopefully maximise how many games we could see and minimise the lengthy travelling in between games… First stop Munich!!

My Bald Head’s a Symbol
Quite often I find that I get comments about my bald head, a lot of the standard stuff like the glare people get on the screen during Teams meetings, do I shampoo my head and then my face or wash my face and then my head…

I’m Back On Twitch
Okay, so it’s been a while but after talking it up for a while and having a little bit of time on my hands I finally logged back in and started my stream, yes I am back online and gaming!!
So for those who weren’t familiar with me streaming on Twitch I’m going to go all the way back to the beginning to bring you up to speed.
My Golf Story: Part 1
Okay, so I’m not sure if I have even written an initial post about me decided to play golf, so if I haven’t I should probably provide a little context.
A few years ago I had a casual gave off golf with my mates, and I was sh!t.
Reflecting back on that game afterwards there was a few things:
I enjoyed spending time with my mates
It was nice to be outdoors and golf courses are nice places
It really is quite amazing how good some people can hit a golf ball, such a tiny ball, such and odd club, so much grass and yet so straight
I am sh!t at golf

Holiday: Day 11 - Munich
Today was always destined to be a big day for us as we made our way from Berlin to Munich which is my favourite city in all of Germany, and it sure was a big day in more than one way.
It was another early start with our express train leaving Berlin at just after 8am with a roughly 4 hour trip to get down to Munich.

Holiday: Day 10 - Berlin
The good news is that we put the troubles from the previous day behind us and had a big day planned, with plenty to see and do around Berlin, but of course how can any day in Germany not start off with a pretzel, so we each got ourselves loaded up on carbs and headed to “Spittelmarkt”, our new favourite metro stop.

Holiday: Day 9 - Berlin
Every holiday has at least one of those days that just doesn’t go to plan and for us that was today.
It started off well enough with us getting up nice and early and making our way to Amsterdam Centraal where we were catching an express train to Berlin with Deutsche Bahn (DB).

Holiday: Day 8 - Amsterdam
We’d had a quick sample of Amsterdam the previous day and so we had a brief idea of what we planned to do with our full day, however I don’t think we ever planned for it to end up being one of the highlights of our trip.

Holiday: Day 7 - Amsterdam
We really didn’t know what to expect from Amsterdam as it was the first time any of us had been there, but we locked it in and decided to make our way there after Brussels. But first we had unfinished business in the morning in Brussels and that came in the way of breakfast and waffles.

Holiday: Day 6 - Brussels
Brussels, home of chocolate, beers, waffles and fries, and it definitely didn’t let itself down with its reputation!!
For once we had a bit of a sleep in as we didn’t need to catch the train to Brussels from Paris till around lunch time. It also meant that we got to get ourselves organised for what would be a bit of a transit day and given that it was a Saturday there wouldn’t be as many people out and about.

Holiday: Day 5 - Disneyland
They say Disneyland is the happiest place on earth, and to be honest I’d probably agree with whoever said that, there is just something about the place that makes you have fun, and even a cranky pants like me found myself enjoying the place; it must have something to do with the water or the music they subtly play in the background. But anyhow Disneyland marked our third and final day in Paris, and it almost didn’t happen..

Holiday: Day 4 - Bastille Day
What immediately struck me about Bastille Day was that is wasn’t a copy of Australia Day but French, and maybe that’s just because I am an outsider looking in, or maybe it was because of the location we were in, but needless to say I was expecting people dressed in French colours, waving French flags, probably not getting on the beers, but I did expect to see a little more nationalism, or maybe French people just go about it a different way.

Holiday: Day 3 - Paris
I know that sometimes I can be a little on the cheap side, but it has its pros and cons. Well today was one of the cons as I’d booked a 7am Eurostar from London to Paris which meant another ridiculously early start and a quick trip in a taxi to London St Pancras Station.
The taxi, or are that cabs? Well whatever they are it was the first time I had ever been in one. I’m not really sure what I was expecting but I think. that I thought they would be old and clunky, but they aren’t.

Holiday: Day 2 - London
Massive day, we kicked off early , we came home late and we did so much in between!!
The whole early to bed early to rise thing really did pay off for us with myself and the kids waking up before 5am, so we were ready and out the door before 7am which is great for maximising what you do in the day, not so great for the feet :(