Samoa

Our years visa was about to expire, but we weren’t quite finished with New Zealand yet, so we set off to Samoa for a week with the plan of returning to New Zealand as regular tourists while we sold our remaining bits and pieces and packed up. Carolanne gave us a lift to the airport and we hopped on our plane to Samoa without any trouble. We’d been warned that the plane would be laden with tinfoil wrapped KFC meals, which are considered a great delicacy in Samoa. We were quite disappointed when we didn’t see any KFC, but we did see several bundles of McDonalds instead. Half way to Samoa there was a great rustling on the plane as they all tucked into their McDonalds meals, hopefully not too cold at that stage!

En route to the island we had crossed over the date line, so even though we had left New Zealand on Monday 6th October, we arrived in Samoa on Sunday 5th. Similarly on our way back to New Zealand Monday 13th October 2008 didn’t exist for us at all!

When we arrived we took a bus from the airport to our hotel in Apia and rushed out to get some dinner before all the restaurants closed (maybe we should have followed the lead of all the McDonalds munching locals!) We had to wake up a taxi driver asleep on his back seat to get us home again.

The following day we decided to see around the capital city, Apia. We walked into the town via the Maketi Fou (Food Market) and Flea Market before going on to the coast where we looked at various monuments and the government buildings. That afternoon we went snorkelling in Palolo Deep Marine Reserve. As it was quite near high tide we didn’t get to see much of the “deep” part but it was good fun swimming with multicoloured fish through the coral.

On Tuesday morning we were up early to go on a tour around Upolo Island. We were the only people on the tour and had a driver and tour guide just to ourselves. It was a really interesting day, helped a bit by the comfort of an air conditioned van as we drove around. We stopped at several places including their rugby stadium, a few waterfalls and beaches. Our favourite was swimming in the Piula Cave Pool. It is a fresh water pool near the beach, which is partly uncovered but also goes about 10 metres into a cave. The water was crystal clear and we had no trouble seeing fish in the water with us even inside the cave.

We also got some coconut education on the tour. Firstly we drank the juice of young coconuts, which is much sweeter than the mature coconuts we get at home. We also had a demonstration on how to make coconut cream. They take a mature coconut and rasp it out and squeeze the shavings to get the cream out. It is very tasty!

After a quick visit to see some turtles we were home again. We arranged to go to a Fia Fia buffet dinner that night. A Fia Fia involves traditional fire dancing. It was quite a show, and we were the only non-nationals there. Because of that they put us up at the front right in the middle and gave us a special mention during the show!

We had been told by a few people that Savaii was by far the nicer of the two islands of Samoa so on Wednesday morning we got a ferry across, hoping to get a hire car to drive around the island for a couple of days. When we arrived we discovered there were no rental cars to be had so we decided to think about what to do over lunch. The taxi drivers were quite insistent and pestered us quite a lot. We had been told that Tanu Beach Fales was a great place to stay. When we came out of the restaurant after lunch we spotted a Tanu Beach Fales van so hailed that and got a lift to the accommodation with him, much to the disgust of the taxi driver that was trying to adopt us.

The van driver turned out to be a son of the owner and he called ahead to get a fale prepared for us. Open fales are thatched huts with no walls used for shade during the day, which can have walls of woven reeds attached for sleeping. Our fale was right on the beach and we made the most of it, going swimming and relaxing in the shade.

On Thursday morning a group of 12 people staying at Tanu Beach Fales set off with Grace, a daughter of the owner, for a tour of Savaii Island. We paid just $90 for this tour but as the day went on the number of $2 or $5 we had to fork out for various “attractions” built up! Anyway, en route we saw the Canopy Rainforest Walkway, which was a fun walk up a big tree house really to see above the rainforest. That was followed by paying $2 to look over a cliff at the side of the road… lover’s leap. The Alofaaga Blowholes were fun, as a local man put on a display for us, throwing coconut husks into the holes just before they blew, sending the husks high into the air, while he ran away from the water! We went for a refreshing swim at the Afu Aau Waterfall and later we swam with the turtles at Saloalepai.

That night and the next morning we were given the excuse of staying in bed by a big thunderstorm. Unfortunately it didn’t remove the humidity for long. In any case we had to go back to Upolo Island for our flight home. We were flying out on Sunday evening, but that day the entire island shut down to celebrate White Sunday. The only place we found open for lunch was McDonalds! We made our way to the Papaseea Sliding Rocks where we entertained ourselves for a while in the pools of the river. Seán tried sliding down the rocks, but after looking at how shallow it was and listening to his shouts, I passed!

After a nice relaxing week off it was time to fly back to Auckland and sort out our things before starting the trip home.

River Paddling again – The Wairoa, Aniwhenua & Mid Rangitaiki

On Sunday 28th September there was a release on the Wairoa so a group of us got together and drove to the river near Tauranga. The new arrival to the Auckland Canoe Polo Club was a guy called Sam from Switzerland. We picked DaveI and Sam up and met up with Paul en route. As Seán and I had just sold our huka, and Nic’s scud, we borrowed more boats from DaveO. I got Nic’s rad and Seán had an inazone 230. We had a good day out just doing two runs of the lower section. We had a bit of fun in the whirlpool on our second run down – take a look at Seán’s website for a video of it.

The following weekend we went down to the Lake Aniwhenua campsite for our last proper weekend in New Zealand (this trip!). It was also Nic’s birthday on the Saturday so a good group of about 30 of us gathered there to help her celebrate. On the Saturday I ran the Aniwhenua section of the Rangitaiki in a topoduo twice. First time I had a complete beginner, Sue, who loved every minute of it. We quickly started paddling back up eddies to go down the rapids again! Second time around I had Tanya, who had paddled a little before. We did a couple of impressive rescues on that trip!

Our Irish friends; Nicki, Davin and Michelle arrived at the lake while we were on the first run, so Nicki and Davin had joined us on the second run. Unfortunately Davin decided to try to eat Dave’s kayak on the trip and broke one of his teeth – yes, the plastic in kayaks is pretty strong! He has since had his tooth fixed and his grin is back to normal.

Later that day five of us; Fuzzy, Greg, Dave, Andy and I, went for a quick run down the mid-section of the Rangitaiki. It was a fun run, bouncing our way down not bothering to take any eddies as we were hoping not to run out of daylight! When we got back to the campsite we were hoping that dinner would just be cooked as we were pretty hungry, but no, the rest of the group decided they’d wait for us to get back before starting cooking! A tasty dinner was had by all, possibly made extra tasty by the fact that some of us were so hungry!

While we were doing that run, Seán had raced down the Aniwhenua section in about 19 minutes. We had been taking about an hour to do it with the group…

The next morning I was woken bright and early by an apparent earthquake, which turned out to just be fuzzy shaking our van. Good thing the handbrake was on or we could have ended up in the lake! When everyone assembled a group of us got ready to go paddling. Campbell, Steve and Karrn’s son who I had taken down the river in a duo previously, asked would I take him again. Remembering his last trip with me I was quite surprised! He didn’t really like being splashed… This time however, I took the easiest routes and he stayed pretty dry and happy!

