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Bob Murphy
''For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."
- Robert Louis Stevenson
THERE'S just something innately attractive about visiting places away from home.
Getting to those places by plane has become a bit trickier of late, though. Volcanoes have roared back to life in recent times, and the thick, smoky ash they hold within has spewed skyward and played havoc with all manner of things - us travellers being just one.
The Bulldogs got the travel bug this week, but not that curious kind of bug that has you longing for lapping waters, palm trees, snorkeling and drinks with umbrellas in them.
No, this particular travel bug was more like gastro. It hits you without warning and feels about as planned as a hiccup.
This week the Dogs had been booked to fly north, but as we got to the club on Tuesday to continue our training routine, word filtered down that due to the ash clouds we would have to leave for the Gold Coast almost right away, or risk not making it at all.
Bags were hastily packed, awkward conversations with wives were held, and before we knew it our tray tables were locked away and we were up among the dreamy clouds and on our way to meet the upstarts of the competition, albeit a few days ahead of schedule.
In my opinion, the king of travel modes has to be the train. There's just something about the hypnotic rhythm of a rolling locomotive, but a plane is a sensible way for a footy team to get around.
We touched down in Brisbane on Tuesday night and hopped straight onto a bus en route for the Gold Coast. As soon as we piled on, someone put on a documentary covering the career of Tom Brady (an NFL quarterback in the class of Joe Montana).
Brady was a gun high school footballer but had limited athletic ability, which left scouts cold on the prospect of drafting him. He slipped through to pick 199 in the 2000 draft.
For AFL players, we have the draft camp, and for potential NFL draftees there is the combine, both of which put a player's physical abilities - speed, agility and skill - into a test tube.
One American scout referred to looking for the intangibles, meaning you're not quite sure what you're looking for until you see it in a player.
Brady received a very unflattering report card from his test tube data. American football and Australian rules are similar in one simple little fact - neither are played in a science laboratory.
Brady just knows how to play. As one of the recruiters who overlooked him in that 2000 draft put it: "We weren't able to open up his chest to see what was inside." Test results are one thing, an athlete's hunger and natural feel for competition are something else altogether.
The Bulldogs' travelling party was silent as we watched and listened to the story of the All-American quarterback with the handsome face.
Sitting on the bus heading down the coast, I thought of two of our own players, young pups Luke "Grommet" Dahlhaus and the cheeky Jayden Schofield.
Brady has won three Super Bowl rings and is regarded as an all-time great; Grommet and Schoey have three games between them.
But both of these young lads were almost bypassed when the AFL clubs finalised their lists (Schofield went at pick 74 and Dahlhaus had to wait until the rookie draft). They have added energy and spunk to a team that was lacking a bit of both.
Like Brady, they seem to have the goods where it matters - in their chests.
I once read that Ringo Starr doesn't get off a plane unless he can see palm trees, a hangover of sorts from a lifetime of Liverpool winters.
Waking up the morning after our Brady-inspired bus trip, there were indeed palm trees swaying outside our windows.
But as much as some of us might like to be, we're not the Beatles.
This will be no holiday, and how much we enjoy ourselves will come down to what's in our chests. That doesn't change just because there's sunshine and palm trees.
''For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."
- Robert Louis Stevenson
THERE'S just something innately attractive about visiting places away from home.
Getting to those places by plane has become a bit trickier of late, though. Volcanoes have roared back to life in recent times, and the thick, smoky ash they hold within has spewed skyward and played havoc with all manner of things - us travellers being just one.
The Bulldogs got the travel bug this week, but not that curious kind of bug that has you longing for lapping waters, palm trees, snorkeling and drinks with umbrellas in them.
No, this particular travel bug was more like gastro. It hits you without warning and feels about as planned as a hiccup.
This week the Dogs had been booked to fly north, but as we got to the club on Tuesday to continue our training routine, word filtered down that due to the ash clouds we would have to leave for the Gold Coast almost right away, or risk not making it at all.
Bags were hastily packed, awkward conversations with wives were held, and before we knew it our tray tables were locked away and we were up among the dreamy clouds and on our way to meet the upstarts of the competition, albeit a few days ahead of schedule.
In my opinion, the king of travel modes has to be the train. There's just something about the hypnotic rhythm of a rolling locomotive, but a plane is a sensible way for a footy team to get around.
We touched down in Brisbane on Tuesday night and hopped straight onto a bus en route for the Gold Coast. As soon as we piled on, someone put on a documentary covering the career of Tom Brady (an NFL quarterback in the class of Joe Montana).
Brady was a gun high school footballer but had limited athletic ability, which left scouts cold on the prospect of drafting him. He slipped through to pick 199 in the 2000 draft.
For AFL players, we have the draft camp, and for potential NFL draftees there is the combine, both of which put a player's physical abilities - speed, agility and skill - into a test tube.
One American scout referred to looking for the intangibles, meaning you're not quite sure what you're looking for until you see it in a player.
Brady received a very unflattering report card from his test tube data. American football and Australian rules are similar in one simple little fact - neither are played in a science laboratory.
Brady just knows how to play. As one of the recruiters who overlooked him in that 2000 draft put it: "We weren't able to open up his chest to see what was inside." Test results are one thing, an athlete's hunger and natural feel for competition are something else altogether.
The Bulldogs' travelling party was silent as we watched and listened to the story of the All-American quarterback with the handsome face.
Sitting on the bus heading down the coast, I thought of two of our own players, young pups Luke "Grommet" Dahlhaus and the cheeky Jayden Schofield.
Brady has won three Super Bowl rings and is regarded as an all-time great; Grommet and Schoey have three games between them.
But both of these young lads were almost bypassed when the AFL clubs finalised their lists (Schofield went at pick 74 and Dahlhaus had to wait until the rookie draft). They have added energy and spunk to a team that was lacking a bit of both.
Like Brady, they seem to have the goods where it matters - in their chests.
I once read that Ringo Starr doesn't get off a plane unless he can see palm trees, a hangover of sorts from a lifetime of Liverpool winters.
Waking up the morning after our Brady-inspired bus trip, there were indeed palm trees swaying outside our windows.
But as much as some of us might like to be, we're not the Beatles.
This will be no holiday, and how much we enjoy ourselves will come down to what's in our chests. That doesn't change just because there's sunshine and palm trees.
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