Tuesday 10th to Monday 16th July – the end of the World Cup dream and a spot of paintballing

Tuesday 10^th July – SPCA. 

We’ve come to an agreement that I will get into the call centre earlier so that I can leave early to beat the worst of the traffic home.  Clearly, I don’t know how long the traffic jams have been as bad as this, but it seems to be a major issue for all Aucklanders. People are considering leaving jobs and employers are having to let people work from home wherever possible. The infrastructure to support this many people just isn't in place.

Wednesday 11^th July – Hunua. 

For the first time since joining the group, I was responsible for another human on a tramp today. I was paired up with a friend of one of Willow’s daughters who has been travelling for the last six months or so. This gave us plenty to talk about, though she gets credit for roughing it much more than us – she hitch-hiked from Perth to Brisbane in six days and stayed in Byron for a month, sleeping out in a tent!  We had lots of extra volunteers today, so we achieved a lot.  We were both carrying a lot of weight in bait by the time we returned to the hut.

The Edwards had returned from an epic trip back to the UK. Their first since they moved to NZ three years ago.  Nick was staying over at ours for a meeting at Continuous early next morning and this gave us the opportunity to have a night out and try the quiz at The Blacksmith in Takanini. I caught up with Simon and his colleagues who’d started straight from the office. A table was booked for the group for 6pm and despite getting our food orders in before 630pm we were still waiting for our food when the quiz started at 730pm!!  The service was terrible.  Apparently, there were too many of us, making it difficult and meaning that smaller groups who had arrived after us were getting their meals before us. The quiz however, was well organised but went on a little late for the workers. We were leaving as the scores were being read out. It was enough for us just to know that we hadn’t come last, or first, or in fact right in the middle – which was a shame, because all of those teams won a prize of some description. Not sure that we’ll be returning to the Blacksmith for a while, well maybe just for liquid refreshment, rather than food!

               

Thursday 12^th July – England’s first Semi-Final in 28 years!

Watching Gareth singing his heart out for the National Anthem in his waistcoat.... whilst alone and sitting in the dark!

Now that was a good goal.... shame we stopped playing afterwards...

England vs Croatia. I was on my own sitting in the dark for this one. Simon and Nick had to be at the office for 6am for their meeting, so I’m not sure how much they got to watch. England played well during the first half but came back onto the field a completely different and sub-standard squad for the second half. Having been in the lead for the entire first half, they let Croatia equalise to take it to extra time before the Croats slotted home a second great goal to reach their first World Cup final EVER!

I remember how painful it was to be knocked out on penalties at Italia 1990.  Back then, Croatia in its current form didn’t even exist.  I didn’t feel too sad about it this time. If we’d played well and been knocked out through bad luck I would have been upset, but to be honest, the better team won. We’ll be cheering on Croatia against France in the final. Be better to have been knocked out by the winners and France have won it relatively recently so let’s hope for some new blood!

I think I mentioned some vibration coming from Simon’s car at certain speeds ever since we bought it. Well, the situation had STILL not been resolved, so I had taken responsibility for getting it rectified.  I had (eventually) managed to book the car back in with the dealer in Penrose. On arrival there was a bit of a disagreement whether we’d failed to turn up for a previous appointment or not, but I think that’s down to mis-communication between them and Simon. I’ve been chasing them by email, so I’ve got proof of how hard I’ve had to persevere to get the car booked in again.  This was part of our deal when we bought the car back in April – the next service was included and, despite having been returned to them two or three times, they are still to resolve the wheel balance issue that gets irritating at certain speeds. I made it clear with them today- I would rather we leave the car with them, however long it takes to fix the issue, rather than having to return yet again.  Still in the hope that the car would be finished today, I walked to Penrose train station and topped up my AT-Hop card to go and explore the City for the day. I got talking to a random local after I saved his paper ticket from blowing away. These Kiwis are so friendly, I love the fact that it’s easy to get into conversation with a complete stranger. That is, until I discovered that he was on his way to a Christian conference in the City and we got into discussion about religion and life in general.  We found out that we were very different people, but he still gave me a card inviting Simon and I to attend his ‘life church’. Hmmm, he may be waiting for our attendance for some time

Reaching the City, I made the most of a beautiful day by walking the length of the harbour. 

A historical marker on Queen's Wharf commemorating the arrival of the first European settlers there in 1842

The view across Judges' Bay

I made enquiries with some ferry providers about some day trips out to the islands I would like to visit and had a general mooch about. I walked miles!  I had a tasty burrito for lunch and carried on wandering. Getting to mid-afternoon, I stopped for a coffee and received a call from the garage just before I was due to chase them up.  No, the car wouldn’t be ready today, so there was no point me stringing out my trip to Auckland any longer. I got back on the train and headed south, jumping off at Takanini where I walked to meet Simon at his office and drag him away from his desk.

