Quiet Friday

Well, as predicted, last night's match between the Springboks and Namibia was a cricket score - 87-0.  Probably the first real whitewash of the tournament, but hardly unexpected.  Namibia have problems building a strong team as many of their best players go across the border to RSA.  There are probably stronger teams in either Europe, Asia or America, but the regionalised basis of the qualifying let them in as the second best African team. 

And again the issue of rest days was raised, this time by the Tongan team, who stated that a full eight days rest contributed to their victory over Japan.  Once this weekends matchfest is over, I'll look at the results so far and see what they show us about this theory.

It was a quiet day today.  Mostly chores, shopping and lazing around.  It is good to have a bit of a rest before another big weekend of rugby.  It starts with Australia vs USA tonight and I hope the Wallabies go for maximum points; they certainly need them. 

We went for a walk along the St Clair foreshore this afternoon to blow the cobwebs away.  A batch of enthusiastic (and probably northern hemisphere) individuals was taking surfing lessons as we walked past the headland from the heated St Clair Salt Water Pool to the innovatively named Second Beach.

Second Beach - Nice Columnar Basalt

There are some 11 million year old, nice columnar basalt flows on show and a nice lady with a very enthusiastic dog told us that a small natural amphitheatre used to be used for concerts here back in the 1880s.  There was, apparently, even a tram that used to ferry people from town to the amphitheatre for that purpose.  All that is left now are a few bits of reinforced concrete, a basal block wall or so and undergrowth.

We're staying in for dinner tonight - gammon steaks from the local Havoc Pig Farm - before heading down to our usual rendezvous at Pirates for the Wallabies-USA match.  Market day tomorrow and England v Romania at the Otago Stadium ay 6 pm! Followed by All Blacks v France.