World Champions

So, after an incredibly tense game against France the All Blacks won the Rugby World Cup last night.


The last 6 weeks in New Zealand have been absolutely dominated by the Cup. The only other story that's got prolonged attention is the MV Rena container ship running aground on a reef in the Bay of Plenty. Fortunately, the Cup has been happier news here, particularly after last night.


Going back a week, the All Blacks soundly beat Australia 20-6 in the semi-final. I actually went to this game up in Auckland with my flatmate Matt and two other friends. Auckland city was even more lively than when I went up for the England v Scotland game. The atmosphere at the Eden Park Stadium itself was absolutely electric. For reasons I can't quite remember, I didn't take any photos.


France just beating Wales in the first semi-final set up a match between two teams who met in the final in the 1987 World Cup, which was the last time the All Blacks one the Cup. Although no-one wanted to risk saying it, based on form through the tournament the All Blacks were expected to easily win. It turned out much closer, with the All Blacks holding on to a single point lead for most of the second half. That made it an absolutely thrilling game to watch.


I went to a BBQ with a load of friends in the afternoon and then we headed to a bar called The Cambridge to watch the game. The place filled up as kick-off came closer and the tension was only just being held at bay by large amounts of beer.


As soon as the game finished the bar, and the whole of Wellington, erupted in cheers with everyone hugging each other and going wild. They'd obviously put together a playlist in preparation for the win, it would be interesting to know if they had an alternative one just in case, although I have no idea what they'd be able to put on it.


After a couple more drinks we left and headed into town. The central streets were closed off and full of people wandering from bar to bar and partying outside. An incredible atmosphere of celebration and relief as it sunk in for everyone that the trophy belongs to New Zealand for the next four years.


The last six weeks of the tournament have been absolutely brilliant. I was expecting to follow the proceedings, particularly England and the All Blacks. I hadn't expected to get as swept up in it all. Somehow it has seemed like the whole country has been involved in playing host, probably because of the size of the country and huge part that rugby plays in the kiwi identity. It's going to be tough for England to top the welcome that New Zealand has shown the World come 2015!


I've posted a load of pictures from last night on Facebook, here are a of them.

Rugby World Cup travels

Another long hiatus since my last post. The last month has been absolutely full of rugby. The pool stages of the Rugby World Cup have meant games almost every day, as well as pre- and post-game analysis and a myriad of other activity linked to the tournament.


It's also meant a couple of trips over the last two weekends to see England play in pool matches.


The first was to Dunedin, to see England play Romania. I travelled down there with Helen, Harry and Angela. Dunedin is towards the bottom of the South Island and it's the further south in the world I've been (45.9°S).


We arrived Saturday lunchtime and the match was on that evening. After a pretty big night out we had a gentle start on Sunday morning. We headed out of the city to visit Larnach Castle, the only 'castle' in New Zealand, built by a politician in the 19th century. Later in the afternoon, we took a tour round the Speight's Brewery, one of the major breweries in NZ. The tour guide was quite a character and strangely proud of the fact that the brewery had been bought up and was now part of a global conglomerate, it ended on a high note with a self-pouring opportunity to sample the whole range of brews.


We had taken Monday off work, giving us a nice relaxed and extended weekend. In the morning we took another tour, this time of the Cadbury's factory. Helen, Harry and I then had to hit the road as we hadn't flown directly to Dunedin, but instead to a town a few hours away called Timaru. On the way we stopped off to see the Moeraki Boulders, which are a surreal site. They are spherical boulders of different sizes dotted along the shore. I won't try and explain how they formed, wikipedia has an explanation. 


After a short 4-day week I was off again, this time to Auckland. I'd visited Auckland before back in July with Tyra and we hadn't been that excited by the place. The atmosphere was much livelier this time round due to the World Cup. In the morning I met up with an educationalist and Aucklander who I'd been put in touch with, he kindly showed me round a few hidden gems including a great coffee shop and the art gallery. 


Then in the afternoon I met up with Kris, a friend from the Department in England, who I was going to the game with. We were staying at a backpackers hostel in town and in the random way of hostels as we walked in we ran into a couple of Germans and an American who were going to the game and demanded we tell them the British national anthem so they could write it on their hands before the game. 


This time I was flying back on Sunday afternoon. In the morning we did have time to walk down to the waterfront and visit the giant rugby ball. This is a travelling exhibit that has been round the world advertising NZ and the World Cup. Inside a show is projected onto the interior of the ball along with a live presenter, it was really pretty impressive.


Rugby


I've deliberately left any description of the rugby to the end so anyone who isn't interested can skip over it.


Dunedin has a new stadium build for the World Cup. It's got a permanent roof and is really impressive. The seats are banked steeply meaning you feel close to all the action. Because it's enclosed the atmosphere was great during the match.


