Rowing was the winner on the day

Today was the 150th Oxford & Cambridge boat race, an event that has been running since 1829 (with occasional stoppages for world wars). One of Duncan's workmates Nicole lives 100m from the start of the race, near Putney Bridge. The race proceeds from there upstream for four and a quarter miles, finishing in the general region of Bronwyn's school...

Weather for the boat race has varied over the years ― past temperatures ranging from -4.1 degrees to 23.6 degrees. Perhaps hoping for the latter, Nicole and James decided to host a BBQ (they're Aussies, after all). As it turned out it was 9 degrees today, pretty moderate compared with the past... Still, the barbie must go on! The 20 or so guests were nearly all Australian, but Bronwyn survived. It's a funny thing, actually. Coming away from New Zealand is helping me to slowly re-discover my Australian roots. Anyway, sometime after the barbie having watched the start of the race at the river we headed back to the house where we saw the rest on telly... slightly surreal.

I cheered for “Australia” initially, but figured better take sides and decided on Cambridge in honour of old mate Tony who is studying there. Not a bad choice ― after an early and controversial clash of oars (Oxford at fault) Cambridge pulled steadily away and finished a full six lengths ahead... A little larger than Oxford's win last year by one foot...

Kind of strange to watch the presumably well-heeled students of two rich universities (not the best rowers in the country) fighting it out in one of the most celebrated sports events of the year here. Still, that's tradition, I suppose. Long on hoopla, perhaps sometimes short on rationale. Not that they don't train hard either ― two hours of training for every stroke of the race, apparently. 250,000 other people thought it was worth turning out for, 7.7 million in the UK watched it on TV last time too apparently, and millions more around the world. For us, well, we were there, we met some nice people at Nicole and James', and it didn't rain on the barbie.