We went to see the All Blacks play against the South Africa Springboks at Carisbrook on Saturday night. The game was sold out, about 29000 people, so we decided to go about an hour and a half early. Good thing we did because even so we had to park about half-way up Eglinton, in fact probably about half-way from home to Carisbrook. We walked down the hill and into the stadium, fighting our way through the crowds to our seats in the Railway stands, 4 rows back and 45 degrees up from the try area corner.
It was a great night, with clear skies and pretty warm for a Dunedin winter evening. After finding our seats, Fa and Hank went back for hot dogs on sticks with chips, which was our dinner. We were seated right behind a group of Springbok fans, but they were pretty polite throughout the match.
The atmosphere was electric as the final people filed in and the national anthems were sung. Our mayor, Peter Chin, sang the New Zealand anthem. Then the All Blacks performed the Haka, which is always exciting on the telly but was fantastic to finally see in person.
The game got underway and went back and forth for first half, ending with a 17-15 Springbok lead. In the second half, the ABs eventually took the lead. At the 72nd minute, with the All Blacks ahead 28-23, a Springbok got sin-binned, so it looked like we’d be able to hold them off for the final 8 minutes with a man advantage, but then with 4 minutes to go, they somehow scored a try and got the conversion. The last few minutes were frantic, with a final attempted drop-goal, which was blocked, and that was it. South Africa won for the first time at the House of Pain. The South Africans around us went crazy. We filed out and back home, but we had a great time and decided we’d see the All Blacks any time they came back to Dunedin.
Ginny’s friend Lana came over for dinner Friday night so I made some lamb-pork-beef mince hamburgers, with tasty cheese. Then after dinner I took the kids down to the school for a “disco”, or dance. I dropped them off at 7:00 and picked them up at 9:00. It was their first dance and they had fun.
We watched more rugby this weekend, starting Saturday morning. South Africa easily handled England 36-0 at 7:00AM. After that Hank and I met Rohit, Jorit, and Jennifer to go to the driving range to hit some balls. I haven’t done that since college 20 years ago, and I never have gone out on a course. Rohit lent us his clubs and Hank borrowed one from the driving range. We had a great time. Hank didn’t want to leave, even after the both of use went through 3 buckets of balls. I got so I could hit the ball pretty straight but not too far. My favourite club was the 5 iron. I hope to get out on the course with Rohit someday. Golf is very inexpensive here so I should take advantage of it.
The next rugby game was at 10:30PM so we had to wait all day. Corinna and Rachel came by while Fa and I were napping, so we got up and they took Fa down to their place to take a shower. I fed the kids and they dropped Ginny off in the Octagon for the Cinderella ballet. Hank and I played Pirates, the computer game we’re playing now, for a couple of hours and then picked up the girls after the show. We headed over to the MBA to meet Jorit, Rohit, Rachel, and Will for the All Blacks game. The ABs played Portugal, the lowest ranked team in the World Cup. In each half NZ started slowly but eventually got it together for a 108-13 win. It’s always exciting to watch the All Blacks. Hank stayed up for the whole game this time, helping us identify the players from his cards. We headed home and I tried to watch the Australia-Wales game, but I only made 20 minutes before I fell asleep
The next morning at 7:00 AM we watched the best, or maybe the closest, game so far in the tournament. Ireland beat Georgia 14-10, and Georgia could have won it up to the last minute. It wasn’t pretty but it was exciting. I watched a couple of replays during the day and then tried again Sunday night but couldn’t stay up. Then Monday morning France beat Namibia 87 – 10, but I lost interest in that one. It was another great weekend of rugby – next game Wednesday morning at 8:00.
We just survived a busy weekend, all surrounding watching the Rugby on TV. It started Friday night with the New Zealand Warriors agains the Parramatta Eels in the Australian National Rugby League playoffs. I do enjoy Rugby League, although not as much as Rugby Union. The League games are very exciting, and this one was no exception, but unfortunately the Eels won 12-10. League is very fast, almost too fast. I guess I’m more used to the slow pace of Gridiron (American Football). I enjoy the scrum and the maul and, though I’m still just learning to watch the game, they’re pretty much unimportant in league. But Rugby League is definitely worth watching. This game went down to the last and could have gone either way. I don’t understand the playoff system, but luckily, the Warriors have another chance next week in Townsville Australia against the North Queensland Cowboys.