The Romania game was an easy 67-3 win. In fact it's the only game in the pool stages where England actually looked in control rather than under threat. It was great seeing 10 tries scored. Although they still made too many errors there were a few nice touches to the English game.


The Scotland game in contrast was torture to watch. All England needed to guarantee qualification was to lose by less than 8 points. Seemed like an easy task against a Scottish side that looked dreadful in their first three matches. But oh no, we couldn't make it that easy. Scotland took an early lead and their defence held firm against anything we could throw at them. At every opportunity we gave Johnny the chance to kick for a penalty and his kicking was dire, missing even straightforward kicks. It wasn't until the last 5 minutes, with Toby Flood on, that Chris Ashton broke free and got a try to shift England into the lead, with the final score 16-12. An incredibly close game and hardly a good omen as we go into the knock-out stages.


This weekend is the quarter-finals. England is playing France on Saturday. The other three matches are Wales v Ireland, Australia v South Africa and All Blacks v Argentina. I'm staying in Wellington this weekend. Then next weekend I'm off to Auckland again to watch the semi-final between the winners of the third and fourth quarter-finals - I'm guessing this will be Aus and the All Blacks and it should be an awesome game.


Dunedin photos

England v Romania

Angela, Helen and Harry on the tower of Larnach Castle

Inside the Speight's brewery

A Moeraki boulder

Boulders on the shore

Our flight home

Auckland photos

Red - outside Auckland Art Gallery

England v Scotland

Inside the rugby ball -

Sir Paul Callaghan on prosperity in New Zealand

I went along to a public lecture by Professor Sir Paul Callaghan on Wednesday evening. He's a scientist who focusses on nanotechnology and magentic resonance. He was voted New Zealander of the year this year.


The lecture was organised by the main Wellington university and the City Council, as part of a programme of 'during the World Cup, but not rugby' events. The audience turnout was really impressive, with around 1,200 people showing up.


The subject of his talk was how New Zealand could become more prosperous. His arguments for why this needs to happen included a personal account of his battle with cancer - he has paid for treatments himself where they aren't funded by the healthcare system here.


He made the case that greater propserity shouldn't (and can't) be achieved through exploiting natural resources or by expanding tourism and the wine industry. Instead, he advocates a focus on high-tech export businesses that aim for small niches in the global market. These would need to be developed by scientific entrepreneurs, so policies should look at how to support researchers and reduce the brain-drain overseas.


I thought the proposed silver bullet was a bit too simple. I did really enjoy his speaking style and the energy he put into making his case. I haven't been able to find footage from the lecture, but
Update - here's a link to the lecture http://vimeo.com/29126569

he gave a shorter version of the address to a public service leadership course that my colleague went to a few months back. Here's the video of that -

Red Rocks Seal Colony

Last weekend Helen, Harry and I made the most of a sunny winter Saturday. We went to look at a seal colony that someone at work had mentioned to me.


The colony is on the coastline just to the south of Wellington. It's accessible by an easy walk of about an hour from the end of the road. As it was a clear day and the trail was right on the southern tip of the North Island, we were able to see snow capped mountains on the South Island on the horizon.

Path to the seal colony, with the South Island mountains

View back along the coastline towards Wellington Airport

The route passes a collection of naturally red rocks in the shallows, inventively called the Red Rocks. There are several Māori legends about Kupe associated with the colour of the rocks. We were passing the rocks in the afternoon and so unfortunately they were mostly in the shadow of the headland and it was hard to capture the colour.

We then made it to the colony itself. A few sites I'd read online before we set off told me that the colony is made up of young males who hadn't managed to find mates. The first thing that struck me as we got close was the powerful smell of rotting fish, so maybe that's what is putting the female seals off these guys. Initially it was easy to miss the seals as they were mostly lazing motionless on rocks. After a few moments we started to spot more and more of them in the water and all around. 

Play fighting in the water

Looks like a tough lifestyle

'Watcha taking a photo of me for then?'

Return to Ruapehu

I went snowboarding at Mount Ruapehu again this weekend. This time, I went up for a whole weekend with my friend Angela from work, her flatmate Scotty and their three Irish friends.

We got out of work quite early and were on the road by 4pm. I was driving so was glad to cover quite a lot of the route in daylight and to have the time to stop for food and breaks. We cruised up without too much effort and arrived at our Bach (holiday cottage) about 9 in the evening. It was freezing cold when we arrived, but there was a wood stove in the sitting room that we soon got lit. With that fired up and a cold beer in hand we were pretty sorted for the evening.

