We headed to Dunedin airport for 9 am and the two hour flight to Auckland. The flight safety video that Air New Zealand showed before take-off was hilarious. It featured all the standard info about seat belts and oxygen masks but it has a big rugby message and features many of the All Blacks in comic situations. And Kees Meeuws (former All Black prop) was seated two rows ahead of us. Landing at Auckland, we took the airbus into Mt Eden and walked 3 km to Greenwoods Corner, near our B&B.
Being a little early to check in, we tried out the local cafe for lunch - Kenzie's of Epsom. What a find. Fabulous food (corned beef hash for Fi and kidneys for Mike) and acceptable coffee with interesting latte art. An hour later, we walked the five minutes to our B&B, met our hostess Janet, dropped off our gear and headed out to find a pub to watch the first of the northern hemisphere clashes.
The way the pool stage panned out resulted in a northern hemisphere quarter final stream (England v France and Ireland v Wales) and a southern hemisphere stream (NZ v Argentina and Australia v South Africa) with Ireland, Wales, the Wallabies and the Boks playing in Wellington. So we were looking for a decent drinking hole to watch Wales and Ireland play at 6 pm and then down to the ground to watch England v France at 8:30 pm. Being unable to fathom Auckland's bus system and there not being an empty taxi in sight, Fi walked up to a charming young gentleman wearing an Irish rugby shirt and asked him (in brogue) if he was going in the vicinity of the Park in his red Mazda. So Sean (for such was his name) from Limerick kindly dropped us off at an Irish pub about 200 m from Eden Park - The Clare Inn. It was about 3 pm by now and with a 6 pm kick off for the first match, we had a bit of drinking to do. There were not many seats in the pub, but we got two and it turned out that the room was full of ex-geologists or parents of geologists! After one beer, we went up the road to The Dominion and settled in there to prop up a table and drink the hours away until the match started.
The Dominion filled up with English supporters, French supporters (including Asterix the Gaul), and many personable Kiwis including the garrulous Ginge and Ken from Whanganui, who joined us at the table:
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| Mike, Fi and Ginge |
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| Mr and Mrs A Gaul |
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| Mike and Ken in earnest discussion |
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| France and England make friendly |
The pub was full to bursting by the time the Ireland-Wales match kicked off. And a great match it was. Both teams attacked, but Wales had a better defence and the Irish attack looked a little one dimensional after a bit. In the end, much to the disappointment of the majority of the pub (the Irish supporters in this case), Wales had a magnificent victory, that takes them past the quarter finals for the first time since 1987. It was a sad finale for the many fine Irish players who will be retiring in the next few years, and won't get a chance to be the first Irish side to get past the quarter finals in RWC history, but Wales were definitely the better team on the day.
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| Eden Park |
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| Surrounded by French fans |
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| Allez Les Bleus! |
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| Mike the Wallaby |
Australia may be the "old enemy" to NZ, but England seemed to be the team that everyone loved to hate. Anyway, another great match. After weeks of poor performances, reports of rifts between management and players and the historic defeat by Tonga in the previous week, France came out in great form and comprehensively whupped England.
After the game, we walked back to Dominion Road and past two kids (estimated ages 8 and 12) playing pretty good amplified Nirvana from an electric guitar and full drum kit on their front porch, and another girl (estimated age 7) playing saxophone in the driveway with a hat out!
There were plenty of taxis around so we jumped into one and headed back to the B&B to crash at 11:30.
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| Exterior of Eden Park after the match |
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