The Sydney Harbour Amazing Race

Before it even got started, a few of my friends had already pulled out for one reason or another, inlcuding my team mate! Soft. Luckily the comedic genius (aka Van) came to the rescue. With him as my team mate, we'd surely win! Or at least laugh all the way to the finish line from his endless stream of wise-cracks.

We scoped the field early on and saw our danger team. The pairing of Iron Jemaine and The Asian Hulk (aka Minh). Lady luck was smiling on us today as the hulk was a little sick. Plus he'd sliced a chunk of flesh off his finger in the morning when he got into a little disagreement with his street directory. The comedic genius and I were starting to place bets that Iron Jemaine would be carrying the asian hulk across the finish line later today.

Our plan of attack was to "slipstream" them throughout the race. Then with the end in sight, we would knee-cap the hulk and make a dash for the finish. There was no doubt that we would win. We had this one in the bag.

Registration was at the Kirribilli Hotel at Milsons Point. After our rego, the comedic genius & I decided to go for a beer as part of our preparation. Only to have to skull half of it when they gave out the first clue to the first checkpoint!

Checkpoint 1: Lady Gowrie Lookout at Milsons PointThe rush was on. Competitors everywhere. We even had a few girls follow us with sounds of hysterical laughter.

Comedic Genius: "We're being followed. Let's lose them."

10 pushups were required at the checkpoint before clue #2 was given. The asian hulk scoffed at it and did it with 1 arm.

Checkpoint 2: The fun house at Luna ParkOnly 1 representative was required to go through the fun house. Iron Jemaine & I were the guinea pigs. Fairly straight forward checkpoint.

Checkpoint 3: The Mercantile Hotel at the RocksThis clue really stumped us. "This place rocks on a particular day in March. It is a place of business. The tiles here are very special" We finally worked out that St Patricks Day was in march. Thus we went looking for an irish pub at the rocks. One of us mentioned that the Orient Hotel had nice tiles. So we went into the Orient Hotel but saw nothing. We asked the lady at the bar and she pointed us to the Mercantile. Phew!

Checkpoint 4: Opera House forecourtAt this one, we had to answer 5 questions about various shops/restaurants in the area before being given our next clue. Simple.

Checkpoint 5: Starbucks at Circular QuayHere we had to do a beautiful rendition of "The Land Down Under" by Men at Work in front of strangers walking past. We were so bad they told us to stop and gave us our next clue.

Checkpoint 6: Park next to North Sydney OvalThe challenge here was to walk as fast as possible around a marker (20 metres away) and back whilst carrying 2 glasses of water and a bottle of wine on a tray without spilling anything. No problems here.

Checkpoint 7: The Oaks Hotel at North SydneyOn the way here, we asked a cyclist for directions. After 5 minutes of walking,

Comedic Genius: "Hey what if she was the mole? No wait, wrong game show."

So we made it. But to our surprise we came 42nd out of around 60 teams. Very disappointing. We did it in about 2.5hrs. The winners did it in 1 1/4 hours. They must've spent a fair bit of money on taxis and water taxis. We only used public transport. Not to worry as we had a massive lunch at the Oaks Hotel to top it off.

Overall a fantastic day! Weather was sunny and cool. The thrill of a competition was there. The intellectual challenge was there. The physical challenge was definitely there. And best of all, the whole event raised a total of $1400 for Oxfam. Woohoo!