A friend from Limerick organised to come to Palmerstown North for a conference, so we agreed to meet up with him there. On the way we spent a night in Taupo and picked up a down river racing boat for Sean that a friend in Auckland has given him. Sean also got a much needed swimming lesson from Jeanine in Lake Taupo before we tucked into a barbeque in the evening sun by the beach!
We met up with Mike in Palmerstown North and over the next couple of days discovered that there’s not much to do there bar visit the rugby museum, drive through Manawatu Gorge and play pool!
When Mike left, we drove up the west coast to New Plymouth with lovely views of Mount Taranaki on the way. While there we went on one of the numerous walks around the base of the mountain, we weren’t feeling quite energetic enough to walk up it!
Further along we stopped in Hamilton and had a walk around the Hamilton Gardens, which are really pretty but had at least 4 wedding parties there at the time having their wedding photo’s taken! Deciding there isn’t much else to do in Hamilton, we carried on up the road to Auckland where we were going to play in the clubs Christmas Polo Comp. The comp was on Sunday morning, and by lunchtime I’d played 7 games, including one of teams from the south side of Auckland versus the north side. Apparently I’m now from the south of Auckland… And I thought being from the Northern Hemisphere would have put me on the north side!
As the competition was finished by lunchtime we went mountain biking in Woodhill Park for the afternoon. It was my first time ever on a bike off the road, but thankfully the others were nice enough to wait for me and put up with my hands being firmly attached to the brakes at all times! The park is a great location for mountain biking, but I’m more used to being on a horse when crossing country! After that energetic day we went back to Dave’s to a massive barbeque and a sleepy evening!
On Tuesday evening Dave was doing a kayaking race so we went along to cheer him on. We weren’t expecting the crowd though. The race is part of the Takapuna Beach Series on every Tuesday evening over the summer. They had 388 competitors that night with 3 different events running at the same time. There was a 5km kayak, a 5km run and a 1km swim. Sean and I have been doing a bit of running since we got here so the next day we ran the 5km course, not quite in the winning time of 15 minutes 39 seconds but we were happy!
That evening we went with Dave to watch him play underwater hockey. Not being much of a spectator sport we went swimming ourselves after about 2 minutes of watching! The game is 6 a side, with all the players wearing snorkels, masks and fins. They have a little stick and the puck is on the pool floor. From the top all you can see is them all diving for one spot in a flurry reminiscent of a tank of piranhas!
The weather wasn’t great for the week, so the next day we went for a drive up Mount Eden and One Tree Hill, two of the extinct volcanoes in Auckland. Despite the weather there was a good enough view, though with Auckland being such a sprawling city all you could see was buildings and water. On Friday we drove over to Marewai Beach on the west coast known for the gannets nesting there.
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