I've reached the Zonal

The stories you here about Queensland weather, totally untrue.
I traveled up from Canberra to the Gold Coast today, flying via Sydney. As domestic flights go it was pretty uneventful, although the flight from Sydney was delayed by 40 minutes due to the weather conditions on the Gold Coast. As the plane came into land I could see why, as we basically came to rest in the middle of a lake. However a little water never hurt anyone (unless you happen to be interrogated by the United States of America), and the uncovered walk to the terminal was quite invigorating.
I rolled into the venue about 6:30 pm with most of the games still in progress. As round 6 is often a key round in 9 round events, I probably picked a good time to turn up. My first shock was to see Igor Bjelobrk and James Morris on board 1. This was achieved when Bjelobrk defeated IM David Smerdon and Morris beat IM Gary Lane. This left the top seeds Zhao and Smerdon on boards 2 and 3.
In terms of the key results the top 2 boards were drawn, while Smerdon beat Canfell. This leaves Bjelobrk, Morris and Smerdon on 5/6 with another 6 players half a point behind.
Of personal interest to me was the performance of the PNG representatives, Joselito Marcos and Rupert Jones. As luck would have it they played each other in round 5, with Marcos winning. I might have been a good luck charm as they then scored 1.5/ in round 6, with Rupert Jones winning from 2 pawns down, and Marcos drawing.