Al

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Having never been to Government House I was very excited about my first visit. For those who don’t know Sydney well, Government House is on the eastern edge of the CBD directly behind (to the south) of the Sydney Opera House. It is set amongst magnificent gardens leading down to just above the harbour and into the Sydney Botanic Gardens.

View of Government House from the front garden for pre-dinner drinks

View east towards Sydney harbour from the house

Guests in the garden before dinner for drinks

The House has been the NSW Governor’s official residence since 1837 – although it now serves simply as the Governor’s office and reception hall as the Governor no longer resides in the house. It was designed by Edward Blore in 1834 and is under the care of the Historic Houses Trust.

I must admit that I have always liked the romantic pseudo-medieval sandstone house set up amongst the botanical gardens even though I’m not usually a fan of the Gothick Picturesque style – I think it’s because it’s like a colonial oasis set between the harbour and the glistening glass office towers. However, all my romanticised medieval fears were realised when I entered the ballroom for dinner and found a Rococo doll’s house interior – truly extraordinary!! Although I did also laugh at the fabulous oversized guilted royal portraits that proliferate all the interior’s walls – including a very young portrait of Queen Elizabeth in the main entrance hall.

Dinner set in the ballroom

The medieval entrance hall with the coat of arms above the main door

The entrance hall with QEII's portrait opposite the main door

Interior portrait - King George III

All-in-all though not a bad place for a bit of dinner!

Al

I actually did a real life double-take when I saw this – such an effective trick.

Unfortunately the graffiti tag, upturned trolley and abandoned crate don’t really add much value!

All is revealed once you pass by …

Al

A month earlier, after 13 seasons, 130 Waratah games and 69 Teast, I decided that it was time to finish up at the end of the season. I still love playing the game but essentially I came to the conclusion that my body would not last another full year (especially now that the Super Rugby season has been extended by a month) so I have chosen to leave the game while I still enjoy running out each week and while I’m still able to compete at the top level. As my mother has always said: ‘The memories are far sweeter when you leave the party while you are still having fun!’

On the big screen for the last time with the TahsWith the boys on the field after my last game

So the loss against the Blues brings the end of my Waratah career, the guys fought bravely but with 9 front line guys missing through injury (myself included) we were always going to be up against it – so the game the week earlier in Sydney against the Brumbies was my to be the last for the Tahs.Hopefully now I might get a couple with the Wallabies before I finish up and maybe even the chance to play in a 3^rd World Cup.

A new building on Durban's waterfront

The view from my Durban hotel room on a stormy day

When we have a week between games we generally have a day off mid-week. So in the week leading up to the first game a few of us were lucky enough to score a berth on a local boat to do a morning’s fishing on the off shore reefs on our day off.

When we turned up at the docks though and saw the boat for the first time – an old 35ft flybridge fishing boat – we all immediately thought of the boat out of Jaws. This did not bode well! This was only made stringer when the boat’s old Irish sea captain who was the spitting image of the Robert Shaw in the movie greeted us at the dock. Luckily we didn’t spot any 30ft great whites but the weather wasn’t kind to us with strong wind, rain and a big swell so a couple of guys were dreadfully seasick but for the rest of us we had a great time catching 23 fish between the 8 of us.

Our fishing boat straight from Jaws!

The day's catch

One of the benefits of 2 days of rough weather was that the day of the game saw huge surf rolling into the beach in front of the hotel. At times it looked like what I’d imagine pipeline to be with massive 15ft waves rolling into the beach. The only guys brave enough to ride these monsters were 3 guys getting towed in with Jet skis.

Big surf in front of our hotel on game day. To give you an idea about the size of the surf is that the pier is about 20ft high.

Unfortunately after our close loss to the Sharks we only had a 6-day turn around till we played the bulls so we didn’t get a day off from training. However we did have a couple hours of sunlight left after training when the weather cleared up so a few of the reserves who weren’t too sore after the game had a go on a stationary wave in Durban. We thought they weren’t doing too badly until a couple of pro’s turned up and showed them how it was really done. I’ll have a video to show you of our efforts later this week.

Al

All in the space of about 3 weeks I managed to kill my laptop, my iPhone, my printer and my e-tag in my car (and while we’re at it somebody also managed to run into my car whilst it was parked in the street!). Well I now have a new iPhone, printer and e-tag and have also fully made the move over to Apple with a new MacBook Pro laptop – which means now I’m back in business to continue blogging.

We (the Waratahs) arrived into Auckland today to get ready to play the Auckland Blues tomorrow night so I thought I’d post a few images of the new grandstand at Eden Park. This ground will serve as the main stadium for the 2011 Rugby World Cup in September and in all honesty it’s not overly impressive for a ground that will be holding the final of the Rugby World Cup.

The design has been completed by Populous and in RWC mode looks like a mishmash of incomplete stands and styles. The final finished mode of the ground is a far better looking unified stadium but it seems strange that the stadium will not look its best when it is hosting the final of the RWC!

Eden Park's new grandstand with its 'plastic wrap' acoustic shield

New Stand with construction works in foreground for temporary Rugby World Cup seating

Walking through stadium to change rooms

The new away change room at Eden Park

New Stand from the playing surface

New stand showing the exterior plastic acoustic shield wrapping around the edge.