That game was just an appetiser for the real rugby to come in the World Cup. I set the alarm and got up at 6:00 AM for the buildup and opening ceremonies in Paris. Then at 7:00 AM France played Argentina. It was quite a shocker as the underdog Argentineans beat France 17-12. Then I had to wait for the All Blacks to play at 11:45 PM, so I went to the supermarket to stock up on food, relaxed and took a nap in preparation. I think the hardest part was keeping Hank up since he wanted to watch too. He’s been collecting All Blacks cards with his friends so he knows the players pretty well. He did make it through most of the first half and fell asleep after they ran up to 38-nil against the Italy team. Bye the second half it was the expected blowout, ending with a 76-14 final score. Although never in doubt, it’s always great to watch your team performing well.
I made it through about half of the Australia – Japan game, which was a massive 91-3 blowout, before falling asleep. I missed a few games but then caught the replays in the morning. Then last night I stayed up to 2:00 AM to watch Wales – Canada but fell asleep before South Africa played. This morning I caught the last half of Ireland vs Namibia. None of these was very competitive for long, except maybe Canada, which led Wales 17-9 at the 52nd minute, until Wales pulled away for a 42-17 win. However, I’m really enjoying learning to watch rugby and so I will watch anything. Up to now I have watched 3 live and 3 replay games, and will try for South Africa vs Samoa this afternoon. Then there’s a gap until 5:30 AM Wednesday, followed by Thursday and next weekend. 48 matches in 6 weeks – a lot more to go. I’ll try to watch all I can. I’m sure most Kiwis will watch all of the All Blacks games, but there are Kiwis here who will watch everything. This is a great experience for Fa, Hank and I to become part of the national pastime, though Ginny is not interested.
The car was taking a long time to get fixed. On Wednesday I called them and the said the wee steering shaft came back from the shop but they put it in wrong and had to take it out again so it wouldn’t be ready until Thursday. They finally offered me a loaner car, which I accepted. Up until then we had been getting by walking around town but I had to get Hank to soccer “training” so I took the loaner. They have an interesting way of picking you up here, at least with Steven Duff Mitsubishi: when you drop off your car for work, you drive to the shop and then you drive back in your own car with someone from the shop, who then drops you off at home and drives the car back to the shop. The reverse happens when the car is done. Of course in this situation my car was apart so they couldn’t use our car, so did the same with the loaner car. Since it was “rush hour” at this time, the shop worker took me back to the shop via some crazy back streets going all over the hills and South Dunedin. He said he had lived here all his life so new every trick. In fact, he had never been off the South Island. He isn’t the only person we’ve met who said that. I think there are quite a few people in Dunedin who haven’t been off the island! I got the car and made it to Hank’s soccer “training”, which is what we call “practice”, on time.
Thursday, after getting the kids off to school, Fa and I took a trip up the harbour. We stopped at Port Chalmers to have a look at the port, but there were no ships in at that time. Still, it looked like a lot of activity as always. We continued on to Aramoana and parked at the end of the road. We were the only ones there this time. We saw a largecontainer ship coming in so we hurried out to the end of the mole to watch it, but it went on by without coming in to the harbour. We could see across to the albatross colony, where occasionally albatrosses were wheeling around in the sky, but they were so far away they looked much like seagulls. We must get there soon to see them up close. We then walked down the beach, where Fa picked up some nice shells for the kids while I looked for more bristleworms, but I could not find any. We did see a seal or sealion on the beach when we first got there. When we got on to the beach it had shuffled up into the dunes. I walked up to the edge of the dunes but couldn’t see it and decided to let it go – I wouldn’t want to corner it on the narrow path it took up into the grass! It was a very nice but cold day.
On the way back to Dunedin we took a detour up to Mt. Cargill, which is the dominant mountain to the northeast of town. Unfortunately, the south side of the mountain is not accessible by car, only by track, and as we didn’t want to tramp up the mountain, we headed back home. We came in through Northeast Valley and now have gone into and out of Dunedin by all possible routes. Just after getting home the shop called and the car was ready. I picked it up in time to get the kids from school.