After a bite of lunch it was time for more goodbyes. Not fun, but again we promised to go back and we could be in for a lot of visitors at home over the next few years!

Kerry in Tauranga

Seán’s friend, Kerry, who we had met up with in Dunedin, was on placement in Tauranga in September so we went there one weekend to see her before we leave. Her parents are living there so we stayed with them all in Tauranga. It was great to catch up with her again and Saturday was spent chatting over cups of tea.

On Sunday morning we went to Bethlehem Market where her mother sells jewellery she makes and after lunch we walked up Mount Manganui in beautiful sunshine. We got Monday off work and so were able to spend all day Sunday with her. On Monday morning we took a spin up the mountain again before meeting Kerry for lunch and going back up to Auckland via a run in the Karangahake Gorge through the tunnel we walked through with Susan.

And so begin the goodbyes!

Cambridge to Hamilton Race

Carolanne was helping organise this 23km kayaking race so we decided we’d give it a go. Ron kindly loaned me his Beachcomber and Seán decided to take his Downriver Racer. As he was the only one he was put in with the fastest category of all, the Multisporters. We loaded up our van with those two boats and Uncle Steve’s Beachcomber and set off on Saturday afternoon to stay in Cambridge for the night.

Sunday morning we found most of the Oosty family and some others at the race. Ron was going in his Tasman Express, Steve in his Beachcomber, Dave and Nic in one double, Greg and Debs in another double and my fellow competitor; Chris in a Beachcomber.

I got the best start in a race I have ever got, only to be stopped just around the corner by a kid in a sea kayak claiming to have broken his rudder and lost control. I managed to hit him right in the middle and had to wait for him to move a bit to get past! Not to worry, I soon caught up with Chris and we worked together until he got cut off from following me and I was out on my own. I caught up with a few guys and hung on to them for as long as I could but my shoulders decided I was only allowed to paddle for 1 hour without them getting really sore. Problem was that it was a 2 hour race… I carried on slowly and eventually Chris caught up with me again and we managed to go over the finishing line together, though I think I was a good deal sorer than him!

It was to be my lucky day though. I never win things, through effort or luck! But this day I won a spot prize of a book about sea kayaking and a paddle leash (maybe I’ll have to take up sea kayaking with a nice shiny new Beachcomber sometime) and I managed to win my category: Women’s Open Plastic Sea Kayak. Nice!

Skiing Holiday

On the last Sunday in August, in the middle of the afternoon, Seán and I realised there wasn’t that much work for us to do the next week. We texted Dave to check if he needed us for the week and his reply was “Well, not really until the ski machine is fixed. Where are you going?”. Umm, skiing we thought…

How many jobs are there where you can decide on Sunday afternoon to take off for the week?! Thanks Dave!

So, with that arranged, we packed up and headed down to Taupo on Monday morning to catch up with the lads there. The following morning we got up bright and early to get down to Mount Ruapehu and get our passes and skis. We got a three day pass at a mid week discount, which also included a one hour lesson. Already a much cheaper trip than in Europe! We had one quick run before our lesson, where I was told I was doing ok (memory of those classes in school must have come back ok) and Seán got loads of help. There was much more snow that when we were there with Susan and the weather wasn’t too bad so we had a nice day skiing loads before going back to Taupo for the night. We had planned on staying at the mountain but were ordered back as Jeanine had bought roast chicken for our dinner that night. Given that she was offering food who were we to resist! We also made use of the hot pools in Taupo AC Baths to ease our tired legs a bit.

I sent a message to Mary and Fergal telling them we were going skiing if they were around and interested so we met with them on Wednesday morning and all decided we would still ski for the day even though the weather was pretty crap. On the mountain our visibility was down to less than 10m at times so we ended up sticking to the main routes where there were plenty of people and we were happier we weren’t going to end up skiing off a cliff! The day helped my skiing as Mary and Fergal had done plenty before and trying to keep up with them sped me up a bit.

The New Zealand North Island Primary Schools Skiing Competition was scheduled to be on that day on a separate bit of the mountain, but had to be postponed because the weather caused said bit of the mountain to be closed altogether. Our little bit of the mountain was crawling with kids as a result, all of whom skied so much better than me it wasn’t fair!

That night the four of us stayed in a campsite at the bottom of the mountain. Seán and I stayed in their lodge, where we had previously stayed with Susan, and had it to ourselves complete with log fire and plenty of space to dry our gear.

Thursday morning arrived with better weather, but Mary and Fergal weren’t quite convinced it would be good enough so continued on their travels around the country. Seán and I decided we’d give it a go and were lucky enough that the day cleared quite nicely and we had the best views of the three days. As we were quite fed up of the main runs due to the day before we spent a lot more time exploring the mountain and had great fun. The schools comp was going ahead on the different slopes so it was also pretty quiet where we were.

That night we went back to Taupo and I felt sorry for my knees that had decided this skiing was too abusive to them, especially after the life long abuse of horse riding and kayaking. We made use of the hot AC Baths again on Friday and by Saturday we were good enough to go up Mount Tauhara (the little mountain outside Taupo) again. On our own this time we were up and down in under 1 hour 30 minutes and after a quick lunch we headed back to Auckland. We had left the Oosty house with strict instructions we were to be back for a family dinner that Sunday!

Jet Boating in Auckland Harbour!

Remember the jet boat that we went down the Wanganui River in back last November? Well, since then it’s got a bigger engine and some other things changed (and they took the big stone out of the impeller) so now it’s really really fast! They’ve added a bar behind the driver which is very useful to hand on to for dear life, as I found out pretty quickly when Dave took us out in the Harbour in Auckland one quiet Saturday morning.

Dave and some others were out practising for a swim from Paihia to Russell in Northland. It’s a relay swim where each swimmer dives into the water grabbing the team flag on the way and swims until the support boat has caught up with them and someone else takes over, leaving the first swimmer to get back into the boat again. Then the boat catches up with the second swimmer and a third swimmer takes over and so on. I think they had about 4 swimmers per team who each do several quick sprints until they are nearly in Russell, at which stage the team diver takes over the flag and swims along the sea bed to the shore, runs up the beach and skulls a drink to win the race. Strange you might think, but the people doing this are the same people that play Underwater Hockey and Underwater Rugby so it’s a perfectly normal thing for them to do!

While they practised their turnovers, the rest of us were left to play with the jet boat. Seán had fun driving us around the harbour and under the bridge at ridiculous speeds, while I hung onto the safety bar! Good fun!

Underwater Rugby...

Yes, it does exist, and Seán and I have now played it. Only once though, so sorry to those of you in the know if I mess up any of the following interpretations of the rules and regulations!

It’s played wearing snorkelling gear and a coloured swimming cap to distinguish between teams. The goals are similar to big flower pots and are weighted to sit at the bottom of a five metre pool. The ball is a small basketball filled with salt water to weight it so as it drops to the bottom of the pool at just the correct speed. Tackles are allowed anywhere bar a players flippers, though if the tackled player is feeling a little lacking in the oxygen department they can just drop the ball and must be released so they can swim back to the surface. The ball has to stay below the surface of the water to avoid a turnover.

