Rugby & Mountains

I thought it would be fun if my boyfriend Jeff did this post - - enjoy!!!! 

We started our morning by getting on the road after a great night sleep, the first one of the trip. I actually slept through the entire night, which doesn’t seem like a huge deal, but it was a major accomplishment considering the time difference of 17 hours. We hopped into our rental car and left Taupo as the sun was coming up and started the 4 hour drive back to Auckland. Now it could be the fact that I have romanticized New Zealand, but 4 hours on the road here is so much better than 4 hours through Texas, or Indiana. The entire way was spent weaving through green hills with trees and rocks and cows, tons of dairy cows. O yeah, and 4 hours of driving on the wrong side of the road. It wasn’t too bad after the first 10 minutes, so Cassie and I are both pretty well adjusted to driving by now.

When we got to Auckland, the first thing we did was visit Westlake Girls School, where Cassie taught this semester, and walked around their campus. Coming from KIPP in Houston, I was blown away by how big and gorgeous the school was. There were about 10 different buildings on the grounds, I have no idea how Cassie didn’t get lost!

We left Westlake to go to Takapuna, a neighborhood of Auckland, that is housed in a small bay. It was a nice place to get a beer and some lunch at a restaurant called The Elephant Wrestler. Apparently, there was a Kiwi in 1915 who called himself the Elephant Wrestler, and his legend carried on through Auckland. We had some food and headed down  to the bay for a walk along the beach. Even though it’s technically winter, it was a great day and plenty of people were walking around.

From Takapuna, we checked into our hostel and got ready for the All Blacks match. If I could write the next two paragraphs in all caps, I would, because that’s how excited I was for this match. However, I don’t think Cassie would let me do that. I bought my jersey the day before in Taupo, because I had to be prepared for the game. With our gear in order, we hopped the train to Eden Park, the stadium for the match, with thousands of other fans. The All Blacks were playing a test match against France, which basically means that the two teams were trying to figure out how they match up against one each other, and it was really just for bragging rights. The French fans came out in full force. They were on the train, in our section, and screaming loud French sayings the whole time. It was really fun to see the passion that both teams fans brought to the stadium.

haka 

Before the match actually began, we got to see the Haka from the All Blacks, which was incredible, and their national anthem was extremely moving too. The New Zealand national anthem is sung in Maori first, and then sang in English. Once all of the regalia was complete, we got to see some rugby, and it was awesome! The French actually scored the first try, but in the end the All Blacks prevailed 23-13. I don’t know enough about the game to comment on the strategy and how well they played, all I know is that they hit really hard and they won, so I’m gonna say it was a good day for the All Blacks.

Cassie met up with her roommate Allison! 

Another highlight of the game was that I got to see my fraternity brother, John Decker, who has been studying in Auckland since February. He came down to see us during half-time of the game, and we got to catch up briefly. We are going to hopefully see him again when we get back to Auckland in a few weeks.

When the game was over, we headed back to the hostel and packed for our 7am flight the next morning before falling asleep.

We got up at 4:45 and grabbed our bags, headed to the bus stop and made our flight without a problem. We flew into Queenstown as the sun was coming up around the mountains and it was an incredible site. We picked up our Britz campervan and it is a house on wheels. We have a bathroom, bed, full kitchen, outside grill, and a picnic table if we want to eat outside (which won’t be happening because it’s freezing cold!). We spent the day walking around Queenstown, went to a wine-tasting bar for the evening with some incredible mulled wine, and hit the sack. Today we are going to hang around Queenstown for the morning before leaving for Arrowtown.

picture from this morning! 

our Britz (left hand corner)