I've got some relatives that live out in Australia, and they have never met me (except one), and each year the Christmas card said "come see us next year!"
So back in December 2008 dad said to me "would you like to see the Australian GP?" -well yeah of course.. except theres just TWO problems.. 1) Its a very LONG flight.. 2) I HATE FLYING!!
So as i'm on Facebook I decided to see if any of my relatives were on there.. and they were.. -blimey!
and so after days of dad looking at flights and places we'd like to visit.. dad had an initial guide.. when the Archers Tour book dropped on the doormat.. *looks through*..
HANNAH...there is a tour around Australia for 21 day... that would take us up to the week before the Australian GP.. lets see if we can extend it for a week?...
after more enquirys, looks like we can extend by a week, So we book the holiday with the tour company.. OH MY GOODNESS -I'M GOING TO AUSTRALIA!

The next thing to do was book the Australian GP tickets... but we hit a problem... we couldn't book them, as the tickets would be sent to our house over here in England... when we would be on the other side of the world in Australia...
So myself and my brother went through the Australian Grand Prix website of all the Grandstands, of where myself and dad would like to sit... we decided to go for Fangio stand, along the pit straight...
So We emailed my relative (my 2nd cousin) Barbara, and asked if she would be kind enough to book us (me and dad) two tickets to the Australain Grand Prix in the Fangio stand, along the pit straight.. they were happy to do that for us.. and at the time of booking there was a special offer of book in January and you get "GP advantage" tickets too!
A week later Barbara email back with a conformation of Australian GP tickets... Fangio stand block V seats 29-30..
That ment nothing to us, except for knowing it was along the pit straight...

We left England on 4th March 2009, and CRIED my eyes out saying 'goodbye' to my brother at the airport, I was stressed from all the packing and sh!t scared of the long flight ahead, sitting in the cafe once through customs, with a coffee and croissant, I'm sitting at a table feeling sick, speaking to my friend Alison on the phone whos trying to calm me, when I'm also watching a HUGE jet plane, get closer to the termanal building.. it came quite close to the window, it was scary..
We boarded the flight and it was actually a smooth take off.. well we were on a newish plane, the new Airbus A380.. I didn't sleep on the flight, changed planes at Singapore, slept on the flight.. and touched down in Perth...
once through customs and meet our tour rep Steve, we leave the building only to see fire engines about and ambalances.. (word was part of arrivials ceiling at callasped!)
but one thing that HIT me.. THE HEAT.. PWERRRRRRRR (i'm in jeans/t-shirt/jumper/thick socks -we'd taken our jackets off once through customs!)

Anyway we visted Perth, Ayers Rock, Alice Springs, Cairn, Sydney, Canberra, Albury, and then onto Melbourne, some were done by coach, some by plane.. I can say i'm a seasonal traveller now!

Well I was dead excited MELBOUNE WAS HERE...NOW... (Tuesday 24th March)

We unpacked at our hotel, and got straight on the phone to Barbara, so she could come down with the package that had arrived for us..

After a hug/kiss, she gives me the package as dad and Barbara sit in the hotel lobby.. I'm busy looking at the package, which contains two GP Advantage tickets, plus two other Gp advantage cards (not sure what the point of them was cos they had a metel strip on them but no-where to swipe them!) two GP advantage pin hat badges, two laylands, two GP advantage baseball caps, and ticket information...
As we sit and chat, barbara's daughter Lucinda arrives, and we then leave the lobby and go for a coffee round the courner.. after a few hours and arrangements for our luggage as we would be spending the last week at theres, we say goodbye and go in seach for the local shop for some food to take back to the room, and some mineral water for wednesday.., and food, and went to bed excited.. Albert Park tomorrow -YAY...