It’s a very strange but pretty cool game to play (bar when my ears hurt once I went below 4m). There is a real 3D aspect to it as you can not only be tackled from the side but also from above or below you. As this was only the third time Seán and I had ever been snorkelling it was pretty hard work. My efforts generally involved waiting for a good moment, trying to do something useful and then swimming as fast as I could for the surface again where I floated panting for air for a while! I had one moment of almost glory though when I got the ball at about half way and everyone else had gone to the surface for air, so I swam my heart out despite the protests of my lungs and just as I was about to put the ball in the basket to score Emma arrived in between me and the basket. Very mean of her I thought! I spent quite a bit of time on the surface recovering from that effort!

After playing Underwater Rugby, I think I might fare a little better playing Underwater Hockey, as they only use a two metre deep pool for that so my ears might not complain as much. It was good fun though, even if we were lured to the pool on the pretence that we could just go for an ordinary swim at surface level while the others played rugby!

Back to Normality

After Susan left we had a good nights sleep (without her snoring!) and went for a run in Okura Scenic Reserve the next day. It’s another forest to the north of Auckland with a long track through it. Unfortunately it’s a bit soggy at the moment with all the rain we’ve been having so we went home after our run and put all our muddy clothes straight into the washing machine! That night we met up Seona again, just before she left the country.

For the next while life reverted to the usual timetable of working and paddling, so I’ll not bore you with tales of that.

We also had more Irish visitors, Mary and Fergal, so we met up with them a couple of times in Auckland before they headed off around the country in a campervan.

Susan's visit - Tauranga and back to Auckland

With just two days left of Susan’s visit we drove from Taupo to Tauranga in the hopes of seeing Mount Manganui. When we arrived the weather was awful so instead we had a bite of lunch and went on to Te Puna and met up with some of my new found fifth cousins; a son of Margaret from Hamilton, Tracey, and his family. Tracey has been researching his genealogy and has gathered a lot of information already and was delighted to meet us to hear about more of his old relations. After giving him as much information as we had, we left with promises to email him with family trees and other details we have back at home.

That night we stayed in a campsite in Bowentown and made the most of their spa the next morning before going on to see the goldmine in Waihi. On our way to Paeroa we stopped in the Karangahake Gorge and went for a walk alongside the river and through a 1km long former rail tunnel.

In Paeroa we stopped and had a look at one of the giant drinks bottles advertising the famous New Zealand drink Lemon & Paeroa while a couple more new tyres were put on the van. Then it was time to get back up to Auckland for dinner before dropping Susan to the airport for her flight home.

Susan's visit - Mount Tauhara

To continue our busy schedule, the day after our parachute jump (finished off by Susan going swimming and soaking in the hot pools while Seán and I went to the gym) we decided to walk up Mount Tauhara. This mountain is just outside Taupo and Seán and I had gone up it with Jeanine in January. Unfortunately the great weather hadn’t quite held so we weren’t anticipating great views from the top.

After just under an hour we reached the top and had a quick break before heading back down. Susan dashed off on the downward trip; trying to get off the mountain asap perhaps? I don’t think she’s going to forgive us for making her do that particular hillwalk! As we guessed, the views weren’t quite worth it but at least we’d seen as far as we could with the parachute jump the day before, and the exercise was good for us!

Susan's visit - The Parachute Jump!!!

After our days skiing, we woke in Taupo to a beautiful clear day, perfect for Susan’s last request – a parachute jump. After a bit of indecision on my part, put aside by Susan and Seán both telling me I was doing it, and Susan deciding that Dad was paying for it (thanks Dad!), we booked our flights. We then got another pair of tyres put on our van which finally put an end to the bone shaking drives we had been experiencing!

The Taupo parachute jump companies are all based around the small Taupo airport. When we arrived we were treated to a video explaining what would happen. My stomach started turning… We then got dressed up in our jumpsuits and met our tandem partners.

Before I knew it we were heading up into the sky in a tiny airplane and I was shaking – largely due to the cold up there, but also from sheer terror. My opinion was, quite firmly, why would anyone want to jump out of a perfectly good plane! On the way up Susan’s partner pointed out many of the sites in the central north island, as we could see quite a distance. For the second day in a row we could see right over to Mount Taranaki in the west as well as Mounts Ruapehu and Ngaurahoe across the lake.

We climbed up to 15,000 feet and the door was opened – then I was in a perfectly good airplane with the door wide open! Susan was the first to go so she and her tandem partner shuffled to the door and rolled out quite quickly. The problem with that was that it was my turn to go next! I reluctantly did the shuffle to the door and my tandem partner rocked us back and forward and suddenly we were out. I was quite impressed that I managed not to scream my head off. I’m not sure if that was just cos I couldn’t make any noise at all though… We whizzed down rapidly for what felt like ages and I spent most of that time concentrating on breathing! The jump from 15,000 feet includes over a minute of freefall. With a little bump and a welcome reduction in speed our parachute opened and so started what was definitely the best part of the jump. We floated gently down taking in the breathtaking views of the lake, the mountains and green fields everywhere. From that I can really understand why people go paragliding and all those similar free flight sports.

All too soon I had to tuck my legs up and we landed with a bump back on the ground where we had started. Only then did I think of Susan and Seán. They were both still in the air (perhaps showing more enthusiasm than me) but soon landed beside me. We agreed that the jump was good fun, but unfortunately for us it wasn’t quite the buzz we had expected. On subsequent contemplation Seán and I reckon that we are both control freaks and the reason for the lack of buzz was because we had no control whatsoever over the parachute and it’s opening. Because of being entirely in the hands of our tandem jumpers we felt like we were just along for the ride. But despite that I loved the bit after the freefall was over!

Susan's visit - Skiing at Mount Ruapehu

It was time for us to do a bit of skiing, another activity Susan had requested for her visit. We got up early (in the opinions of Seán and I at least) and were up at the mountain by 9am. Unfortunately so was half of New Zealand as it was still school holiday time. We were planning on only doing a half days skiing but as we only got onto the mountain with our skis at 11 we quickly decided to go for the full day.

As Seán had never skied before, he went down to the aptly named “Happy Valley” and got a lesson while Susan and I headed up and tried to remember how to ski. It had been quite a while for both of us! We had a great day exploring the mountain and even got some great pics. We ended up above the clouds and had a fantastic view of Mount Ngauruhoe and even Mount Taranaki far off to the west.

By mid afternoon Susan’s patched up ankle started giving out so we decided to pack it in for the day. We tried contacting Seán to tell him we’d stopped but his mobile battery died as soon as I texted. We were quite surprised when he skied for the full day, given his lack of enthusiasm when we’d left him that morning. However, it turned out that he had been having a great day practising everything he learned in his lesson.

Once we finally managed to locate Seán we headed up to Taupo again to catch up with the household there.

Susan's visit - The Whanganui River Road

In Wanganui, Seán and I took a look at the map to see where to go the next day. We had been planning on going skiing the next day, but it was going to be a Sunday and, as it was in the middle of the school holidays, we decided it would probably be better to go skiing on Monday instead as the slopes might be a bit quieter. We didn’t have far to travel to the slopes, so Seán suggested we go down the Wanganui River Road, though the next day he protested that I had misinterpreted him… I had wondered why he was suggesting going down such a long unsealed road!

