Perth - Cricket Stadion: fun despite not knowing the rules

Moin Moin everybody,
After six weeks of arriving in Perth it is really starting to get into autumn. Which means lots of rain and colder temperatures. Therefore, despite having a car at my disposal to do some trips, I decided to do something in the city. And after some research I thought: "Why not go to the cricket stadion? Should be fun!" Even if I don't know the rules. Or maybe BECAUSE I don't know the rules :-)
Luckily the WACA (Western Australia Cricket Association) offers two ground tours daily during weekdays. At 10am and at 1pm. I of course went there at 10am...NOT! I slept in and didn't get out of bed until 10:30am! I got to the WACA at 12am in the dry. JIPPIE!

The ticket includes entry into the attached cricket museum where I took lots of pictures of the displays. Lots of bats and balls and trophees, and more bats and caps and shirts and trophees.

This little trophee of "The Ashes" totally reminded me of the UK and how obsessed they were with this sport. I even wrote about it in my old blog (but beware: it is in german!).

This Sir Donald "Don" Bradman seems to be fairly popular. Apparently some really famous and good-playing Australian. A whole room has been dedicated to him.

And this is all stuff from a certain Lillee Marsh. The grand stand of this stadion is named after him and he was (or still is?) the CEO of some important cricket association in Australia.

After 40 minutes I have been twice through the whole museum (you see, it is probably smaller than my flat in Bremen was...), so I ate my sandwich for lunch in front of the museum. At 1pm the tour guide Nigel and three other cricket-enthusiasts (they really were, not like me) made our way to the stadion where Nigel told us a lot about the stadion, the players, the different important matches and other really interesting things while we took in the great view of the ground from the fifth floor.

Then we went down to the second floor and got through the bar and some nice event rooms and arrived at the Stump Lounge. After every big international match game a stump would be cut in half and on each half the players (including umpires - whatever that is...) of both team would sign. A nice idea, don't you think?

Then we went outside and around the field to the other side. Luckily the clouds had cleared a bit and it didn't rain while we walked outside.

This board is still in use despite having very new digital boards as well. Up until a few years ago the ground tour would include a walk inside as well to see how the board staff would work. But Health & Safety got in the way... Instead you can now see a video in the museum about the board in operation. I watched it for about 5 minutes and it is quite interesting. But apparently not very pleasant in summer.

Then we went to see the lunch room where both teams would take in lunch together and the two separated team rooms which look fairly the same. Not like in the Werder Bremen stadion where the Away Team gets the standardized rooms and the home players have an area the size of the football field itself! And you are not even allowed to go in there because it is so secret!!!

I totally rock the cricket helmet outfit, don't you think? I was the only one to put on the helmet but it was so much fun. You can see it, right? LOVED IT!

Then we went down the ramp of the home players! WUHU! Well, they could have really cleaned up a bit for us!!!

Finally on the ground. I was so happy about this because I didn't really expect it. At the tour of the Werder Bremen stadion we were not allowed onto the field in order to not to destroy it (typical German really). Well, Australians are so much more relaxed about this. I went crazy and took like a billion pictures of me on grass, and some more grass, and of course of the center piece grass. AWESOME!!!

After about 10 minutes we went inside again to have a look at some more historic things and some more bars. Until we made it up to the Donald Bradman Room, the most expensive area you could be in. Pay 3,100 AUD per season and you can watch the game from there.

After two hours we walked back to the museum where I had a final look at this apparently very historical cricket ball. Some kind of underarm strategy in a game Australia versus New Zealand. Something like New Zealand had only six runs (or wickets?) to do to win and this underarm throw, well, prevents the batman to really hit it. Sorry you guys, I don't know the rules to explain the importance of this ball properly but I am sure the internet will tell you more :-)

Just after I took that close-up picture a test fire alarm made us evacuate the grounds. (Really reminded me of my time at Makro with all the test alarms and fake alarms...). So I got the FREE bus towards Northbridge to eat some Snow Ice Cream. I again had a 2-for-1-voucher and ordered the flavours Green Tea and Peanut in this stylish establishment.

I didn't like Green Tea at all (I wanted Lychee anyway but they had ran out of it) whereas Peanut was much better, mainly because of the chocolate sauce :-) Then I walked around the area which apparently is the Chinatown of Perth before I headed back to Manning.

This ground tour of a cricket stadion was so much more fun and much more interesting than I could have dreamed for. Probably because I didn't expect much and mainly because the guide Nigel was so funny and chatty I had an awesome time there. I was actually truly happy after the tour! Who would have thought that? Not me.
My next stop: an Aussie Rules Football game in the Paterson Stadion!
Yours cricket-stadion-visiting Stefanie