Well What a Weekend !!

Well what a weekend… On Saturday I had a lazy day until about 6 o’clock when we left for Waikato Stadium, to watch the All Blacks vs Springboks… ! Then on Sunday we went on a little road trip out to the East Coast to Waihi Beach, stopping at various places on the way.

Saturday.
OK so lets get the girly stuff out of the way first… I really didn’t know what to wear to the All Blacks match. I was going to wear my England shirt, but then thought I quite value my life at the moment, so got changed, then one of the 12 year old boys in the boarding house offered me his All Blacks shirt, which was out of the question… So I ended up wearing the Falkland Islands Rugby shirt that Daddy got me from his latest holiday down there…
Right, now to the good bit… We were in an area of the stadium called the Green Zone, which is an all standing area… So when we arrived we made our way straight to the front eager not to miss a moment of what was coming up! Once we had a firm spot, and had decided that the far corner was a good place to be we joined in the festivities that were happening all around us while the rest of the stadium filled up. There was a crazy Maori man who spoke no English and insisted on doing the haka every 2 mins… It wasn’t the traditional haka that the AB’s do, it was some crazy one of his own I think! Then there were the South Africans who had all travelled to see the match. They were setting up large camps which they moved between throughout the match. All the SA fans were in fancy dress, whether it was a minimal face painting or having the national flag wrapped around them like a toga!
So before the match started there were some dance performances which were ok… It was then time for the national anthems. I have learned the NZ national anthem both the Maori part and the English part, so I was quite proud of myself when I sang all of it without making mistakes at the match. It gave me shivers to hear all of those people sing the anthem, but nothing compared to when I hear good old God Save the Queen being belted out by the Barmy Army! Then it got to the point where the AB’s got into position, ready for the part I had been waiting in anticipation for since I got to NZ, let alone got the tickets… THE HAKA!!! It was amazing. They were facing away from us, but even from behind it looked awesome… That really got me geared up for the match and I was so excited to have seen it performed right in front of me!
The All Blacks got of to a decent start, with Danny Boy taking the pen for 3-0 in the opening minutes of the match… It all went downhill from there though.. To be honest, I thought the AB’s were going to get trashed, but they played so well…. You really don’t notice how big the players are until you see them up close… They are HUGE!!
The best part of the match for me was when the God like figure of Richie McCaw caught the cross field kick and scored the try, it was 5m in front of me… I tried to film it on my camera and I caught all of the build up to the try and even followed the cross field kick, then as soon as I saw Richie get the ball I went insane and was jumping all over the place. So the film, as you can see below isn’t that great! Haha…
Anyway, as you all should know, SA won the match and therefore won the tri nations…

After the match we went back to the flat to get changed and head out into town, we thought it would be full of South Africans celebrating, however it was absolutely heaving with both sets of fans. This was a huge surprise because when the All Blacks usually lose, the whole country goes into a state of mourning… Town was amazing that night…

So on Sunday when I got up and sorted we drove out to Waihi to the beach, but it started raining, so we didn’t get much done there or stay there very long… We then went to Paeroa which is where one of NZ’s infamous soft drinks is made. So we got a drink and an ice cream and then headed home to the flat to rest…

What an awesome weekend… Coming up is the last week of term so it’s going to be manic in the boarding house… Can’t wait!! NOT!!

Having problems with blog atm... Videos will be in a separate post !

Te Aroha (Love you)
Xxxxx