Either way, we set off on Sunday morning and started going down that road. There were great views with the river on one side of us some distance down, and great cliffs on the other side. Also, the road started off as sealed so it was all going quite well until we came around a corner and saw a slip in front of us. With all the recent rain bits of the cliffs had come loose and slipped down onto the road. In this case two pretty big rocks had fallen down and were perfectly placed in the road just far enough apart that you couldn’t get past them. As the surface of the road wasn’t good enough to hit the brakes Seán opted to go around them on the side of the road, which was very muddy but fine until all the wheels left the hard surface and we just glided slowly over until we came to a gentle stop against the cliff. Thankfully it was of a similarly slippy muddy surface and did no damage to the van, other than getting it very dirty!

As the van was stuck in the mud, we got out and started trying to work out how to get it out again. We tried pushing, but the pushers couldn’t get purchase on the mud with their feet to get a decent effort in. Then we tried putting mats at the tyres to give them something to grip on, together with some strong grasses we cut out. We were just about to try that combination when a 4WD truck arrived around the corner! With next to no effort the van was toed back onto the road and we were off within ten minutes of arriving there. Given that this is a back country road we were pretty pleased with that result!

After that excitement we drove on a little bit until we arrived at the end of the Atene Skyline walking track so we put our boots on and set off up the hill with our cameras. The track started going through woodland and was beautiful and sheltered. However, soon enough we hit some nasty steps and then a whole lot of mud. We made it up the hill to a good viewpoint in about half an hour though and made the most of it before heading back down. I was taking my time and being careful and was quite glad I was doing so when I heard a shriek behind me that was Susan almost falling over in the mud on the way down! Though she didn’t fall all the way she ended up with very muddy trousers! After that adventure we decided it was lunchtime so parked up at the side of the road and made ourselves tea (or coffee for Susan, she doesn’t do tea! Silly!) and sandwiches and dried out a bit in the sun.

The slips weren’t done with us yet though. As we continued down the road (which turned out to be sealed for a lot of the way, but still with some impressively potholed dirt sections) we encountered a few muddy slips that we could just drive carefully through, a tree that we had to get out and break some branches off so the high roofed van could get through, and another tree trunk that had been sawn off at the spot where you could just get past it and keep your tyres on the road. The most impressive was the last one though. We had driven over 50km down this road and were nearly at the end of it when we came around a corner and saw a massive slip that had covered a large section of the road with a couple of feet deep of mud. There were a couple of diggers working there and a big truck set up on the other side. We couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that we’d come so far and now it looked like we’d have to go back past all those other slips again! However, one of the workers told us to carry on and drive through on the basis that there was sealed road underneath all that mud, so we drove on thinking that at least there was enough machinery there to pull us out if we got stuck this time! By some miracle we actually made it through and got to the end of that road in one piece, even if the van and the three of us were all pretty muddy! It took two goes at washing the van before it started looking respectable again!

Back on proper roads again we drove to Okahune in the hopes of getting somewhere to stay there for the night near the ski slopes. Everywhere in our budget range was booked out so we carried on to Whakapapa and got checked into hostel type accommodation there where we had a tasty dinner and laughed at our day’s mini adventures!

Susan's visit - back in Wellington

Having missed out on the Beehive tour before, Susan and I got up early and got the bus into town, but yet again we were a little late so instead we went straight to Old St. Paul’s Cathedral. When we’d called in there the other day there was a lunchtime concert on, which we enjoyed for a while before having to leave. As a result we hadn’t seen the war display that is in the old church. This morning Susan and I spent some time there watching a video of people’s memories from war times.

We made sure to leave in time to get to the Beehive early for the next tour and finally were lucky enough to get on it. As the school holidays were still on there was a big group of about 30 of us and we had the same guide as Seán and I had previously. Once we’d finished we met Seán for lunch and carried on to the country’s main museum, Te Papa where we split up each going to see what we wanted, arranging to meet when it closed. It’s a massive museum so Seán and I were able to see parts that we had not seen before. The best bit about it is it’s free to go in, so you can come and go as you please and don’t have to see it all in one day.

The next morning we decided it was time to move on up the country, though with the pouring rain outside we weren’t even keen on leaving the house! When we finally got moving we drove up to Palmerstown North where we stopped for lunch and to finally meet Anne, a downriver paddler that Seán had been in touch with since we arrived but never managed to meet. She happens to be the only person in New Zealand who is doing downriver paddling at the moment. She was just back from the Worlds in Europe where she did pretty well and had met the Irish team. She and Seán talked non-stop for well over an hour and then it was time to hit the road again. We carried on to the town of Wanganui and got set up in a cabin at a campsite on the banks of the river, which we could tell was pretty swollen, even in the dark!

Susan's visit - Christchurch

Back in Christchurch again we met up with another Irish paddler, Mike and his Chinese wife, Alice, who he met and married in New Zealand, but who had just returned from a year in Canada. International? The next morning we got up early to see as much of Christchurch as possible before our flight back up to Wellington that evening.

We started by following the Lonely Planet walking tour from Christchurch Cathedral to the Botanic Gardens ending in the Museum, having seen all the sights along the way. After lunch Susan went back to the museum to see their special display – the Da Vinci machines that Seán and I had seen previously in Nelson. Unfortunately the school holidays had started that week, lasting for a fortnight of Susan’s visit, meaning that most places we went were pretty busy with parents and children making the most of their holidays.

Before we knew it, it was time to get back to the airport to fly back up to the North Island. Although our flight was delayed a small bit we made it back to Wellington without any problems. It’s pretty amazing how relaxed security is for internal flights here. So far we’ve taken five internal flights and on none of them have we had to produce any ID. When our flight from Auckland to Christchurch was delayed for the day we were free to go in and out of security as many times as we wished. For this flight back up to Wellington we didn’t go through any security of any sort! There was just a short corridor with the shops at one end and gates at the other end and no metal detectors or anything else to slow us down!

Susan's visit - The TranzAlpine: Christchurch to Greymount via Arthur's Pass

It was late in the evening when we arrived in Christchurch but we got a shuttle to our hostel and then went out for pizza. We were booked on the TranzAlpine train tour over Arthur’s Pass to Greymouth and back for the next day and in the hostel we were told that a shuttle ran to the train station every morning about 7am and we just had to wait outside for it.

We had a quick breakfast before going outside to wait for the bus at 7am. At 7.45am we were very cold and getting worried, as the bus had still not arrived and our tickets said that we had to be checked in before 7.45… However, the shuttle company obviously knew differently and finally turned up and got us there just in time. We had hoped to get a bit more substantial a breakfast while waiting in the station but there was nothing there bar a dodgy coffee machine so we got on the train, found our seats and settled in for the day.

The trip claims to be one of the world’s greatest train journeys and starts along the flat of the Canterbury Plains with the Alps looming in the distance, getting more beautiful the closer we got. There had been some awful weather over the country while we were in Hawkes Bay, the only place to be missed by said bad weather. As a result the mountains were perfectly snow capped. Also as a result we ended up being quite delayed along the trip as the points along the track were frozen and the driver had to keep stopping the train to get out to move them.

