Fight club

The first rule about Fight Club is....

Ok, so I'm breaking all the rules! This weekend I headed north of Perth to Moore River with a great group of 25 men from church. It was the Fight Club (church mens ministry) weekend away: time to hang out, chat, bond, eat meat, and have fun. I was responsible for buying the food (ahem, meat) for the weekend so got 100 sausages, 40 steaks et al en route to McDonalds where the weekend began. On Friday night we had a good chat led by Rory (our pastor) about being faithful as young Christian men - something increasingly counter-cultural in all senses I think. We then headed to the beach for some wrestling. The ring was drawn in the sand, and two guys were sent in to scrap it out. Once the champion had prevailed he did not have an instant to recover before a new challenger was at him - very amusing. On my turn in the pit I prevailed over two guys before taking a big hit from an eager challenger. I was concussed so decided to sit out the rest of the fighting, a physcial game of British bulldog, and a night swim in the sea. After everyone got back we stayed up very very late watching Arrested Development, and Braveheart. A hearty evening of good chats and relaxing banter.

On Saturday we headed to the sand dunes for some sand-boarding. It was quite a cold day, and raining heavily. Still, we spent several hours boarding down dunes, running back up, and generally having a good time. I also tried my hand at being towed behind a 4x4 on a rope - kinda like wakeboarding, though I struggled to get a hold of that one. After this, I went for a quick surf with Joel. It was amazing to drive in his 4x4 onto a windswept beach with no one else to be seen and hop into the water straight from the car (almost). The surfing wasn't great, & I took another knock to the head from my surfboard. Amazingly, just before this happened a dolphin breached the water about 2 metres away from me. It gave me such a surprise as it came out the water that I jumped off my surfboard - I then got nailed by a bomb, & got the surfboard to the head. Needless to say at that point it was time to call it a day.

After a big meat dinner a few of us headed to a random Inn in the middle of a national park, which feld like it was about 99 miles from any civilisation. We were hoping to catch Australia v Wales (rugby union) on the big screen, and were not disappointed when the barman switched channels for us. Good beer and hot potato wedges sustained a very good evening with friends. I will miss nights such as these. We then returned to College where we watched South Africa trounce the England 'C team' in a disappointing game. A few of my South African friends enjoyed the victory at the expense of myself and Ben (the other exchange student from Leicester) - richly deserved on their part, as the England rugby on show was fairly (actually, very) rubbish, and South Africa seem to be on the right track for the World Cup. I hope Ashton can turn things round a little before 14.9.07 when I will be watching the teams play again in Paris at the Rugby World Cup, nevermind before the second Test next weekend. Unfortunately, I've got no photos to share with you. Off to church now. Bye!