The Darwin Cup Ball

At nearly $300 a ticket the Darwin Cup Ball was going to have to be massively impressive for me to think that it was worth even half of the money.

Everyone that I had spoken to over the past few years had said that it was fantastic, worth the money, we'll be going every year.... but I had never been able to take their word for it seeing as $300 was a lot of money for dinner and drinks.

I mean, we could go to a fancy as resteraunt, have several courses, drink lots of wine/beer/spirits and I don't think that we'd get to $300 a piece.

Well I thought, time to put this Gala Shmala ball to the test....... I was going to put my money where their mouths were.

I put forward the $300 while I was still back in London, it didn't seem so bad to fork out £140 for the ticket. Fortunately I still had a tuxedo I had bought a few years ago when I realised that it was only $50 more expensive to buy then to rent one..... after I had rented 5 times.

I arrived at the ball with Kwhy, Deep and Nadz and quickly caught up with the rest of the crew at the Darwin MGM Grand Casino. We stood in the lobby and heckled the people who didn't actually come dressed as black tie..... I mean seriously, it's a black tie event and you've paid $300 for a ticket, the least you can do is dress up a little.

We got the call up to move on in, and after walking through 3 security checks to make sure that we all had our tickets and wrist bands we strolled down the red carpet and out onto the lawns of the casino.

As we walked past the final check the lady said "Please make your way to one of the 15 self serve bars" and I first thought that I may have made the correct decision.

We mingled on the lawns for about 45 minutes and took lots of photo's before we made our way through the horse shoe, down the red carpet and into the ball itself.

Deep, Kwhy, Nadz and myself

Sunset from the Lawns at the Ball

Kelli, myself, Darin and Bec

With buffett tables filled with king prawns, bugs, oysters, muscles, salad, vegies and roast meat my stomach instantly started to grumble in anticipation of the fatbarstedoff I'd be having with Paul.

The drinks flowed quickly and the night was never dull. Human Nature funked up the dance floor with their mo town sounds.

Human Nature keep the dance floor entertained

Me with Reanna and Kelli

Myself, Karren, Michael and Kelli

1.30am rolled around much too quickly and we made our way to the tables inside the casino to enjoy more drinks and a bit of light gambling.

When I looked at my watch and realised it was 5.20am and the drinks still didn't look like they were going to stop I knew it was time to make the move towards town. Half of the table had succumb to the excitement, and free drinks, and were busy studying the inside of their eyelids from the comfort of their beds, while Paul and I had one more buffet vist........ the pie oven at the Shell Service Station.

As we raced the sun home (winning by a good 15 minutes) we looked back and reflected on a few hundred dollars well spent.