On Friday I talked Fa into coming to watch me play squash with Phil. She took a few pictures and movies, but then got very cold and bundled up in the corner. The squash courts are not heated, but we warm up pretty quickly when playing squash so it doesn’t matter. Sitting there watching for an hour is too much to take, though. I did finally beat Phil, 3-1, probably because I had an audience! Here is one of the points I lost. I had him put away but hit it right to him. Yikes.
Later we rented some movies from Video Ezy – 5 for $10. I picked up the kids from school – we gave them a break and didn’t make them walk up the hill. I made some home-made baked beans for dinner, which we had with hot dogs (frankfurters), and we dragged our mattresses to the lounge for movie night.
Hank had a soccer game against Moari Hill Yellow at Ellis Park, his home field, Saturday morning. It was a bitterly cold 2C with a moderate wind. Wow was it cold! I brought our video camera and tripod to film the game. My finger just about froze off setting up the equipment. Even with gloves on my fingers weren’t working correctly so I fumbled my way through it. Hank was moving around so he and his teammates were nice and warm - sweaty even, but the parents were all huddled on the sidelines freezing. I can’t imagine a colder soccer game – any colder and it would have to be cancelled. What a contrast to last July at Jefferson when Hank had a game on the hottest day of the year – 99F or 38C! Although no one keeps score, we won the game 2-0.
Last night we all went to Phil’s for the All Blacks game against Australia. This was for both the Bledisloe Cup and the Tri Nations Trophy. The first half was pretty slow with a pounding rain (this was played in Auckland) and a bunch of penalties. I believe the score was 15-12 at the half. The second half began the same way but the ABs slowly pulled ahead and eventually scored a try around the 60th minute. The excitement really picked up by then and we cheered the eventual 26-12 win. Although it wasn’t pretty it was probably a typical All Blacks – Wallabies game and very enjoyable. I really love watching rugby. It’s too bad it’s not bigger in the states. I think it’s much more exciting than gridiron (American Football) since there are few stoppages of play. The whole game is done in about 2 hours. It’s also good that they don’t wear helmets so you can easily identify the players by there faces – more like baseball or basketball. After the game we played a bit of trivia and then got home by 10:00.
We often find the neighbor cat around, and in, the house. Here she is on Fa’s moped.
First of all, thanks to the help of Patria’s friend Shelly Carpenter at the University of Washington, we have figured out what the strange creature we found on Aramoana Beach was. It’s a polychaete worm, also known as a bristleworm or fire worm. I haven’t found a picture which looks exactly like ours, but this is a close one.
Luckily, we didn’t handle it with bare hands because the bristles may have been poisonous (irritating, not lethal!).
Since the WAVA/homeschooling was winding down, we enrolled the kids in the local school. Last Thursday, they went in to Arthur Street School for a half-day to get used to it. They will be starting full-time on July 16th after the 2 week holiday. They liked it very much, especially Hank because he got to play hockey at Tea Time. Hockey here is what we would call field or grass hockey back home. He’s really looking forward to playing it. Ginny is looking forward to swimming with her class once a week at the Moana Pool. Hank’s in Grade 3 and Ginny is in Grade 7. It’s great for the kids to be around someone other than their dad all day and I’ll get a break too!
Friday night Rachel and Corinna came to watch the kids while Fa and I went out to Yellow Train for dinner. We had a fantastic meal – the best so far in New Zealand. Fa’s rack of lamb was great and my eye steak was perfect. A great night, but we’re such geezers we were back home and in bed by 9:00. We woke later to watch the America’s cup, a crushing defeat by Alinghi after a spinnaker blowout debacle.
Saturday Hank had a soccer game, the first in a couple of weeks since the last one was canceled due to snow. The Black really showed their passing skills and won easily. It’s funny how playing a team that’s not as good lets them do the things they work on in training, but when they play a better team, they forget everything they learned. Rachel and Corinna got to see a really great result.
Later, I went to Phil’s to watch the All Blacks against the Wallabies. Before the game started, we got to see the Warriors, NZ’s Rugby League team, beat the Gold Coast Titans. League is an exciting, fast-paced game and it was nice to see with an expert. Then the ABs started strong against the Wallabies, but then faded in the second half and went down 20-15. They better wake up before the World Cup or they may finish like they have in the last couple.