The new stand is at rear of image. Courtesy Modern Architecture & Design News

Completed Eden Park Redevelopment with a complete clear plastic exterior wrapping acting as an acoustic shield. Courtesy Modern Architecture & Design News

Al Baxter

This came about because as I have mentioned in an earlier blog, during 2010, I became part of a sustainability consultancy group (Sustainable Forward Consultancy Group) with Waratah and Wallaby hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau and a chemical engineer and ex-investment banker turned strategic sustainability consultant Chris Andrew.

As an architect, my part of the sustainable vision for GWS (developed with the assistance of the superb planners at Cox Richardson Architects) focused on the urban planning of the region.  Tatafu focused on the physical health of local communities in GWS through diet and fitness.

Below is a summary of what I spoke about.

Regional Issues, Sustainable Strategy and a 6 Point Plan for GWS

Sydney's strategic centres. Greater Western Sydney (GWS) shown in red with its current regional centres. Note also the north-west and south-west growth areas shown as dark grey areas west of Blacktown and Liverpool. Image courtesy of Cox Richardson Architects

Regional Issues affecting GWS sustainability

Sydney’s public transport system is based around a radial network centred in the Sydney CBD – 70% of GWS residents work in GWS but are forced to use a public transport system focused on Sydney CBD.

Economic forecasts see there being a shortage of about 200,000 jobs in the region by 2036.

Sydney wide forecast shortages in affordable housing but in GWS the shortages will be particularly severe in affordable housing that also has easy access to public transport, services and recreation.

Sustainable Vision

With these issues as the context, my vision of sustainability in the region is based around the 3 pillars of sustainability or a triple bottom line – environmental, economic and social sustainability.

It is my opinion that the single greatest effort WSROC can make to environmental sustainability in the region is to greatly reduce the amount of time that people use their private motor vehicles by changing usage to public transport and by rethinking GWS as a place (essentially keep people, food and travel all local).

The single greatest impact WSROC can have on economic sustainability in the region is the creation of jobs. And, the greatest impact WSROC can make to the social sustainability of GWS is for its residents to be able to afford a place to live with easy access to services and recreation.

A sustainable vision for GWS based on the triple bottom line will have to focus on public transport, employment and housing for the region.

6 Point Strategy to Achieve the Sustainable Vision

1. Create a strong positive identity for GWS with Parramatta as its cultural, social and commercial hub. (Requires large scale museums, art galleries, music, exhibition and convention centres worthy of the third biggest city catchment area in Australia behind Sydney and Melbourne – it should be similar to Brisbane’s Southbank)

2. Go ahead with the planned North-West and South-West rail links and growth centres as a good start.

3. Create a public transport link between the two new major growth areas through the western Sydney Employment Lands. Create further transport corridors radiating from Parramatta to the major regional employment nodes.

Sydney's current rail network. Image courtesy of Cox Richardson Architects

Future sydney rail

4. Create 200,000 extra jobs in the region.

Some employment options being:

1. A second airport – this will create 50,000 -100,000 direct jobs depending on its size and potentially even more if linked to super fast rail network. From a planning point of view this new airport would be ideally placed at Badgerys Creek as an employment and transport infrastructure driver for both NW and SW growth areas – if not here where else? Richmond is an option?

2 Creation of an employment and education hub similar to Macquarie Park and based on the Stanford University/Silicon Valley model at Baulkham Hills as there has been a tertiary educated and aspiration middle class movement into this residential suburb to take advantage of excellent schools and a desirable suburb but who currently leave the area for work.

3. Going ahead with the inter-modal transport node at Moorebank (heavy rail/road)

4. Make Parramatta CBD the centre for the entire state government much like Sacramento in California or Albany in New York.

5. Once employment nodes are created then you can attract diverse housing types and services around them and their associated public transport.

6. Turn Western Sydney Parklands into the Sydney Harbour of GWS – create a centre for recreation as well as upmarket residential areas so that residents stay in the region on a day to day basis for recreation as well as in the long term by creating desirable upmarket suburbs.

Al

Aerial shpt of stadium. © fu tsu construction co. ltd image courtesy toyo ito architect

The stadium has a wonderful serpentine shape with great structural patterning inside and out as well a beautiful use of concrete in the concourse areas. By cleverly integrating solar panels into the roof system it also happens to be the first stadium in the world to get the majority of its power from solar panels (apparently 75%).

Exterior shot of the stadium showing both the beautiful expressed structure as well as the integrated solar panels in the roof. © fu tsu construction co. ltd image courtesy toyo ito architect

Interior shot showing the structural pattern of the roof. © fu tsu construction co. ltd image courtesy toyo ito architect

View down one of the concourses showing Ito's wonderful use of concrete. © fu tsu construction co. ltd image courtesy toyo ito architect

Al

Me (and Ryan Cross) not looking very happy at training today

Most of our training sessions during pre-season are done on the Victoria Army Barracks' playing field located next door to the Sydney Football Stadium. It's a lovely place to train surrounded by some of the early sandstone barracks buildings - these ones built in 1846

Some of the guys today doing wrestling - part of the fitness and strength component during pre-season training

I really hope this week of blogging has helped give you a little insight to what I do as a professional footballer and in the coming weeks I hope to add to this with further rugby blogs as well as architectural and sustainability ones. Also, hopefully I can get the go ahead to upload some video of what happens behind the scenes at the Tahs. I also have really appreciated all the great comments left on both my site and on Twitter and will endeavour to respond to as many as possible.

Go the Wallabies against Wales!!!

Al