Once we got to the mountains we started climbing through gorges and tunnels, up the “Staircase” and over several viaducts making our way to the small settlement of Arthur’s Pass. We stopped there for some time while waiting for the air to be cleared in our next tunnel, the longest on the trip at 8.5km, through which a coal train had just passed. The delay was again as a result of the bad weather, which had caused one of the two extraction fans in the tunnel to break. It gave us plenty of time to take photos though!

Having enjoyed the scenery all the way we arrived in Greymouth an over hour late, just after the time that the train was timetabled to leave. The train had to be cleaned and refuelled regardless of the time so we were still allowed an hour to go into Greymouth. As it is not a very interesting town we used that time up finding somewhere that was still open for lunch and eating.

Back on the train again it was a similarly beautiful trip back up into the mountains again. It was still daylight when we went into the “Otira”, the long tunnel I told you about. It is at quite a steep gradient so, while it hadn’t taken us long to go through that morning, it was a slow trip back up. When we emerged the sun had set! I had been hoping that morning that we’d get to see the sunset when we were just leaving the mountains but with all the delays that was not to be. However, when we stopped at Arthur’s Pass there was still an amazing pink glow to the sky as per the photo here.

We hopped back on the train when the siren sounded and were glad of the heat inside. We carried on to Christchurch in darkness, unfortunately missing out on the last bit of sightseeing for the day. It was a really good trip with beautiful scenery that you could relax and enjoy fully without having to worry about driving or anything else so it’s worth doing if you want to see the mountains in comfort.

Susan's visit - Wellington, briefly!

We drove down one of the few main roads that Seán and I had not already been on from Hastings to Wellington. It wasn’t a very exciting road though, which is why we hadn’t been on it before! We had arranged to stay at Alan’s house and were treated to a tasty lasagne by his housemate, Carmen, when we arrived. They had a full house this time so Susan got the couch and Seán and I got the floor.

The next day Susan and I got a bus into the city and went on tour. First of all we got the cable car from the city up to the Botanic Gardens, where there is a great view. We walked through the gardens back down to the Parliament Buildings. The main building is nicknamed the Beehive due to its shape. They run a free tour through it every hour and, as we had just missed a tour we carried on to the New and Old St. Paul’s Cathedrals before meeting Alan and Seán for lunch. After lunch we tried to go on the parliament tour but were too late again, so we walked back along the main street to the information centre where we booked accommodation for Christchurch that night. We got the bus via Mount Victoria back to the house and packed up our things and got ready to hop on a plane to the South Island!

Susan's visit - Hawkes Bay

When we arrived in Hawkes Bay we took a quick look at the art deco architecture in Napier in the dying light before going on to Hastings and checking into the Top 10 campsite there. We explained how there were three of us but our van only fitted two and asked what our cheapest option would be. We must have got the guy at a weak moment as we ended up sleeping in the van with Susan in a cabin for $45 total per night!


We had arranged with Philip, our hunting friend, to have a day out with the Hawkes Bay hunt that Saturday and had been planning on staying with Philip and Jane. However, during the week I got an email from him saying that he’d had a bad accident and dislocated his shoulder and lost an eye. I gave him a call and was very relieved when he turned out to be in really good form and was adamant that he still wanted to go hunting on Saturday, but now I would have to drive. I happily agreed to those terms!

On Saturday morning we had a good breakfast and went off to collect Philip, and his car as our van only fits 3! When we arrived at the meet we called up to the house of our hosts for the day, Jamie and Pru Lowry. Pru was kind enough to lend us her 4WD Subaru for the afternoon too; as Philip’s car wouldn’t have had a chance of going up the hills we scaled that day!

As we had done the time before, we drove through the fields getting ourselves up on a perch to get a good view of the hounds and followers. We chose very well at one stage during the afternoon and had the hare and hounds pass right by us. Susan was really excited and couldn’t wait to get back to Dad with pictures and videos from the day.


It was a really cold and windy day but there were clear skies and the hounds showed us a bit of sport. We later found out that the entire rest of the country had terrible weather that day and were freezing with rain or snow. Most of the mountain passes and some other roads were closed over the next few days after the snow that fell. We were pretty glad to get back to Jane’s warm house for a tasty roast mutton dinner that night! It was brilliant to see Philip in such good form and I think Jane also appreciated having an afternoon to do all the things she hadn’t had the chance to since Philip’s accident, and again they were excellent hosts.

The next morning we took a bit of a lie in before going into Hastings to find out where the best wineries in the area were. Apparently over here they distinguish between wineries and vineyards. Wineries are vineyards with shops I think! Hawkes Bay is renowned for its red wine, which Susan loves so she was quite happy to do the tour there. We started off by going back up to Napier and taking a proper look at the art deco architecture and having a bite of lunch. Then we set off for our first winery, Mission Bay. This is the oldest vineyard in the region and has been going since 1851. We asked could we do a tasting and it turned out to be free. Seán drew the short straw and got to drive for the day, leaving Susan and I free to enjoy ourselves. Moving on from there, we went just down the road to Church Road where Susan made the most of the information we’d been told at Mission Bay by repeating it all knowledgably to our hostess there! After that we moved on towards Hastings and to Te Mata and Black Barn wineries before deciding that was quite enough for one day. The best bit of the trip was that none of the wineries charged us for the tasting. Susan finished the day well armed with bottles to bring back home. We later found out that the information site in Hastings had been good to us as those wineries are among the best in the region.

That night we finally met up with Dermot, the brother/son of the family friends from home that we met with in Auckland. We went out for a tasty dinner with him and his girlfriend Vanessa. The next morning we set out towards Wellington for the next phase of the trip.

Susan's visit - Taupo

The lads in our favourite Taupo house were good enough to have all three of us to stay for the night, so we set ourselves up on the spare bed and floor space! On Friday morning we got up early to get out to Aratiatia Dam in time to see a release. Making sure we were early, we waited patiently until after the scheduled time before finding a sign saying that because of the reduced levels of the lake they were only doing a couple of releases each day. There have been strict warnings in place to use as little energy as possible as all the power generating lakes in the country are very low at the moment after the drought during the summer.



As we now had two hours to wait until the next release we went upstream to Huka Falls. Susan was very impressed and instructed us never to paddle it. Admittedly it was quite high that day and there’s no way we’d dream of paddling it at that level. From there we went to the Honey Hive only to find that it was shut for winter – things weren’t quite going according to plan! We had a quick look at the Prawn Farm and convinced Susan that she didn’t really want to go fishing for prawns in ponds! We then drove over to the Craters of the Moon and the Wairakei Terraces to show Susan all the steam that is naturally coming out of the earth in that area. At Wairakei Terraces there is a major power generating operation harnessing the energy in the steam. Later on that day we returned to Aratiatia and got to see the release. Here’s a couple of before and after pictures for you, taken about 10 minutes apart. It’s pretty impressive to see how quickly the river can go from a trickle to a big fast river. Don’t worry – we won’t be paddling that one!


That afternoon we hit the road again, this time heading to Hawkes Bay and along the way we stopped at the Bridge over the Mohaka.

