Weekend Walkway

This past weekend we went on a great hike to the west coast ranges called the Waitakeres. We've done a few hikes out here before, but not done this one before. It's called the Te Henga Walkway and is a 4 hour 12k hike one way. We wanted to do the whole track, but seeing as it was one way and the driving route between the points was about an hour, we didn't think it would really work! We started just south of Muriwai beach (see our post back in January about that beach) and went South towards Bethells Beach. We walked in for about 2 hours, then had a break and walked back to our car.

Not much to say about the hike besides the scenery is beautiful and the company was great!

Me and Kat along the walk 

Breaking waves--tempting to pull a Last of the Mohican's jump from here, but I guess Will would have been bummed...

Me and Will at the start of the hike (before I got sweaty)

The girls

The group (minus Sean who took the pic)

Cool spot along the coast. It was really narrow and kind of reminded me of the opening scene of Les Mis...I could picture them trying to pull a large ship into there :)

In New Zealand they practice Natural Selection. No fences to keep you from falling over the edge. If you are dumb enough to get close enough to fall, they don't want you in their country (or on their planet)

We stopped for lunch at some point along the way and got to take in this beautiful view while having our cheese, nuts and fruit. It was such a great rest period soaking in the positive ions from the ocean :)

We had to hike through several patches of thorny bushes, disguised as pretty flowers and I made it almost the whole way without incident, but stumbled at one point and got some mad thorns in my hand.

Hard to see, but I did have tons of sore splintery-type spots all over my hand. No one believes how mush it hurt, so I like to broadcast it :)

I highly recommend this walk to anyone interested!

xxTally

Rugby is life...the rest is just details

Rugby is life….the rest is just details. Don't pretend you didn't have those shirts in your various sports. I couldn't find a picture online, but you know what it looks like....

This past weekend Will and I went with our friend Mel down to her family farm for some time with our “kiwi family” and to go to the big rugby match. You may recall when we went last year and pictures surfaced of us milking cows. This time around there was no milking for us, but we still had a great time.

Playing with the new puppy

Saturday morning was around the farm, but after that it was rugby time! In the afternoon Adam (Mel’s brother) had a regional rugby final so we went down to watch him play. Seeing rugby played up close makes me glad I don’t play…those boys are rough! But as a spectator, it was fun being in the nice weather and supporting a local community (even though it wasn’t ours…) It totally reminded me of a cool fall day watching football, the rules were just a bit different J

Introducing kiwi duck hunters to Duck Dynasty...it was a hit!

What a beautiful setting for a rugby match!

That night we got all ready and went to Hamilton for the Super Rugby Semi-Final between the Waikato Chiefs and the Canterbury Crusaders. Waikato is the “state” where Hamilton is and Canterbury is the “state” where ChristChurch is.

Before the game, I had a study session where I learned all the players and their position names. Most of the names make sense to what they do (forwards, backs, wings), but some just make me laugh. There is also a “hooker” and one person’s position is called “The first 5-8”. I’m pretty impressed with my knowledge thus far…now I just need to learn what each position does on the field.

My textbook

The game was awesome and we had great seats. I got to see Richi McCaw up close and of course I was stoked to see DC (Dan Carter). We are officially Chiefs Fans!  A neat factoid about the rugby scene is that the All Blacks (New Zealand’s National Team) is made up of players from all the different regions, so people go from playing against each other to team mates in a matter of weeks! We’re sad that the final is this weekend, and we’ll be at Will’s work function instead of watching the game L

Pre-game ritual by Maori "Chiefs"

Try!

This is how close we were to the action!

 

Farm Brothers!

And Dixie!

Chiefs win!

Players signing autographs after the game. Notice the men in no shirts...that's because they had Canterbury jerseys on and wanted some John Hancocks from the winning team! 

Sorry Dixie, but this had to be shown....You look tough, Duncan looks, well, ....  

Go Chiefs!