Friday 13^th July – an extra shift at bird rescue.

I hadn’t offered my services at bird rescue today because Simon would need my car to get in to work. But when he came up with the plan that I should drop him at his office this morning, I thought I may as well head in seeing as I’d be halfway there and they’d sent out a heart-wrenching email, about how worried they were that no volunteers were going to turn up. I was in such good time, I stopped to enjoy the sunrise and get some images of the fog rolling into Manakau Harbour from Waikowhai Park viewpoint.

The fog rolling in along the water at Waikowhai Park Viewpoint

When I reached Bird Rescue it turned out that there were four of us, so no cause for panic after all and we were finished nice and early, even after having time to do a spring-clean. 

I headed home for lunch and then to the gym. Then I got a call from the dealer – Si’s car is STILL not ready. They really are a useless company that we won’t be buying from again. It turns out that absolutely nothing was done on the car yesterday because they were waiting for a part to be delivered. As a result, the service has been completed today which hasn’t left sufficient time for them to remove and re-fit all four tyres to sort out the wheel balance issue. I thought it best to just leave the car with them rather than collecting it and having to take it back again on Monday. Luckily I’ve got some reliable wheels for us to use and Simon managed to get a lift home with a colleague.

Saturday 14^th July – Action Day!

Today it was time for something different.  A spot of Paintball. Off we went to Asylum paintball at ‘Spookers’, which is approximately 20 minutes away and consists of lots of dilapidated outbuildings on a large amount of land which used to be a mental health hospital.  We had been invited by Steve and Shane as a result of them winning day passes for being ‘distinctly average’ during one of their possum hunts! It was very nice of them to invite us. We had ten players in total – Steve, Huihana, Shane, Daniel, Daren, Linda and her two kids, Michaela and Cameron, and Simon and I. Here we are looking super-keen and not very painty before the day began:

There were numerous arenas with different cover and game options.

Simon (above) and I (below) starting to look the part...?

In our first arena, after a couple of warm-up games, we progressed to a ‘win the flag competition’. The flag positioned in the middle had to be captured and returned to your team’s base to win the game. Our team having been beaten in the first round, were keen to equal the score. I saw Steve doing what I thought was a stealth dive to the finish line with the flag in his possession. It turned out to be more of a falling over and injuring his shoulder kind of a move, which sadly saw Steve’s day on the paintball field at an end (right).

We moved to other arenas and swapped the teams around now we had a four against five situation.  Simon having been a semi-professional player in our former life was ultra-competitive so took charge of his all-women team of me, Huihana and Linda (below) and we romped home to victory for the next few games.

Simon and his dream-team of girlies

Simon getting shot directly in the face has since become the Facebook wallpaper for Asylum Paintball!

After four hours, and several thousand paintballs purchased later, we all agreed that our bodies had taken about as much as we’d like.  I received a stinging shot to the top of my unprotected head in the last game that made my eyes water and we had all started to compare bruises that were gradually appearing. I had a couple of doozeys on my left thigh that still remain weeks later.
 

We’d all agreed that it would be nice to follow up the paintball with a relaxing hot spa at the Miranda Hot Springs, officially the largest hot water spa pool in the Southern hemisphere, as stated on this sign:  

I had been wanting to visit there since we’d arrived and it was even better to be attending with a group to not only have a swim but test the barbecue facilities as well.  We’d stopped in to a supermarket to purchase our food contribution for the evening, so by the time we arrived at Miranda with Steve and Huihana it was dusk.

The temperature of the pool is maintained at a constant warmth that means once you’ve entered the water, it is difficult to persuade yourself to leave again. We played a round of catch whilst dinner was being cooked and had another gentler bathe in the pool after some BBQ food. It was really busy that night.

Our day wasn’t done, we drove back to Huihana and Steve’s to play darts into the night. An awesome day and a privilege to spend it with such lovely new friends.

Tom curled up on the sofa

Sunday 15^th July – An mighty flood.

The Hurrells departed on holiday for Steve’s 60^th Birthday to Australia very early in the morning, leaving me in charge of their two cats, Lulu and Tom. They have 24-hour access to the large garage with a cosy sofa, water and food.  All I had to do was go and put down some meat for them twice a day and check on their welfare.  They seem to be doing alright....

They both like a fuss so I tried explaining to them that they are welcome to come and visit us up at the cottage if they were feeling neglected. I’m not sure they understood.

The driveway disappearing under the water

Thank goodness we had our active day yesterday. Today was a complete washout.  I managed to get out to the gym early and luckily we had no further plans to go anywhere as the water level on the drive continued to rise. I knew it was bad when I pointed out a duck was swimming along where the drive should be!