Will Clarke's Blog by Will_Clarke

G'day everyone! It's been all go here the past week and I'm looking forward to another massive week coming up with lots of tennis action from the Australian Open and one of my best friend's weddings! First up, I'm happy to report that at last I've seen my first snake and my first encounter certainly couldn't have got any better! We were halfway through a 4hr mountain ride up to Beechmont. There's a national park at the far end, so it's a great place for some serpent spotting. My training partner Dane shouted out in an Aussie accent. "Look at this beauty!" And there she was, about 1.5m long, sprawled across the path, lying perfectly still so we could all take time to appreciate it.

I was just about to get a stick to give it a bit of a poke when a ranger came down the hill and pulled up. We tried to talk to him but he pretty much ignored us and just walked straight up to Sid. With one swift movement he grabbed it by its neck, tied him in a knot and threw him in the bush. We all thought it was the best thing we'd ever seen obviously. We asked him what it was and tried to tell him how cool he looked, but he totally blanked us, got back into the truck and drove off! So for me, he is this week's lad of the week!

Yesterday was Australia Day. It's massive over here and arguably one of the more celebrated days of the year. I love the concept; shrimps on the barbecue, stubbies, games on the beach, lots of house parties. I wish I could have joined in the festivities, but unfortunately for the self employed we don't really get bank holidays, so it was just a normal day of training for me. It's actually one of the hardest days of the year to train eclipsing even Christmas Day. On Christmas everyone is hiding inside keeping warm so nobody really sees you out. But in Australia people are outside celebrating, everything is closed, and the roads are really busy. And occasionally you get a waft of barbecue chicken to really rub in the fact that you can't celebrate and have to get the miles in instead. Jealous!

I was a bit nervous this week. It was a deja vu of the Queensland floods last year. We had 3 solid days of non stop rain and there were literally no breaks. There were floods but thankfully it calmed down a bit and we didn't experience any large scale damage like last year…yet! It is raining again however today and unfortunately for them, it's the day where my coach Michelle Dillon and my training partner and one of my best buddies Stu Hayes are tying the knot. I'm one of the best men, so it's a very exciting and new experience for me. I haven't been to too many weddings yet, but I'm super excited to attend this one! I hope everyone had a great week!