Our itinerary states that we should be somewhere near Cape
Reinga this morning. Unfortunately we
decided not to venture as north as possible as it was a 4+ hour trip and today
we needed to get to the evening game against Midwestern Rugby Club.
At Wagon Trails, the kids were able to go into the paddock
with the mare and 3 day old foal. They
weren’t able to get to close to the foal as it was very shy and the Mom was
very protective as well. The morning breakfast
went down, a brief jump on the internet, shower and back onto the road.
We stop off for a little walk down the track
at Haruru Falls
. The falls were beautiful and the walk
brought us encounters with some interesting bird species. The large birds in the trees were nesting and
later I saw one come up with a fish after diving for its dinner. The car park was once again littered with
roosters, no doubt the work of the French once again!
Tegan and I paid the admission to the Waitangi Treaty
Grounds and got to watch and participate in a traditional Maori show. I was told to make a ferocious face, but I
just couldn’t pull it off. Apparently I
do appear to be part Maori however; as I was asked if I was one of their
brothers… could be just part of the show?!
Here is a little video of Tegan using the poi balls.
We lost Mark and Janice + kids again, this time we found
them 10 minutes south recovering from the cold water trauma from the Bay of
Islands. Tegan and I headed south on our
own, suggesting we would catch up once at the clubhouse. We stopped into our first McDonald’s hoping
to capitalize on the free WiFi there.
Unfortunately, free doesn’t always equate to best. I was not able to get facetime to work at
all, my email app just didn’t want to update and the facebook app was the only
successful choice.
By this time it was nearing 4pm and we decided to head to
Maungakaramea and get acquainted with the other Canadians and new Kiwi
friends. When I showed up we had 4… and
it was not looking good at all until some members of a Toronto rugby club
showed up… unfortunately they were here for the beers. Scrounging for boots and shorts we managed to
dress these social players and get them onto the field. It was a good thing too as we then still
required 4 Kiwis to take up some of the ranks.
The game started somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00 pm and was played in a
drizzle under lights. Despite my lack of
play in 14 years, I still managed to contribute to the game. We only played 20 minute halves, but it was
enough. This allowed us more time in
with the bottle; a proven favourite of us Canadians and the Kiwis alike. Tegan had a chance to play with other kids
and I got some social time in with new friends from home and here. Tegan got here first address for a pen pal and
we set up some tentative plans for seeing lambs and chickens the next
morning.
The mates at the club were really fantastic and we camped
out in the parking lot and they allowed us use of the facility for showers etc.
the next morning.
The score… not sure I remember exactly, but we did manage to
have 1 point on them at full time; 26-25 I think.
