Football | Hello from the Five Star Vagabond

Champagne weekend Sydney 2008

July 2, 2016 by David Herd

Weekend with Stingy

Champagne weekend Sydney

Champagne weekend Sydney in 2008 was on the menu when I spent a weekend at a friends home in Point Piper. He worries about being seen on the internet, so to protect his privacy we will just call him Stingy. I imagine a whistle-blower will tip him off about this post and he will complain as usual. I would like to stress nothing in this personal photo blog of mine is intended to cause him any discomfort. It is in fact a salute to a very successful businessman.

I would like to emphasise my policy regarding my photo & travel blogs, should any person be offended or concerned by material I have posted, please contact me direct and I will immediately remove it.

Champagne football Sydney is my personal photo history not part of my travel blog.

I was very lucky when Stingy lent me one of his cars to use, extremely lucky when it turned out to be a Lexus. 🙂

City skyline from Vaucluse

I took advantage of my flash transport and did a little tour around the eastern suburbs.

Coogee Beach

A deserted Coogee beach, I have many memories of the local pubs where I often visited in my 20s.

Stingy is the big guy in the middle

Peter Hobbs and Peter H on the right. Peter H is another guy who is paranoid about his name on the internet. We are at the SCG to see the Sydney Swans play the Richmond Tigers.

Sydney Cricket Ground

This wonderful sports arena with this beautiful members stand, which was built in 1886, holds countless memories for myself and millions of sports fans all over Australia.

Stingy & friends

John Martin aka Pothole with his Chinese girlfriend and Lee O’mara are here with Stingy at the Woolahra hotel. Pothole lives in the same condo as I do in Pattaya 2 hours south of Bangkok, in fact he accompanied me on a quick trip to Koh Samui only last week on June 20 2016.

Woolahra Hotel

Sadly Pothole lost his best friend John Griffin just a few months after this photo was taken after he lost a long battle with cancer.

For a great hotel rate in Sydney just book through THIS LINK.

Bar Reggio

Friday lunch at Bar Reggio is a long term tradition for Stingy and his friends, located in Crown St Darlinghurst, it is a lively Italian restaurant that serves good food and allows you to bring your own wine.

Back to Stingy’s palace

Every wall upstairs and down is cluttered with paintings.

Running out of wall space

A great example of how to make a terrific home look less attractive. 🙂

A Stingy lookalike

They could be twins. 🙂

Champagne weekend Sydney, I’ll drink to that.

I’m not generally a champagne drinker however I will make an exception for Dom Perignon. 🙂

Great kitchen

This is certainly one of the nicest homes I have ever stayed in.

Stingy’s liquor cabinet

There is no shortage of booze in Stingy’s house, as you can clearly see Jim Beam is his preferred poison.

Ten years have flown by & now in 2018 aged 70 Stingy has given up the booze. So many years of heavy drinking have finally caught up with him. The doctors advice was crystal clear, stop drinking or die.

Geriatrics R Us.

That’s Stingy (2nd from the left) in December 2017, he has lost an incredible amount of weight being off the booze.

Naturally living on the waterfront you need a boat

Captain Stingy conducting business on the high seas. 🙂

Stingy = chick magnet

Of course the ladies are attracted by his good looks and animal magnetism, boats, booze & a $6 million dollar house have nothing to do with it.

Champagne weekend Sydney at Stingy’s palace

Three stories and looking over Sydney harbour.

Just a short distance to his great catamaran.

Stingy’s great looking boat.

Sea Treasure at Crows Nest.

On the right is my cousin Debbie with her South African friend Phyllis, great food at the Sea Treasure.

Crab at the Sea Treasure

Fantastic crab at the Sea Treasure, this reminds me of Boat Quay in Singapore. 🙂

That’s all folks

Thanks for visiting my Champagne weekend Sydney photo blog.

Here are some more posts to check out

Life 2015 Family history Life 1982

Adelaide 1972 Iron Bar Freddy Sydney 2006

Thailand 2008 Gold Coast Babes World trip 2003

Great hotel room rates anywhere in the world if you book

through these links below. Book now & pay later.

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Bangkok Hotels Pattaya Hotels

Brazil Hotels

That’s all folks

Pattaya live webcam

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A-One hotel on Beach Road

For a great room rate at the A-One hotel opposite the beach just book through THIS LINK.

Brazil Hotels

Soi Cowboy Nana Plaza Patpong

Check out these great photo blogs.