After coming home from Phil’s, we watched the America’s Cup, only to be disappointed once again by a Team New Zealand loss. The race was close but NZ couldn’t hold off Alinghi on the 3rd leg after some slow tacks and finished 30 seconds behind. Alinghi 4, New Zealand 2.
Yesterday we slept in, lazed around all day, and then had Flying Squid for dinner. I finally perked up at 1:00 AM last night for what could have been the last America’s Cup race, but by 2:10 they had called it off for lack of wind. Tonight is an off day so New Zealand still has a few more days to stay alive.
Today is the first day of the school holidays so the kids and I are planning on going swimming or something more than sitting at home.
We picked a great time to come to New Zealand because it’s an America’s Cup year and a Rugby World Cup year. Both sports are huge here. Unfortunately, because of the time difference, we have to watch much sport at weird hours. The America’s Cup races begin at 1:00 AM our time, so it’s been pretty tough to watch. I stayed up for 2 or 3 Louis Vuitton Cup races, the lead-in to the America’s Cup, and then I’ve watched every America’s Cup race so far. Team New Zealand and Alinghi are tied 2-2 after last night’s Alinghi win. The best race I ever saw was Tuesday night, when there were 5 lead changes and a New Zealand victory. I think I only saw one race in 15 years where the lead changed, so this was something special. The commentators also thought it might have been the best race in history. It really was amazing, but unfortunately the race was delayed 2 hours for wind and so didn’t finish until 5:00 AM. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep that night. Last night’s race was not very interesting, but at least it was on time and done by 3:00 AM. I think a lot of Kiwis are bleary eyed this week. There’s no race tonight so we can get some sleep!
The Rugby World Cup is gearing up for September. Right now the Tri-Nations tests are going on. I watched the All Blacks beat the Springboks in Durban last week. What a game! Fantastic finish! The All Blacks outlasted the Springboks, who were withering at the end. Rugby is great to watch and much faster than gridiron (American Football). Unfortunately, the only live coverage is on satellite TV so usually I watch the matches delayed, but I may watch Saturday’s test against the Wallabies live at my mate Phil’s. New Zealand is the highest ranked rugby team in the world and is expected to do well (win) the World Cup. They haven’t won in 20 years so they have much pressure. Go All Blacks! It’s a great time in New Zealand Sport.
We just finished a 3 day holiday weekend – Queen’s Birthday. It was nice having Fa home for the weekend. She had a whole day off (Saturday) and then worked at home Sunday and Monday. It was very relaxing. Saturday Hank had a soccer game in the rain at Green Island. Roslyn Wakari won 1-0. It was a lot of fun even though we got soaked. Hank even ended up with grass in his hair.
We went to Jorit and Jennifer’s for her birthday party Saturday night. That was quite nice although we couldn’t get the All Blacks on TV. After giving Sarika a ride home, I did see a bit of the match, but it was such a blow-out it wasn’t interesting.
Earlier we had dragged some matresses into the lounge and watched Lord of the Rings over 3 nights. We finally got to the end(s) yesterday morning. We never get enough of it and now I want to see some of the film sites again.
Sunday I took the kids to the Art Museum. Much of the works had changed since the last time we were there. We had a great time identifying the styles and techniques Hank is learning in his art lessons. Then we grabbed some Flying Squid for dinner. Yum.
I’ve been watching the America’s Cup either live at about Midnight or the recap in the day. I can’t believe how much I enjoy watching the Kiwis win. Last time in 2003 I was tired of watching the Kiwis win all the time so I was happy that Alinghi won, but now I wish they hadn’t so I could see it up close. I hope New Zealand goes on to the finals and brings back the cup. Then we’d have to come back here to watch them defend it.
The game got underway and went back and forth for first half, ending with a 17-15 Springbok lead. In the second half, the ABs eventually took the lead. At the 72nd minute, with the All Blacks ahead 28-23, a Springbok got sin-binned, so it looked like we’d be able to hold them off for the final 8 minutes with a man advantage, but then with 4 minutes to go, they somehow scored a try and got the conversion. The last few minutes were frantic, with a final attempted drop-goal, which was blocked, and that was it. South Africa won for the first time at the House of Pain. The South Africans around us went crazy. We filed out and back home, but we had a great time and decided we’d see the All Blacks any time they came back to Dunedin.
Recent Comments