Wednesday 25th March 2009-Behind the Scenes tour with GP advantage tickets:
Awake, eaten breakfast and showered, down in the lobby for 9am, this morning we were spending a few hours touring round Melbourne, the afternoon was free to do whatever...
So we're shown sights of Melbourne, we visit the Park, and then we were show around ALBERT PARK! well for what we could see that wasn't closed off due to a BIG EVENT happening this weekend says our tour rep.. WHAT'S HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND HANNAH, over the mike says Steve our tour rep.. FORMULA ONE GRAND PRIX, I reply, So tell us about it.. well -Steve interupts... the cars just go round and round the circut, and Albert Park stole it from Adelade...
Sitting on the coach we went past part of the circut, I could see through fencing and from sitting up higher on the coach.. adrenaline was pumping.. i'm gonna be there in a few hours.. we then head to St. Kilda, we were given an hour to either be on the beach or get some grub, look at shops... myself and dad decided as we'd be at the circut later, we'd better eat food now...
St. Kilda was advertising Taghaug watches with Kimi, Vodaphone shop, had Lewis Hamilton posters... shop windows had posters advertising the Grand prix with "Gear up to Albert Park"..
after a quick bite to eat we meet back at the coach only for some of our gang from our coach went HANNAH, there was some F1 drivers down on the beach look.. showing me there photos on the camera disply screen.. WHAT... turns out Gencarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil of Force India were doing some Media interviews.. NO FAIR -should have gone to the beach! (dad and his stomach!)
Anyway we hop back on the bus and then our tour rep says, that the coach will take us back to town where we can get off, or go back to the hotel, myself and dad decided to get off in town, so we could get tram tickets for later on back to Albert Park..
After a bit of confusion of how we get tram tickets, we get on the tram oposite Southern Cross station.. we also found out that with our grand prix tickets we get free travel from here of the whole event from Thurday (tomorrow) onwards..
We take the tram to the stop just after Abert Park.. we should have stayed on an extra stop as this took us to Gate 2, so had to walk to Gate 1, well it was good as we had time to kill!
We got to Gate one and noticed an official F1 car pick up lorry outside -snapped that! we got to gate one, and there were other waiting to get it, it didn't open till 5pm, once open, we queued up in a line, and was lead, all the way past the Fangio stand, across part of the start/finish straight, across the F1 pit lane, and into the paddock of the supercars/V8s etc, after a quick look, seeing guy working on the cars, we walked down THE F1 PIT LANE, stopping to have a look and a very empty BRAWNGP pit box, the garage had a screen across it so we couldn't see into it :(, walked past other garages, saw lots of machanic setting up, sorting out the pitboxes, or putting together the wheel guns!, or marking out the F1 tyres, saw a few F1 car nose cones and other bits of body work, and a few photos along the way, we then headed out behind the pitlane to the grass areas, over to the GPTV stage at the very front, where there was hardly any people there yet gathered for the driver interviews..
Eventually more people gathered, I remember turning round and seeing rows of faces behind!, first up were some V8 drivers (I think) and then I decided to change my camera lens to the telephoto one, to get closer shots, and then the interviews were over running, and the F1 drivers were still hadn't appeared, a quick break, and another interviewer on the panal, was Louise Goodman.. We were told the first team to be interview was Willams drivers Nico Rosberg and kazuki Nakajimi.. eventually they appeared, signing a few autographs along the barrier on the way, before sitting down on stage.. After questions from the panel and a few from the fans, alot of laughing too, it was time for the next F1 team... which ws BMW's Robert Kubica, and Nick Heildfeild... again they signed autographs by the barrier on the way to the stage...
again after a panel of questions for GPTV, and some from the fans, it was time for the final F1 team, Force India, Gencarlo Fisichello, and Adrian Sutil... again signed for the fans, but in doing so as the BMW guys came off stage, one of erm nicked Gencarlo's hat off of him, so there was a little bit of a chase.. all, before Gencarlo got his hat back, and went up on stage with Adrian, and shook hands with all the 3 presenters.. which was nice to see.. and again after the 15 mins of questions that was it then end of the interviews.. the Force India guys left and the three presenters wrapped up the GPTV show for the evening...
We decided to let the crowd go, as we waited Louise Goodman came down the steps and I called her over..
I asked her if she remembered me from the Johnny Herbert Karting event in November, adn she did, I asked her for an update of what she'd been up to since Novembers chat at the karting event, so she filled me in, I asked her if I could have a photo with her, and promptly called dad... and took the photo.. and then another fan asked, for a photo, but needed to have someone take it, and Louise responded "let the proffesional photographer take it!" -meaning ME! SO I took the photo, said goodbye and myself and dad headed for the tram, back to Southern Cross station and walked back to the hotel...
On reviewing the photo of me and Louise on the tram, sadly it didn't come out.. for some reason he didn't actually get the photo :'( -I'll ask her again if I see her at Silverstone GP, in June or wait until November at the Johnny Herbert Karting event.
It was a long tiring day, but was great to get some brillient shots of the drivers... bring on Tomorrow...

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