All Blacks Vs Ireland @ Eden Park, Auckland

What an amazing experience for me! It had been one of my dreams to go and see MY team – the mighty All Blacks play here in Auckland and Vorn made that dream come true on Saturday night. I am sure that many of you watched the game (those of you who are avid rugby die hards).

First of all, let me set the stage for you (you know me being the drama queen that I am), it was a freezing cold Saturday, and so Vorn kindly bought us both black/silver (as those are the AB colours) jackets, and between Naomi and Toni they kitted me out with scarves and mittens and woolly hat to keep me warm – man was I grateful for this! Naomi doesn’t like crowds and live games and Toni is too pregnant to come, and Jay is not that interested in rugby, so I got the spare ticket! Lucky me! Well we set off really early, the game was due to start at 7:35pm and we arrived there at 5pm!!!! This was due to the fact that parking is a real mission and with an expected crowd of 40 000 people, you must know the mission it is to find parking. So Vorn and I walked around and grabbed a coffee, then watched with interest the fans arrive, some in stetch limos mind you!!! Excuse me!

Driving to Eden Park, a sign board told us that it was 8 degrees – hmmm yes very grateful for the woolly hat and the other winter woollies!!! Then true to Auckland weather, it began to rain, so we HAD to go buy an All Black umbrella and face tattoo – which you will see on my left cheek. I had to show that I was a true fan!

I was so excited that I didn’t mind waiting 2 ½ hours for the game to begin. When we walked in, the atmosphere was just amazing. The bright lights, the music and the thrill of the game about to begin. We saw lots of Irish fans with their green hats, etc, but nothing compared to the amount of All Black fans. Thank goodness, Vorn got tickets for the covered seats, so at least we weren’t rained on, it was cold enough where we were with just the wind.
Ah I have to say that the atmosphere was electric, and as the All Blacks ran on, there was a fire works display in the form of a silver fern – it was amazing.
True to form the All Blacks displayed their superior game skills and won the match. If any of you know me, you know how vocal I am watching a rugby match (Seb I think you know that), and I screamed and yelled to my hearts content, along with all the other fans. Was fantastic! I thoroughly enjoyed myself!
What was so disappointing, was that the time went so quickly, I could not believe how fast the 80 mins went by, and was very sad when it all came to an end.
I could not stop thanking Vorn for giving me this opportunity to watch a live game. I told him that we have to, just HAVE to come see the All Blacks play again in August in Auckland, against the Wallabys – cant wait!

Trip to Warkworth

I think the amazing thing about New Zealand is the fact that you can travel less than 20 minutes out of Auckland and be in amazing country side. We went last Saturday Afternoon (over the harbour bridge) to a small little country town called Warkworth. Armed with Cokes, Ice Coffee Waves (which are my favourte) and of course chips for that very long trip (all of 40 minutes!!!!). The weather was a little overcast but not too bad. On the way we visited a quaint little shop that sells all bee products like pollen, queen bee jelly (Naomi believes that this is quite healthy stuff to take). I will take her word for it. At this stop I took an amazing picture of a little river and the autum trees, which are so pretty at this time.

Then of course in Warkworth we had some lunch and then I just HAD to take some pictures of some sheep - Vaughn was very gracious to stop and allow me to take my picture. They were, however, not very accommodating and ran away from me and were very dirty due to the downpour of rain just moments before. Then we headed back to Auckland.
It doesnt sound like some amazing adventure, but just to get out of the city, sometimes is all one needs to relax and take a break.
So enjoy a few of my pictures below of Warkworth.
Oh and exciting news, Vaughn told me over lunch that he had bought me a ticket to the All Blacks/Ireland game in a few weeks time here on home turf in Auckland - so keep watching this post, because that for me is a dream come true, watch my team LIVE!!!! Cant wait!