My Happiest Birthday Ever

I set off on my third road trip for the year with one purpose in mind, to see the football team I've supported for most of my life win their first NRL grand final.
Of course, they had to beat the team that knocked them out of the finals to the score of 39-0 last year, so this was going to be a major hurdle to getting to the grand final ... and it was going to be played on the night of my birthday, September 23rd, of all nights to play it.

Happy birthday to me?

So my plan A for my third road trip of the year involving watching the Sharks play was to stay in Port Macquarie one night, Sydney two nights and then go down to Canberra for the rest of the week and then come back and watch my team win the grand final and spend one day in Cronulla celebrating the win with other Sharks fans, before heading back to Brisbane via an overnight stop in Armidale.

My plan B if the Sharks got knocked out again by the Cowboys was to go watch the AFL grand final down in Melbourne and then head to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road, which in hindsight would have been an almost complete disaster, as Adelaide was hit by a massive storm causing road closures, flooding and major power outages.
Luckily for me the Sharks won that night, and my plan B was shelved.
Ironically, the team the Sharks would meet the following week in the grand final were The Storm.
SA weather: Power outages hit as storms sweep across state

I got to the stadium really early to take in the big day atmosphere and knew there was one thing in my favour of the Sharks winning this match.
Out of about a dozen games I've watched my Sharks play away from my hometown of Brisbane they have never lost a match.
The closest they have come to losing a game I traveled away from Brisbane to watch them play was when they drew at the Gold Coast earlier this year.

As I sat there that afternoon, I wondered just how many Sharks supporters would fill this stadium.

I was stunned by how many Sharks fans would fill this stadium by kick off.

I said to the lady next to me before kickoff that I hoped the Sharks could win the game for me since it was being played on my birthday and she looked at me in surprise and said that it was her husband's birthday today as well and she and her two daughters had bought him tickets to the game to celebrate his day.
So, I shook his hand and selfishly wished him luck on "his" birthday.

The Sharks won this semi-final quite comfortably (32- 20), even though they let in a few late trys, but now I would be heading down to Canberra for the rest of the week and then back up to Sydney to watch the Sharks play in the 2016 grand final.
Hip, hip, hooray!!
Me and My Shadow Visit Berrima

A lot of us fans hung around well after the game celebrating until we were virtually kicked out.
A night I hope never to forget for the rest of my life.

It wasn't until after I saw this restaurant sign featuring the postcode for Cronulla the day after the Sharks had won the grand final that I realized all my personal answers as to when the Sharks would win their first grand final in my time frame were all there in the postcode numbers.

My birthday is on the 23rd and it wouldn't be until I turned 52 (22+30=52) that the Sharks would win one for me.
Also, my life path number is 7 (2+2+3+0=7)

I was also born in the Year of the Dragon and am a Brisbane Lions supporter when it comes to AFL football, so to see The Lucky Dragon restaurant not far away from restaurant 'Twenty Two Thirty' was personally quite amusing to me.

Although the Lions finished second last on the table this year.

Oh ... and I realized today that the final score of this match (32-20) adds up to the age I turned that night ... 52 ... and that 5+2=7 ... my life number. 

The Quest for a Good Motel Room?