Invercargill

Fi the Georgian as the centre of attention

Preparing to enter the Irish pub full of Scots

Wednesday dawned fine and clear and we made an early start down the road to Invercargill and the Georgia/Scotland match at Rugby Stadium.  Last time we travelled down that way, we took the scenic route via the Caitlins, but this time it was the main highway through Gore (the stretch of road between the towns of Clinton and Gore is called the Presidential Highway).  We made town about 1 pm, checked into our B&B (Awamoa Cottage, hosts Russell and Marion) and headed down to the main Irish pub in town - Waxy O'Shea's in Dee St, the southernmost Irish pub in the world.  As the intent was to go directly from there to the match, we had kitted up and were ready for interference from the legions of kilted Scottish and pseudo-Scottish supporters

Koka (left) and Fi (not left)

Hortonshvili

Settling down with beer to watch Samoa pound Namibia into the ground, we met Derek, a Scot from Sydney, who had just spent two days walking on Stewart Island.  He is travelling around in NZ in a motor home, and we hope to catch up with him in Dunedin at the weekend.  Derek moved on after the match to catch up with some friends and  we started on our face painting in preparation for the match.   By this time, our Georgian strip (and face paint) was starting to gather comment and we got to meet Koka from Tbilisi, Sue from Colwyn Bay and the local Georgian supporters (Cartervili, McCawvili etc).  John and Sue (from Edinburgh and Sydney respectively) chatted to us for a while, and  the pub filled up with supporters (All hail Smith of the Helmet) while Canada v Tonga played itself out on screen.  As you can see, everyone who was anyone was there!

Smith of the Helmet (and attendants)

He has not left the building

We chatted for a while with John and Sue to the raucous serenade of forty well-oiled Scots who were in fine singing form (at least as far as volume went). 

Then we lost Fi's glasses and the match tickets.  A huge amount of  crawling on the floor resulted in nothing, but it turned out that someone had handed the tickets in at the bar and we were able to reclaim them.  The glasses, alas, were not found.

Gerry and the Piper outside Waxy's

At 6:30 it was time to parade through the streets of Invercargill to Rugby Park for the match.  Led by a local piper and the magnificent, sword-wielding Gerry Forde we marched the two kms to the ground with police escorts stopping the traffic for us as we crossed roads.

By the time we got to the ground, we had three pipers and about 2000 people in the parade (and about 20 Georgian supporters).



Once at Rugby Park we worked our way down to our seats and took in the spectacle.  It is a lovely ground with only one grandstand and is still very relaxed and everyone was able to get out of their seats and go and hang on the fence around the ground.

Rugby Park

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, with perfect timing, the rain started.  Not pounding, driving rain just steady, unvarying drizzle.  This continued for most of the game with just enough breaks to get your hopes up before starting again.  Again, the atmosphere was fantastic - everyone talking to everyone else, lots of Argentinian supporters in town for Saturday's match against Romania and plenty of shouting and cheering.  It was, however, not an exciting match and Scotland finally got away with an unconvincing victory. 

The Best Kebab Shop in the Universe

 We then made a damp weary trudge back to town in search of food and found the best Kebab shop in the Southern Hemisphere (possibly the universe).

Exhausted after such a huge evening, we walked back to Awamoa Cottage, spent fifteen minutes scouring the paint from our faces and collapsed into bed.