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…
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