Tuesday 21st to Sunday 26th August – Visiting the home of the All Blacks

Tuesday 21^st August – Chris returns to the South Island

I dropped Chris at Pukekohe rail station before heading to the gym and then off to my afternoon SPCA shift. Whilst we don’t get the time or the opportunity to wander amongst the animals at the centre because we’re so busy taking calls, there is sometimes the chance of seeing some different residents grazing on the grass area outside like this cute pygmy goat in his woolly jumper.
 

Wednesday 22^nd August – Hunua Volunteering

The forecast was looking decidedly dodgy, so much so that I had double-checked that today’s session hadn’t been cancelled. But no, a little rain wasn’t enough to put us off and with the promise of a Birthday feast after we’d done our work there was a reasonable turn out.  We did some more track maintenance and got away with fair weather for the most part. When the rain really started pummelling down Willem and I headed back to the hut arriving about 1.15pm. The rain suddenly got a lot worse. We were glad we’d made a move but felt sorry for those still out in the downpours, so got busy making fresh pots of coffee for the returning drowned rats.

That's not cloud.... that's torrential rain

A tad wet underfoot in the Hunuas

These pictures don’t really do it justice.  We congratulated Kerry and Jenny on being another year older, ate our fill and beat a hasty retreat.

Friday 24^th August – Shag monitoring at Waitawa Regional Park

So, here’s another thing I’ve put my hat in the ring for.  There are issues with the population of Pied Shags over at Waitawa Park, in that they keep getting caught and injured by fishing line from the increasing popularity of fishing there.  No one has been monitoring the number of birds present in the population, so it isn’t known whether this is having a dramatic effect on them or not. That’s where I come in.  I’d offered to help start a count and had arranged to meet a ranger called Mags at 10am for her to show me the tree that they roost in and for us to do the first count together. The only problem…. Mags forgot me! Having waited at the ranger’s office for twenty minutes I got hold of her on the phone to find that she was at another park in the area, planting trees with another volunteer.

It's lambing season in NZ - spring is in the air!

These cattle at Duder didn't know what to make of me!

A freshly planted shrub by my own fair hand...

Long story short, I ended up doing a full day’s volunteering. Planting trees at Duder for the morning before doing a spot of orphaned lamb feeding at lunch time.

ahhhh, orphaned lamb feeding time

Would you believe me if I said there are at least 16 pied shags in this tree? Hard to spot aren't they?!

Eventually, we made it back to Waitawa to do the counting, but not until about 3pm! It turns out that counting moving birds, nests, and chicks, in a large tree with many intersecting branches is not easy! I will have to devise a system to try and get a reliable count to make the effort worthwhile.

Saturday 25^th August – All Blacks Versus Wallabies at Eden Park

An epic on the ‘must-do whilst living in NZ’ list – see the All Blacks play at their home ground, Eden Park, in Auckland, and who better to be playing against than the Wallabies?  With the aim of lowering the temptation for people to drink/drive, your return train fare to the game is included with your match ticket. So, we hopped on a train from Papakura and met up with Filip, a colleague of Simon’s, once we reached Kingsland, the nearest stop to Eden Park. We hit the local bars, had a couple of pre-match beers and soaked up the atmosphere with some other rugby fans, before making our way into the Stadium via the merch store. Filip said that it was tradition to get a gift for people’s Eden Park initiation, so he very kindly bought me an AB scarf and we were set!

Striped up ready for the match!

We went to find our seats before the second half of the Black ferns versus the Aussie girls kicked off. Women’s rugby here is finally getting improved billing so I wanted to be amongst the supporting crowd. I was absolutely delighted when we found our seats, as they were labelled ‘restricted viewing’ so I wasn’t expecting to have a full view of the pitch. Well, we could only imagine that they are obligated to put that on the tickets because a tiny piece of the All Blacks dug out was between us and the grass! Look at where we were, the view was incredible. A big shout out to Angie Yeatman who helped me make our seat selection from the remaining seats available all those weeks ago.

The panoramic view from our seats - awesome!

Look at that clear perspex dugout restricting our view....

The second half of the women’s match was brutal. They were throwing themselves on top of each other and fists were flying. It was scary! But the Black Ferns stormed to victory, 45-17, securing them the Laurie O’Reilly trophy, presented by Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. Simon went down to see if he could get Jacinda to pose for a selfie or give us a wave:

Oi! Jacinda! Over here!! (she did wave but I didn't time the picture right)

Then it was time for the All Blacks and Wallabies to come out for National Anthems and our first live Haka. It was very stirring and emotional in a fully sold out stadium.

The All Blacks line up for the National Anthem - the first verse is sung in Maori followed by the English version. Below: the Haka with additional chanting from a guy in the next row!

The Wallabies get a line-out - check out our favourite segwayed cameraman!

Time for kick off. The first half was relatively even. Like the last few games we have watched the ABs play, they don’t always come on that strong at the start of a match. But after half time, they tend to come out fighting and that’s exactly what they did today – slamming the Wallabies 40-12 with Beauden Barrett getting four of the tries. Too easy…. Maybe it’s the Brit in me, but I wonder if the fact that they are almost certain to win every single match they play might take something away from the excitement of being a fan? I’m sure they must lose sometimes, right?!

Now that's a big trophy

Then it was time for trophies, and the awarding of a 100^th cap for Owen Franks.  The rain arrived to force everyone to leave the stadium and we strolled out with the masses to find a local bar whilst the traffic died down. 

Filip had parked near the stadium and very kindly offered to give us a lift back to our car in Papakura. A long and very enjoyable day out. We will have to return to see the All Blacks playing at home again. It was awesome.

Sunday 26^th August - Simon’s Mum’s 70^th Birthday

We had a very quiet day following our social outing yesterday, but it would be remiss of me not to mention Ann’s 70^th Birthday. And to highlight that this is the kind of occasion you sadly end up missing when you move to the other side of the planet. You haven’t got the time or the money to be back in England for every big event and even with the modern convenience of video calls, it’s never going to be anywhere near the same as being able to be there in person.