Susan's visit - Rotorua

We arrived in Rotorua quite late on Tuesday 1st July after visiting Margaret in Hamilton. I had planned on getting there earlier and doing something there before we ran out of daylight, but instead we booked ourselves into a campsite with naturally heated hot pools and lazed in them in the dark instead! Susan stayed in a cabin while Seán and I stayed in our van.

The next morning we started the tourist trip by going out to the Blue and Green Lakes, Mount Tarawera and Lake Tarawera. While it wasn’t as good a day as when Seán and I got the tour with Jane, you could still see the difference between the two lakes. Back in the 19th Century Mount Tarawera was a popular tourist site as there were Pink and White Terraces formed by volcanic activity in one spot. However, in 1886 the mountain erupted and covered them so there’s not much left there for us to see now!

Before lunch we went to Whakarewarawara (yes it is quite a mouthful) Forest Park and Seán and I went for a run while Susan went walking on one of the many tracks. By the time we got back an hour later we were all soaked through from the rain, and Seán and I were pretty muddy from the track too, so we went back to the campsite for showers and lunch.

With all that rain, we decided the best thing to do for the afternoon was a wet activity – zorbing! Susan wasn’t too sure if she’d be allowed to do it given the amount of metal currently in her ankle since her fall last October but it was no problem. We got a lift to the top of the hill and found out on the way that we had two choices – we could go together straight down the hill (which was the only option we had the last time Seán and I were there) or we could go on our own down the windy track. The zorb bounces so much down that track they can only use it when it’s not very windy. Of course we all opted for the windy track and so off Susan went first. She jumped into the zorb without any bother (much to our disappointment as we’d been winding her up about getting stuck half way in) and soon was off. I think she enjoyed it cos we could still clearly hear her laughing when she was half way down the hill! Seán went next and then I was off, falling all over the place and having a great time. Yet again I think everyone should try zorbing, it’s great fun! As it was still cold and wet when we finished that we got back to the campsite and went straight into the hot pools again.

Thursday proved to be a nicer day so we continued the tour of Rotorua by walking around the Government Gardens and showed Susan the bubbling pools and steam in the area. To continue our active theme we went to the Luge and Skyswing after that. Seán and I passed on the, erm, pleasure of the Skyswing so Susan was going to do it on her own but got adopted by a group of 4 South Africans who were doing it in pairs, so she hopped in with two of them. Again, I’m pretty sure she enjoyed that as, unlike me, she didn’t scream her head off, but she did laugh quite loudly!

Once she was safely back on the ground again we tried out the luge. This was the third time for Seán and I so we were pretty well clued in to the whole thing. Susan didn’t take long to pick it up and soon we were having tight three way races, with Seán playing dirty as usual and trying to push us off the track!

After that it was time to move on to Taupo. Along the way we stopped at the bubbling mud pools and briefly jumped out of the van in the pouring rain to see them. We didn’t want to wait around in that weather so were pretty quick getting back in the car and continued to Butchers Pools. These were much more natural than the hot pools at our campsite, though a lot more elaborate than Spa Park in Taupo. This pool is at a hot water spring in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere! The council realised people were going there so they built the frame of a pool with benches under the water and also a cabin for changing rooms. The rain even stopped when we got there so we hopped in to warm up for a while before carrying on to Taupo.

Susan's visit - Auckland and Hamilton

After a fortnight of really terrible weather involving a lot of rain, thunder and lightning, the weather finally improved a bit just in time for Susan’s arrival. She arrived in Auckland late on Sunday 29th June so we picked her up and brought her back to the Oosty household where Carolanne and Ron were delighted to meet her.

The next morning I was letting her have a lie in to get over her jet lag, which was rudely interrupted by her jumping on my bed to get me up… Our first stop for the day was to update the rego (a kind of car tax) on our van that we’d forgotten about paying. From there we went on to Barracuda to pick Seán up as he had gone in early with Dave to fix his polo boat so Susan got to see some of the factory and meet Dave and Steve during smoko.

We then went back towards the city and drove up Mount Victoria where you can get a great view of Auckland (you can see both in the first pic). Just to the east of the mountain is North Head, which was of prime importance to the Kiwi’s during the war. They dug tunnels through the headland and put canons there to protect the city. We walked through some of the tunnels with my little head torch to guide us.

To get an even better view of the city we then went into the centre of the city and up the Sky Tower, something Seán and I had been meaning to do since we arrived! We were about to head home when we got a call from Alan saying he was in Auckland for the week and did we want to meet up, so we ended up staying in town for dinner with him before Susan started wilting from the jet lag and we got back home.


The next morning we hit the road to Rotorua. You may remember that I spent a while in the City Library doing a genealogy search and found a possible relative in Hamilton. On our way down the road I gave her a call and it turned out our guess work was on the mark. Margaret turned out to be a sprightly 80 year old who was very excited to hear from us and delighted to have us visit. It turned out that if we’d contacted her a month earlier she wouldn’t have known much about the family history at all, but her son had recently become interested in it all and was also researching. She had unfortunately just posted most of the information and photo’s off to her son, Tracey, but had just enough left to keep us occupied for a couple of hours. She told us all about her children, numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren, together with some details of her Robinson in-laws. We left with piles of information to relay to home and promises of meeting again and continued on our road trip!

The Irish Invade!

Mid June brought an influx of Irish! The first arrivals were Debbie and Seona, two girls who were in ULKC with us, who came from Mexico as they’ve been travelling for a while. They were here for about 5 weeks. We met up with them both just after they arrived and were able to give them suggestions for their trip. We also went to the cinema with them to see the Sex and the City movie, though I think Seán will call it being dragged there by the girls!

A couple of days later another ULKC paddler, Paul, arrived. Neither us nor Debbie and Seona had known he was coming until we got texts out of the blue from him a couple of days earlier saying he was coming out. We spent an evening with him also. He ended up joining the girls and travelling around most of the country with them.

The same day that we met with Paul I got a call from some neighbours from home who were in town so we went to see them on our way in to see Paul. Mary taught me in my first year in secondary school and she, her husband Pat and their daughter Niamh, who had just finished the Leaving Cert, had all come out for a few weeks to see their son/brother Dermot who is working in Hastings. I had contacted Dermot previously when I was in Hastings but we hadn’t managed to meet. Niamh bought her first, and second, pony from us and it was fun hearing the story of the first purchase from their side. They’d been given an audition period by my Dad who wanted to make sure that Niamh and the pony were a good fit before he agreed to the sale, as both the pony and Niamh were inexperienced at that stage.

We had another couple of visitors to work around this time, though not Irish ones. The Aussies who had placed the big order during the summer came to see around the factory. The visit seems to have gone well enough as before leaving they confirmed they’d be placing more orders soon. That means that we will have work with the company for a while to come.

The other bit of socialising that month was the B Grade Barbeque! A platter of meat was bought by Cam and Nic on the way home from the Wellington comp and they decided that it should be used for a barbeque for the B Grade polo players and their significant others. The date was set and Andy offered his house for a Sunday afternoon. Again, all those from the North Shore hopped into the Barracuda Fun Bus and drove south to Andy’s. We had a great afternoon there with some tasty food. It was definitely fun playing the B Grade, and I was quite grateful for ending up on one of the teams as the A Grade could have driven me mad otherwise. Though it wasn’t so much fun at the finals with the lack of sleep!

