So, Mr B here, after 6 weeks Mrs B has given up the iPad to a far less skilled and gifted scribe to give his take on the travels. The arrival in Auckland was somewhat of a second homecoming for me and after jumping in a taxi at Auckland airport to go and pick up our paradoxically named “Space-Ship”, I insisted on stopping at the first sign indicating we were on George Bolt Memorial Drive. For those of you who haven’t been bored by my tales of the family pioneering aviator, Great Uncle George, as I affectionately call him, was a bit a legend and held many flying records in NZ after buying the first plane built by the Boeing brothers out of Seattle. He then went on to start the first official airmail service and later became Chief Engineer to what was to become New Zealand Airways – a bit of an all round hero who’s exploits inspire me but as yet I’ve failed in anyway to match (there’s still time I hear you silently yell at your computers….)
On to our home for the next 4 days a brilliant campsite north of Auckland in a little beach side town called Orewa. A simply stunning seaside location with a crescent expanse of golden sand and freezing surf! Here we settled in and met some Canadians from our own Vancouver in the campsite kitchen on the first night and promptly shared an evening of beers and laughs and in Jo’s case 3/4 of our 16 year old fine scotch whiskey recently purchased in duty free. A good start to our Kiwi adventure and indicative of the friendliness and camaraderie that typified everywhere we went in NZ, not just from the host nation but everyone visiting for the tournament. It’s amazing how much a big sporting event such as the RWC brings out the human side of humanity and we experienced a very similar vibe in Vancouver during the 2010 winter Olympics.
Our first games were South Africa v Samoa followed by England v Scotland the next day. One match was closely fought, a joy to watch featuring open running rugby and for 60 mins at least an exhilarating contest of rambunctious rugby. The other was England laboring to a fortunate last minute win over the “Auld” enemy. Don’t get me wrong it was great to see our boys in action but they gave us scarcely little to shout about and the chants of Swing Low were easily drowned out by the Scottish fans baying for a big upset. Of course being NZ all the locals were vociferous in their support for Scotland – pom bashing being a favorite pastime after supporting the All Blacks. Still we scraped through and a win is a win at the World Cup and I was more than consoled about our poor performance by the fact that we put Scotland on the plane home, few things in life are more satisfying than beating the Scots!
Over these days we had also met a lovely English couple Dean and Lorna who were at the beginning of their 3 year working travels….it put our paltry 4 months into perspective! We resolved to explore the North Island together over the next few days before returning to Auckland for the 1/4 Final matches.
boltsintotheblue 
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