A picture of the Town of Wimbledon
Once we figured out which direction to go to get to the Tennis Club, we had a nice long walk to get there. It was a great walk checking out the huge homes, nice cars and the incredible golf course that we passed. We were awed when we finally arrived at Wimbledon, such an amazing venue.
The entrance to Wimbledon
We decided to do the full tour which lasted 90 minutes and we got to see all of the courts used in June/July, the broadcast centre, Aorangi Terrace, Centre Court, the players restaurant etc. It was a very interesting tour with a great tour guide. The most interesting thing was that after the Championship, they take away all the grass on the courts and re-seed for the next year. If you went in October, you would only see topsoil so we were lucky to go in May when the lawns are almost perfect. At each of the courts there was a security guard walking around the court and our tour guide told us how they were there only because they had taken down the electric fence that went around the courts in order for the workers to get things done. You would think they just don't want you to step onto that pristine grass but the real reason for the electric fence and when that is taken down, the 24hr security guard, is to keep fox from pooping on the grass...guess they like the nice grass to do their business, lol.
Court #1 - they were starting to put up the nets the day we were there. Notice the security guard on this side of the court...he keeps the fox away ;)
Aorangi Terrace - they put a huge screen tv and people come here to sit and watch on the tv. To the left you can see a waterfall that starts at the top of the steps and comes right down, was so pretty!
The "Rick" picture of the day - Rick taking questions in the Broadcast centre, LOL
Last year they added the retractable roof to Centre Court. People said that if they put a roof on that they wouldn't need it, and guess what...they were right. They only closed the roof once last year but long term it was still worth it. We actually saw them open it which is when I took this picture.
After the tour we did a bit of shopping in the gift shop and then headed back to the town. We had a little snack at a local bakery and then jumped back on the Tube to head to our next sports venue for the day...Chelsea Football Club's Stadium. Chelsea FC was this years FA cup winning team and do they ever love their soccer! The tour guide was so funny and really knew his stuff which made it really fun. We were shown the stadium, the locker rooms for both the home and away team, the media centre and some of the boxes. It was amazing to learn that the sponsor Samsung pays THEM 90 million pounds for 5 years to have the Samsung name on the jerseys. The even more staggering amount was that Adidas PAYS Chelsea FC 110 million pounds for 5 years to allow Adidas to supply all the uniforms for players and all staff...can you imagine?!
The front entrance of the Chelsea FC
We got to watch a bunch of guys play soccer (wish I could say it was actually the Chelsea team) who have enough money to rent the field to play on. The tour guide cut them up so we all watched for a while and they laughed at them...poor guys.
After the tours we headed back to Paddington Station to get lunch and then back to the hotel to pick up our bags. We had the most amazing pub lunch with Rick having roast beef wrapped in a yorkshire pudding...was really cool looking and tasted good too. We picked up our bags and headed to the bus station for our bus to Highbridge near Sommerset England for 3 days of the IFCS World Agility Championships.
Couldn't resist taking this picture - The Central Line was partially suspended due to a person under the train!!! They posted this at all the stations. The day before we had a derailment and this day we had a suicide, nice...Even with Tube delays we were able to lug our heaving suitcases to the bus station with lots of time to spare. The bus arrived and we all got on and it left right on time. It was a 4 hour bus ride to Highbridge with the first stop in Bristol. The bus driver was a pretty funny guy making jokes along the way to keep us entertained. As we pulled into Bristol he said that the people going to Highbridge (and one other stop) would need to get off the bus. I looked at Rick and said "do you think he is serious?" but both Rick and I thought he was joking. When we stopped Rick got off to get some food out of our case that was under the bus. The driver asked me where we were going and when I told him, he said we needed to get off as they weren't going to be going go Highbridge. You can imagine that at 9pm I wasn't too happy about that idea. But don't worry, it worked out great...they didn't want to drive only 4 people all the way there when they could put us in a cab. The cab driver dropped the other two people off and then actually took us right to the hotel we were staying at, it was great!
Friday morning was an early start as we went with the Canadian Team to the venue.
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