Inside our bach

The next morning we got up to beautiful sunshine. After a nice cooked breakfast we set off for the 30 minute drive to the slopes. Well that was the plan, we hit a queue at the start of the 16km road up to the base of the ski resort. because of ice they were getting everyone to put on snow chains, which was taking ages at the one spot to fit them. After a very slow 2 1/2 hours (!) inching along, some very random conversations and a bit of luck we were at the snow chain area. Just as we were fitting our chains they announced the road had improved and we didn't need them. Pretty soon we were parked, kitted up and on the chair lift. Conditions were really good and despite the slopes being busy I had a good afternoon on boarding.

We got down into town at the end of the day and went for some food in a bar restaurant with a big open fire in the middle of it. One of the guys recommended trying the Big Burger. The components I remember are - beef patty, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, beetroot, hash browns and onion rings...oh, and loads of chips. For those in the know, it's knocked the Tocade burger off the top of my list of top-ski-resort-burgers-with-hash-browns list.

Dinner in Ohakune

On Sunday we had a quicker drive to the slopes. We even randomly got waved all the way through to get to park right by the bottom of the chair lift, avoiding a long walk. It was sunny again and conditions were good.

Crazy looking cloud as we drove up to the ski field

I found my snowboarding really clicking as the day went on. I felt really in control and was hitting everything I wanted to including little pop-ups I've never really nailed before.

Happy on the chair lifts

In the afternoon four of us headed right to the top of the slopes and started to explore off-piste. We found some steep drop-ins and great snow and had the most amazing run all the way down to the base camp. The first time down was the most fun I've had since I began snowboarding. We went back up just before the lifts shut and although I was getting knackered it was almost as good the second time round.

View down to the slopes from our off-piste vantage point

This is my first attempt at embedding a video. One of the guys showing how a drop-in should be done...and another showing how it shouldn't! It's Scotty getting up at the bottom after his own wipe out.

We loaded up with big flat whites to help keep me awake for the drive back to Wellington, which took until about 10:30pm. We even christened my car LaFayundai on the journey back. 

This morning I felt pretty tired dragging myself out of bed for work, but it was totally worth it.

Steak, Sport and the Slopes

Had an excellent weekend. It started out quietly with a few drinks on Friday evening with a couple of mates from work.


On Saturday a group of us went to a show called Soap in the afternoon. An impressive range of acrobatics that was a bit like a scaled down version of Cirque du Soleil. At points it was a bit silly and they could have ditched the singer, but overall it was a good show.


After the show we went for a few drinks and some food. I went for a nice big hot stone steak -

Yum!

Helen, Harry and I then went to watch the All Blacks beat the Springboks 40 - 07 in the Tri-Nations. The stadium was nearly full and there was a good atmosphere. 

The Haka - really impressive live

Corey Jane starts his try-scoring break

The springboks looking worried in the first half

Richie Mccaw signing autographs after the match

 As if that wasn't enough excitement for one weekend, on Sunday I went snowboarding with my flatmate Matt and his mates. It was a hideous 5:30am start to drive up from Wellington to Mt Ruapehu. This is the main ski resort in the North Island and sits on the slopes of a giant volcano. Because it's a single peak sticking up from the land it looks totally different to the European resorts I'm used to.


The weather was beautiful and sunny and the snow was good. With the weather and being the last day of school holidays it was busy on the slopes. Still managed to get a good day of 'boarding. Suitably knackered and bruised we loaded back into the car just before 5pm for the journey back to Wellington. 


All in, the day trip was about 16 hours. Totally worth it, but I'm looking forward to making it up for a whole weekend.

Looking down on the North Island from the slopes

Mark launching off a serious kicker

Auckland and Samoa

It's been ages since my last post, apologies for that.


At the start of July I had my first visitor from England. Tyra came out for a couple of weeks.


We met up in Auckland. It was my first visit to the largest city in NZ. I was a bit underwhelmed after Wellington. Everything felt very spread out and we never really found anywhere that felt like the heart of the city. We did the major tourist sites and after a couple of days were ready to move on.

Auckland Skytower

View of the city centre from the skytower

We took a day trip up to Northlands. We headed up to Waitangi, the site of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 between English colonists and Maori iwi (tribes). 

Inside the marae at Waitangi

As it's the middle of winter here in the southern hemisphere, we'd decided to spend a few days in Samoa and get a bit of sunshine during our trip. We started out with a few days of relaxation at the Le Vasa resort.

View from our bungalow

We didn't travel far!

After a couple of days on the coast, we moved to the capital, Apia. Although it's a tiny town, it was still a bit of a culture shock after the resort. We pottered around the sites in town and went to visit the baha'i temple, which is the base of the religion in the pacific.

Baha'i temple

We flew back in to Wellington, where we spent a couple of days sightseeing in the city and took a drive around the Wairapa region.