The Mohaka

The second weekend in June saw us leaving Auckland once again in the Barracuda Fun Bus with Dave, this time headed for a “long boating weekend” on the Mohaka River. The River is between Taupo and Napier, so we drove just as far as Taupo on Friday afternoon, allowing us a chance to catch up with the lads in the house there. Sam and Tim were busy packing up their gear as they were going snowboarding at Mount Ruapehu for the weekend.

The next morning we met for breakfast at 8am. One of the other people coming canoeing with us for the weekend had already done a 100km cycle at that stage… This weekend was largely for friends of Dave who like doing multi-sport races. These are long races involving running, road cycling and/or mountain biking and canoeing. As a result, we were spending the weekend with some very fit and motivated people.

After breakfast we drove off up through the mountains and, after dropping our bags off at our accommodation for the night, we arrived at the get on for the river. We were a little daunted by the amount of frost still on the ground, even though it was after 11am at this stage, so we got ourselves into as many thermal layers as possible. Most of the group were in multi-sport boats; a long narrow boat designed specially for speeding down easy enough rivers. Seán took his downriver boat and Nic and I borrowed the demo Beachcombers from Barracuda. I did offer to take one of the party, a 4 year old boy, down the river in the front hatch of the sea kayak, but his mother vetoed that one!


With the shuttles done 9 of us set off downstream. The river is a Grade II so pretty flat with some little rapids. It was interesting to do the river looking from the perspective of racing though. We picked the quickest lines through the rapids, trying to go with the fastest water to make good time down the river. While Seán, Dave, Nic and I all had plenty of white water experience; the others in the group were a bit daunted by the river and, as racers, were trying to find the ultimate line down a river. Seán and Dave were kept busy teaching them that every rapid is different and they should do practise runs on every river they plan to race to find out where they should be going. The group really appreciated the advice and it was great to be on the river with people who were really interested in learning and absorbed everything we said. As I was in a much more stable boat than the others I got to fish a few of them out of the water on the way down also.

After our first trip down the river, 8 of us decided we’d go again, so after getting our gear and ourselves upstream we hopped in again, leaving those staying dry to shuttle the cars down for us again. This trip was a little quicker as we had a couple less swims. As the water was really cold I was also glad of this as it meant less time for my hands to be in the water, let alone what it must have been like for the swimmers!

At the end of the second run, five hardy enthusiasts decided to go again. I have to say that Seán and I weren’t included in that number! They decided to race down the river and it wasn’t too long before they arrived and we all set off back to our accommodation for a tasty home made dinner. We tucked up warm in our dorm room for the night, thinking of the frost outside the door.


The next morning, after a good fried breakfast we decided to try getting on the river beside our accommodation, instead of going further downstream to the usual get in. This time the river party was reduced to 5, Seán and I included. The energetic girl who did the cycle and all three river runs the day before abstained from paddling that day as her training programme required her to spend four hours running and cycling that day. We did tell her she was crazy! Apparently she and her partner have decided to dedicate a year to training really hard for these multi-sport races, and once the year is over all training will cease and they’re going to start trying for children!

Anyway, the remaining five padders hopped on the river and were very relieved when we turned a corner and the sun started shining down on us as it was a very cold morning! When we arrived at the end of the river, we looked up at Dave’s van and saw that his roof bars were missing. Unfortunately the roof bars had a bit of a fight with a tree while we were on the river, and the tree won. We farmed out a couple of the boats to the other vehicles, but had to put two directly onto Dave’s roof. Thankfully he had some pretty good padding in the van, which protected his roof for the trip.

On our way home we stopped at a bridge over the river, on the main Taupo to Napier highway, which has a walkway built underneath it. It’s quite strange walking under the bridge looking down at the water as the whole bridge shakes when a truck goes over it! The walkway itself is quite odd as it goes almost to the very edge of the bridge, but to get to it you have to climb over the structures of the bridge itself. It’s as if the walkway was being built on a Friday afternoon and the boys decided to quit a bit early!

Ireland -v- All Blacks

After a lazy week in Auckland after the polo finals, we got up early on Friday morning to get a bus into town to get the train to Wellington! We had booked our van in to get its WOF (Warrant of Fitness and the equivalent of our NCT) done on the Friday while we were away by a mechanic friend from the polo club. We were relieved to hear that it had passed when we were still on the train.

Public transport is not used much in New Zealand and generally isn’t that great. I’d hate to have to travel around the country relying on it. We only got the train as we decided we could see the country from a slightly different perspective that way, and with the special offer price of $49 each one way, it was much cheaper than buying the petrol to drive down!


You can drive from Auckland to Wellington in about 10 hours easily enough, including some quick food breaks. The train doesn’t rush… It takes 12 hours to get there! Thankfully we knew it was going to take that long so we arrived at the train station fully prepared with our sudoku books and other things to occupy us for the day. Surprisingly enough the first 10 hours went pretty quickly... The train is now geared completely towards tourists. It has an outdoor viewing platform, which is good to get out into to blow you awake again, though the fumes aren’t so nice out there! Also, the end of the last carriage had a big window and a comfortable seating area so you could get a really good view of the countryside as we travelled along. The picture here is of Mount Ruapehu.

Throughout the day the staff would tell us about the areas we were passing through over the intercom. As well as some quick stops along the way to pick up passengers, the train stopped at National Park for half an hour where most people had lunch. We just had a cuppa as Mammy Oosty (our lodgings landlady) had sent us off with rolls and ham. There was a food carriage on the train also to keep us going for the day.

The last two hours of the trip dragged a bit as the sun went down so we had nothing to look at but our watches until arriving in Wellington! Despite the long day, the train trip is a really great relaxing way to see the country, especially if you were lucky like us to get nice weather. Only do it one-way though! The train only runs on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, so we had decided to fly back up to Auckland instead, a decision we were quite pleased with by the end of the train journey.

Alan (our Irish friend who has just moved up from Christchurch) met us at the train station in Wellington and we went out for dinner with him that evening before taking over a spare room in his house for the weekend.

On Saturday we were focused on just one thing – the match. I have to admit that this was to be the first match I’ve ever gone to in any sport with the exception of canoe polo and a couple of Olympic Handball games Pauline convinced me to play in for DCU a while back. So, needless to say I was quite excited that my first game would be an Ireland v All Blacks rugby match!


After a good preparation lunch we went into town to pick up our tickets, armed with plenty of warm clothes and a good jacket as, despite the fact that it was quite a nice day at that stage, miserable weather was threatened. The day stayed fine until about half an hour before the match when it all changed. We were just about to set out for the stadium when the heavens opened and a gale started blowing up from Antarctica! Some of you may have seen Brian O’Driscoll being interviewed after this match when the interview was actually cut short cos the poor guy was shivering so much. We were actually very lucky in our seats as we had paid for the cheap seats that weren’t under cover, but we were close to the covered seats and the wind was blowing from behind us so the rain only just blew over us and hit all the people below us. A couple of friends of mine weren’t so lucky and we met them shivering and soaked to the skin after the match – they went home pretty soon afterwards.

