We decided quite a while ago that we wanted to get married, but we just weren’t quite sure how or when. We thought maybe we’d do it when we got back to London when we finished travelling, but we weren’t too keen on the stress of organising a big wedding. I must admit that the thought had occurred to us to get married while we were away travelling, but we hadn’t really taken the idea that seriously until we were in Cairns in January. We took my Dad’s bike out a few times and rode up the coast and decided that Palm Cove was where we wanted to do it.

So we made some pretty big decisions in a pretty short space of time, booked the venue, chose a dress and then jetted out to India. We didn’t give my Mum all that much notice, but she managed to organise the fine details with about 6 weeks to go.

Anthony’s family flew out from the UK and joined my family and some close family friends for the ceremony on 20th May. It was small, calm, and for us, perfect.

Thank you to those of you who made such huge efforts to be there with us, and to everyone else for understanding why we did it this way.

The weather was a bit scary, as it began to rain heavily 5 minutes before my first ride and it was unbelievably slippery out on the track, but it dried up over the course of the day and I actually ended up being able to catch and overtake a couple of people by the end!

There wasn’t any timing allowed, but we think I was about a minute off Nicky Hayden’s circuit record of 1:30.059, not too bad I suppose.

Here’s a few pics from the day.

We arrived in Sydney in time for Morgan and Brad’s wedding at the beginning of December. We were so happy to be able to be there for it, a beautiful wedding and a fantastic day! It was great to catch up with the bride and groom and other school friends I haven’t seen for a long time.

While we were in Sydney we had a little Sherlock Holmes reunion with Bruce Nelson and Sarah Smith… very weird to be meeting up in Sydney, but it was a fun night of schnitzels and steins at the Löwenbräu (our second visit, thanks Janna, for the first!)

The rest of the time in Sydney was filled with going to the beach, shopping, eating and catching up with friends. Thanks to all who made time to see us!

Next, my parents, Anthony and I drove inland to take a little tour of the town I grew up in, Armidale. While we were in the area we stopped at the famous Thunderbolt’s Rock in Uralla and the biggest tomato greenhouse I’ve ever seen in Guyra. We spent a day on the land thanks to our friends the Wrights who took us around their properties at Black Mountain and Inverness.

We headed north for Christmas and new year at the beach in Queensland… fortunately the weather was with us and we had plenty of sunshine. Didn’t really get up to much, just plenty of eating, drinking, reading, swimming and sleeping. Perfect holiday!

From Cairns we flew down to Melbourne… see Ant’s next post for details of what happened there!

Here’s a few more pictures.