Rio beach babes

Florianopolis Brazil

Bangkok river ferry

Fabulous HCMC

Amazing World Food

Lyme Regis Jurassic coast

Hiroshima Japan

Sydney Harbour

Lake Como Lake Garda Italy

Pattaya live webcam

Counter only started January 11 2021

This gallery contains 2 photos

Australian Football Fanatics

October 6, 2014 by David Herd

AFL or Australian Football Fanatics

Australian Football Fanatics

Australian football fanatics is an understatement, ten days ago on Saturday September 27 2014 100,000 people were at the MCG for the grand final. Sadly for me Hawthorn smashed my beloved Sydney Swans. The Swans did win the flag in 2012 & 2005, this post focuses on my trip to Melbourne in 2006 for what we Aussies call an Australian football fanatics weekend escape.

Another incredibly busy year in 2006 for travel including Belem at the mouth of the mighty Amazon , Fortaleza on the north coast of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Buzios, Cabo Frio & another great trip to Tuscany & Portofino.

Melbourne Cricket Ground

Melbourne Cricket Ground or the MCG is the home of Australian football. Until the 1970s, more than 120,000 people sometimes crammed into the venue – the record crowd standing at around 130,000 for a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade in 1959, followed by 121,696 for the 1970 VFL Grand Final. Grandstand redevelopments and occupational health and safety legislation have now limited the maximum seating capacity to approximately 95,000 with an additional 5000 standing room capacity, bringing the total capacity to 100,024.

Australian football fantatics David Herd & Ross Kennedy

With my good friend Ross Kennedy at the “G” to watch a game of Australian football.

Going to Telstra Dome for Australian football

Ross Kennedy with Mariana’s nieces & brother Steven Vasiljevic.

Up There, Cazaly

Melbourne parliament house

Parliament House in Melbourne, located at Spring Street in East Melbourne at the edge of the Melbourne city centre, has been the seat of the Parliament of Victoria, Australia, since 1855.

East Melbourne near the MCG.

A beautiful park beside he city.

Flinders St Station

Flinders Street is served by Metro’s suburban services, and V/Line regional services to Gippsland. It is the busiest station on Melbourne’s metropolitan network, with some 92.6 million passenger movements recorded in 2011/12.

It was the first railway station in an Australian city and the world’s busiest passenger station in the late 1920s.

The main station building, completed in 1909, is a cultural icon of Melbourne, with its prominent dome, arched entrance, tower and clocks one of the city’s most recognisable landmarks. It is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. The Melburnian idiom “I’ll meet you under the clocks” refers to the row of clocks above the main entrance, which indicate the time-tabled time of departure for trains on each line; another idiom, “I’ll meet you on the steps”, refers to the wide staircase underneath these clocks. Flinders Street Station is responsible for two of Melbourne’s busiest pedestrian crossings, both across Flinders Street, including one of Melbourne’s few pedestrian scrambles.

St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne

St Paul’s Cathedral is built on the site where the first public Christian services in Melbourne were led by Dr Alexander Thomson in 1836. Soon afterwards a small wooden chapel was built elsewhere, and the area became a corn market until 1848, when it was made available for the building of the bluestone St Paul’s Parish Church. Consecrated in 1852, this Church was used until 1885, when it was demolished to make way for the present Cathedral.

Religion in Australia is diverse but the country is predominantly Christian with, in an optional question on the 2011 Census, 61.1% of the Australian population declaring some variety of Christianity. Historically the percentage has been far higher and the religious landscape of Australia is changing and diversifying. Also in 2011, 22.3% of Australians stated “no religion”, and a further 8.55% chose not to answer the question. The remaining population is a diverse group which includes Buddhists (2.5%), Muslims (2.2%), Hindus (1.3%), Jews (0.45%) and Sikhs (0.3%).

Melbourne skyline

Blue sky in Melbourne is a bonus. 🙂

If it was Bangkok it would be a coup.

Not Bangkok just Swanston St Melbourne, the weekend warriors having a parade.

Federation Square

Federation Square in Melbourne, is a mixed-use development covering an area of 3.2 hectares and centred around two major public spaces: open squares and one covered, built on top of a concrete deck above busy railway lines.

Federation Square

Located on the corner Swanston St & Flinders St, Melbourne.

The Yarra River

The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches. I hope you have noticed that Australian football is not the only attraction in Melbourne. 🙂