Back Home, 15th May 2008
Well, back home now.
I’ve got mixed feelings really. It’s great to see our daughter and friends, but Australia is such a great place to visit and I’m already missing it.
Competing in Perth in the World Championships was “Ace” and I’m raring to do it again! I’m a competitive guy, and although I did far better than my initial rankings in the heats indicated (finishing between nine to 25 places ahead of what was expected), I would love to get a medal. The top 10 finishers get one, and it would be great to be the first coeliac/Type 1 diabetic to swim that fast. It will mean lots of extra training and weights work over the coming years, but it’ll be worth it. Yes, I've really got the bug!
Highlights of the trip have to be:
- the view at sunset of Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Forget the expensive cruises, just hop on one of the many ferries; they're cheap and the crew are very friendly.
- the Desert Park at Alice Springs, a bio park which gives you a real feel for the outback including ‘desert’, ‘woodland’ and riverbeds’ zones.
- the Blue Mountains, 36 miles from Sydney. Stunning views from the top of the cliffs down to the valley floor, which is covered in forests. I hate heights but I managed the steepest funicular railway in the world at ‘Scenic World’ three times. What a buzz! Not quite as good as seeing those four personal bests on the scoreboard at Challenge Stadium though.
There are so many more things that I could mention, the whole trip was fantastic. As for the Aussies; they couldn’t have been friendlier. From Mike Walker, the swimmer who presented me with his club’s swim hats in Perth, to swimmers from Bronte Winter Swimming Club who invited me to their BBQ – I was only just strolling through the park to the beach at the time! (Bronte is a beach just around the corner from Bondi.)
Managing my coeliac disease
I'll start with the negative first. I’d advise anyone travelling to Australia to choose your airline carefully as we had a disaster with gluten-free meals on the flights. We booked all six flights with gluten-free meals twice; once with the travel agent in November 07, and secondly, just to be safe, we emailed the airline again in March 08 – even receiving confirmation that all meals would be gluten-free.
Well guess what, on the first (very long) flight, there were no gluten-free meals for me. Despite promises to correct the mistake for our other flights, at the next five airports, no gluten-free meals were allocated either.
My advice to all coeliacs travelling is confirm your gluten-free meals with your airline at least three times – and take copies of all correspondence with you. As a safety measure, take gluten-free crackers and biscuits with you, and ask staff one last time when you check-in. At least then if there’s been a mix-up, and you’re in a larger airport, the airline will have a few hours to arrange a special meal.
Anyway, enough of the negative. Overall I found it very easy to manage coeliac disease in Oz. All the restaurants we visited were happy to cater for my needs. In one specialist steak restaurant in Cronulla (a suburb of Sydney), the ‘Hogs Breath Café’, the manager saw me personally and arranged for my steak, salad and jacket potato to be cooked in a separate frying pan and with separate utensils.
Food shopping-wise, we found ‘Coles’ supermarkets the best with gluten-free bread always available, despite sometimes being in the freezer. Coles was also good for gluten-free biscuits, as was ‘Woolworths’. In any food shop or supermarket, just head to the Health Food section. We even saw gluten-free self raising flour in one shop – shame we were close to our weight limit otherwise Deb would have brought some home!
Thank you!
All in all, a fantastic event and trip. A special thanks to Glutafin for their sponsorship and supplies; on the flights it was reassuring knowing I had plenty of safe food to eat.
Thanks also to my employers, LloydsTSB Commercial, for their sponsorship, time off and the Blackberry so I could write my blog.
Other sponsors were Owen Mumford Ltd (sponsorship and supplies of Unistik 3), Novo Nordisk (sponsorship), and last but not least, Glucotabs (supplies of dextrose tablets to counter low blood glucose levels).
The next challenge is the GB Championships in Manchester in June. I can't wait!
The Glutafin team would like to say a huge congratulations to Mark for such a fantastic achievement in the Championships. Also a big thank you for sharing the experience with us via Mark’s blogs.
If you’ve got an interesting story to tell about managing coeliac disease abroad or else not letting coeliac disease stop you embracing a challenge, we’d love to hear from you. Just email us!