The match itself was good, though we didn’t win. I’m sure those of you with any interest in rugby were watching so I’m not going to analyse it! We were pretty cold by the end of it, but at least we were dry. That is, until we went to leave. The exit from the stadium involves walking a long way on a platform over the train station, which has no shelter. We got a pretty good wetting while walking back into the town. Of course, we can’t complain after seeing how miserable the poor folks who were sitting in the rain for the match were!

That night we continued on to celebrate our existence (well, we couldn’t celebrate winning, or deserving to, and I think we were still celebrating something, maybe just being Irish and great!) into the wee small hours.

We spent the next couple of days wandering around Wellington again before getting a plane back up to Auckland – much quicker than the train trip! The flight wasn’t even delayed!

Wellington Polo Competition - National League Finals

The finals for both Grade A and Grade B were on in Wellington from Saturday 31st May to Monday 2nd June. I was a bit worried beforehand given that the competition was in a pool with only one pitch, and so would be running from 6am to midnight each day, apart from Monday when we finished in the early afternoon. The organisers split it so that B Grade was in the morning and A Grade in the evening each day. As I was playing in both Grades I ended up with games on Saturday from 7am to 11.30pm, Sunday from 8am and going until 10.30pm and starting on Monday at 6.40am! Very unsociable hours!

Dave loaded up the Barracuda Fun Bus (his van) with 9 of us and we set off about 3pm on Friday afternoon to drive from Auckland to Wellington. One of the passengers is a teacher so we had to wait for her to finish school before leaving. It was a bank holiday weekend so you can imagine what traffic was like on the trip down. We arrived at our accommodation at about 1.30am and went straight to bed. As I said earlier, I had to play at 7am so I wasn’t too happy or awake when my alarm went in the morning!

We had just one B Grade game on Saturday and as we were down to four players we recruited Cam’s wife, Nicolette, to play with us. With a tight defence, a few good attacks and a lot of time wasting on our parts we won that game and were feeling good!

Later in the day our A Grade campaign got going again and in what became our typical style for the weekend we played great first halves to each of our games, but couldn’t quite keep it up for the second half. The team harmony was greatly improved from Christchurch though which was quite a relief.

With far from enough sleep I got up on Sunday morning to start playing at 8am. We recruited Mel from my A Grade team to play with our B Grade team so we had six players, but three of them (the three girls) were all playing on two teams for the weekend, so we rotated subbing between us. Using the same tactics as the day before, we wasted a lot of game time passing the ball out the back in attack, and won all our games.

The same could not be said of the A Grade team, though in our last game of the day we played a stormer of a first half and were actually winning 4v1! Unfortunately it’s a game of two halves, and our second half wasn’t quite so good!

The luck of our B Grade team wasn’t to last through to Monday. Unfortunately the opposition had gotten too bored of our passing the ball out the back and decided to come out and pressure us there to their success. The finals finished with my team placed 8th and the other Auckland team placed 7th. They were designed to be even teams and proved to be just that. We played each other three times and won one game each and drew the third. The ladies team kept up their record and came 6th in Grade A, while the Men’s team came 5th in their division.

After a busy weekend we had to drive all the way back up to Auckland again. We shared the driving and had a little detour imposed on us by Peter who doesn’t see signposts while driving and missed a turn off on his shift. In the end we got home just after 11pm and Seán and I hit the sack and weren’t seen until quite late on Tuesday!

Christchurch Polo Competition and afterwards

Having finally made it to Christchurch, we got up early and walked to the pool as it was only a short distance from our friends house. All the flights from Auckland had been delayed (though none quite so much as ours) so the players on both Auckland teams were very tired and that was certainly reflected in the ladies team’s games. Our first game started with 6 flustered and tired players who by half time had resorted to shouting at each other. I subbed after half time and took the opportunity to calm myself down again and managed to stay a little calmer for the rest of the comp. We improved in every game over the weekend but some people weren’t in the mood to realise that. By the end of it all I was tired out from trying to be chirpy against all odds and collapsed into a grumpy heap on Sunday evening! My team came last (funny that…) and the men’s team came 7th, so not a great weekend for Auckland.

On Monday we had a lazy morning before hopping on a bus into town to get a bus to the airport. When the bus hadn’t gone into town and we didn’t really know where we were after 45 minutes we got a bit worried… After seeking the advice of the bus driver (who we had informed on getting onto the bus that we wanted to go into town) we ended up getting a taxi from where we were as it wasn’t actually too far from the airport. Thankfully that was the extent of our travelling problems that day as our flight back up to Auckland went on time with no difficulties!

We went back to Andy’s house to pick up our van and got treated to dinner while we were there. The best bit was that dinner included some delicious sausages that Andy had hand made himself a few days earlier. Really tasty, and reassuring to know exactly what had gone into these sausages, unlike bought ones…

The next night I got my new polo boat, which had arrived in the next batch of boats from Oz. Very exciting! Of course it’s all scratched and battered looking by now but it’s always good getting a new toy! I want to bring this boat home to Ireland when I go though so that could be fun. Anyone know any cheap shipping companies?!

After work, on Wednesday night we presented ourselves at our new friends from the airport’s house for dinner. As promised Jenny and Chris treated us to lamb shanks and mashed potatoes and plenty more and we had a lovely evening with them.

The next weekend we actually didn’t have a polo competition to go to and stayed in Auckland. Carolanne (Dave’s mum) didn’t want us to be at too much of a loose end for the weekend and decided we could paddle in a kayaking race she was organising on Sunday morning. Dave set us up with a double kayak that had to be delivered from the factory to a friend’s house, saying that of course we could use it before completing the delivery!

The race was in the Tamaki River estuary on the south side of Auckland. We had looked at a map of the estuary the night before and had half an idea of where we should go, as there were a few rivers and other inlets that we had to pass along the way. Of course, when we started the race all those plans were forgotten about and we decided that everyone else must know where they were going as they’d all done the race before, so we followed the guy in front of us.

It was a while later, when we were gaining on him quite well, that he stopped and looked behind him. When we saw this we got worried and looked behind us, only to see some other boats streaking across behind us going a different way! We worked out that our little diversion cost us about 10 minutes and without it we would have had a pretty respectable time. When we got back and told Carolanne what had happened she wondered why on earth we’d followed him, of all people. Wish she’d told us that before!  We didn’t do as badly as that man though. Apparently when he’d turned around he saw us and decided he must be right so kept going. I thought he was turning as well, so didn’t think I needed to shout anything at him to tell him we were turning. I’d say he added nearly half an hour to his race!

Later that week we had a couple of days off work so I finally started doing a genealogy search that my family had been bugging me to do. A great great uncle of mine moved over here in the early 1900’s and married a Kiwi and settled here. Seán and I went into the City Library and started searching for living relatives. After a couple of days work and a lot of assumptions, we think we’ve found a daughter-in-law of his living in Hamilton. Now we just have to get down to Hamilton again to meet her and see if all my guesses were correct…