The first Block Baby: Sticks gets the call!

The birth of a baby is a momentous occasion. When it happens while you’re on The Block - it’s all systems go. To ensure that Sticks made it to the birth of his second child, Scotty and the folks at Mitre 10 went all out - hiring a chopper to get him there in style.

“I was upstairs working on the master bedroom, when TP (Sticks’ wife) gave me the message, saying, ‘Things are starting to feel like they might be happening,’” says Sticks, who had to make his way from inner-city Melbourne down to Sussex Inlet, two and a half hours south of Sydney.

“They flew me up in a helicopter. We went from Melbourne to Bairnsdale (in Victoria), Bairnsdale to Maruya (in New South Wales), and then Maruya to my sister’s house, where we ended up parking the chopper.”

Sticks was understandably excited - and a bit nervous - about getting there in time to meet his baby. But he says he still enjoyed the stunning journey there, which was substantially quicker than if he’d flown and driven from Sydney.

“It was unreal,” he says. “From Maruya up the coast, the landscape - that’s the area I’ve surfed all my life, so to see it from above was insane.

“There are so many little coves, and beaches and nooks and crannies. It was fantastic.”

After landing, Sticks had an emotional reunion with his one year-old son, Kanoa

Wife Terri was also pleased to see her husband.

“She was sent home from the hospital to wait it out. And actually, it was a while before she actually had the baby,” he explains.

“It was so great to be there. She has had a lot of support from my family and her family, but it’s nothing like having old Sticky back from The Block!”

Terri agrees.

“It’s great to have Sticks back,” she said. “It feels like so long since we’ve been together. It means heaps to have him with me. It’s a great support.”

Back at The Block, Wombat, though stressed with the workload, was more than happy to keep things ticking while Sticks was away.

For his part, Sticks says he owes a debt of gratitude to Scotty for going all-out to get him there in time.

“I never actually planned to be going home for the birth at all, so it was a bit of a surprise,” he says. “[The producers said they would] do everything in [their] powers to get me home for it, but my mind was always on The Block, and working as hard as we could while we were down there.

“To be there with my family was just fantastic. I’ll never forget it.”

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