"Hotter than a bastard"*

Team Woodside's final weekend in Oz was spent on Rottnest Island. This is a lovely, quiet, underrated place a few km off the coast from Perth. No cars, few people, remarkable weather, spectacular beaches, a great road/cycle track circumnavigating the island and a real unspoiled feel. The principal inhabitants of the island are little marsupials known as Quokkas. These mini-kangaroos make themselves quite at home in the pub and restaurants. One of them, apparently named Roger, stole Winky's beer whilst his vision temporarily blurred as a result of the drubbing the Australian Rugby team were experiencing at the hands of the Springboks on the pub TV (Eddie and George - you've let me down once too often - it's enough to make a BLOKE switch allegiances back to the All-Blacks. Grrr.). The days were spent cycling, swimming and relaxing. On the Sunday L,M and W went scuba diving to check out the local marine life. All highly recommended.

On the way back to the Old Dart, most of the Woodside team took a little stopover in Dubai . Our non-exsistent corporate expense account didn't stretch to a stay in the hotel pictured, although we did drop by for a look. Quite a remarkable place. As for the hotel we did stay in...well let's just say it wasn't quite as photogenic. We swam in the tea-warm crystal clear Arabiam Gulf, sought respite in the fiercely air-conditioned shopping malls, took a little cruise on Dubai Creek (photo is of the golf course clubhouse - an oasis for expats?) and generally basked in the more-than-ample heat.

We rode the endless dunes in a 4x4 to an Arabian feast in the desert, complete with mud-like coffee, shisha, henna (for the girls), camel riding, kebabs and belly dancing.
Food and drink in Dubai is great. Fresh juices and kebabs that put the Botley Road kebab van in perspective.

The team is now in Oxford working "hard" to tidy up the SCP submission. All good fun.

We hope all of you guys had a fun summer like we did. Thankyou to those teams who contributed to the blog. We hope you enjoyed reading the posts as much as we did. See you round Oxford, guys. Take care.

*winky will buy a pint for the first person to place the quote