Cal football arrives in Australia...along with Marshawn Lynch!

After a late Saturday night flight out of the Bay Area, Cal football touched down in Australia earlier yesterday.

They went straight to their first practice in Sydney.

For those wanting more details about the Cal flight to Hawaii, here’s how it went down, according to Daniel Uthman of the USA Today.

• The Bears chartered a Boeing 777 from San Francisco International Airport. Seating 330 people, Cal turned that expense into a profit by offering available seats unoccupied by players, coaches and staff to donors. 270 of 330 seats were occupied on the flight, allowing players an extra seat between them to stay relaxed during the flight.
• Cal conducted two closed practices on Saturday to ensure maximum sleep on the flight late Saturday night. The team is going through a marathon practice today to hopefully ensure a quick reset of the body clock by Tuesday morning (realistically it probably won’t happen until midweek). Cal practiced early Monday morning and will go on a bunch of team activities. That includes hitting the beach.

• One more interesting tidbit:

Partly on the advice of basketball coach Cuonzo Martin, who took the Bears men’s basketball team on an Australian tour last year, Cal football coach Sonny Dykes said the Bears will be organized in “running groups” to take turns stretching on the flight. And they’ll be wearing compression tights that were recommended to the team’s strength and conditioning staff to help blood flow and are identical to those used by the Navy Seals when they travel by air for rapid deployment.

There won’t be many significant practice updates this week, but apparently Cal will have at least one famous alum in tow Down Under. Marshawn Lynch was in Sydney and checked out the first major practice for the Bears along with Mike Pawlawski.

And it’s not just for a cameo. Marshawn is going to be there all week, partly to launch Beast Mode Australia merchandise! This is going to be great.

Here are a few glimpses of Cal at practice in Australia from the social media team and local college football fan Andrew Price.

The Bears have some pretty nice accommodations in downtown Sydney.

Also, Traveon Beck and Malik Pslams are asking the hard questions.