Friday and Saturday - Bronze Play-off and Farewell to Dunedin

Friday felt very strange as it was our last full day in Dunedin. Such a weird mix of emotions - sadness that the feast of rugby was nearly over and melancholic at the very thought of leaving Dunedin, but all tempered with the huge anticipation of going to our first RWC final. Fiona was heard whingeing loudly that she didn't want to go home at all, full stop, end of story. So we got bloody minded about turning our last day in Dunedin into a celebration rather than a wake by visiting our two most favourite places - Albar and Pirates.

We went into town at midday for the opening of the new Havoc Pork shop but their pig on the spit wasn't ready and we decided to head to the Albar for a long farewell lunch, where we met up again with that wonderful seasonal Emerson's brew - the Grace Jones. Many NZ breweries do seasonal beers, but Emerson's seem to make them more than most. Personally, I think it's a great idea, as you don't have to have too many recipes on the go at once, but can still make a much wider range of beers than you would otherwise. It also has a nice feel to it. We tend to buy fresh food at farmer's markets wherever we are, so you get into the habit of mostly eating what is in season. It lends a certain anticipation to parts of the year (for instance broad beans, fresh peas, asparagus, plums and cherries are coming up), and I like having the same degree of anticipation about what beers and ales are available. Grace is a lovely rich dark beer with a decidedly bitter edge to it. Stephen in the Albar kitchen outdid himself in producing a meatlovers quadruple-stacker roll with black pudding, bacon, haggis and Lorne sausage. After a few pints and some banter, it was with heavy heart (clogged with cholesterol and emotion) that we shook hands with Stewart and Stephen at 2:30 and headed home to finish our packing.

Mike and Tommo discussing the match

After dinner we headed down to Pirates for the Bronze play-off game (Australia v Wales) and our final session at the club for RWC 2011. There was a great crowd with most of the friends we've met over the past seven weeks present and after the two of us standing proudly to sing Advance Australia Fair, we sat down to watch the match with hardly any disparaging remarks about the Wallabies playing for third. This match is usually the most lacklustre of the tournament, but both sides managed to put some life into the match with Australia beating Wales. The game was marred by a high injury count, with both Quade Cooper and Kurtley Beale coming off with injuries. Cooper in particular was starting to show some great form in the match, more so than in other games this tournament, when an ligament injury took him out of the game. It looks like he'll be missing the next six months with surgery and rehabilitation. Australia played some of their best rugby of the tournament, although it never matched the standard of the Tri-Nations defeat of the All Blacks. Wales seemed to really miss Rhys Priestland. Their attack went side to side (which is partly tactical), but failed to make any great penetration until the final try, when it was all over. So well done to the Wallabies for finishing third and well done to Wales for a great tournament. They showed great promise and with most of the team being in their early twenties, we should see some great things from them in the future. In fact, Wales and Australia meet again on December 3rd and I am looking forward to seeing how that match will go, when we will be missing Quade Cooper and they will have Sam Warburton back.


At the end of the match, Pirate Mark Thompson (Tommo) pulled the Pirates club flag down and made a presentation of it to us with Murray Hamilton (Hammo) in attendance. We were completely bowled over by this gesture and rendered speechless with surprise. So then, sadly, it was time to go. Pirates had been a home away from home and we've made great friends there. We cannot thank all of you Pirates enough and as soon as the Super 15 schedule includes a Force v Highlanders game in Dunedin or there is a Big Test match, we'll be back!

Tommo presents Mike with the club flag

Mike, Fi, Tommo and Hammo ham it up for Leah

We were up at 5 am the next morning to pack and get into the car. A last check of the house and we loaded the suitcases into Enzo The Apache for our final excursion and headed up SH1 to Christchurch - a five hour drive. Fi was driving and Mike was dozing in the passenger seat. We were about three hours up the road, when Mike woke up from a doze thinking we'd left our passports behind. He'd remembered putting them in a "safe place", but couldn't remember removing them from it. After the initial *#%!*^ reactions, we put a call through to Tommo in Dunedin, who organised someone to go and collect the passports from the house while the cleaner was there. Hammo went round and searched the safe place - no passports. Now Mike was really worried. So we stopped at the side of the highway pulled his suitcase out from the car and opened it on the verge - still nothing. Then a faint glimmer of light seeped in to the stygian gloom and he checked the little red case we'd used to go to Auckland for the quarter finals. The passports were nestled quietly in the side pocket. Mike cannot afford to make this mistake again as he now only has one left! Fi was left to explain to Hammo on the phone what had happened while Mike found a convenient tree to bang his head against.


So back on the road and we finally got to Christchurch. After several loops around the airport precinct to find a petrol station, Enzo was handed back into the tender care of the hire car people, our suitcases were put into storage for Tuesday and we flew to Auckland with Jetstar.


This time our accommodation was more central. Extremely central as it turned out. We had a double room with en suite six floors up in a backpackers in Fort Street in the heart of the Auckland CBD. Some interesting facts about the backpackers:

• Ventilation and cooling was provided by a sliding door that, when opened, allowed in cool breezes, as well as all the varied and interesting comments of the people wandering around in the street below.
• The room contained a bed, a small TV, and a padded stool; nothing else, no table, no cupboard, no drawers, not even a coat hook.
• If both of you wanted to go into the en suite at once, one of you needed to stand in the shower.
• It was impossible to clean your teeth in a basin 10 cm across without getting preloved toothpaste solution all over the floor.
• The towels were made of recycled sandpaper.
• This level of luxury cost AUD300 a night at RWC World Cup Final time

White Lady 24 hr burger van outside our Nomad room

Cruise ship parked at end of street

We dumped our stuff, had a quick shower and headed out to find a pub. Auckland was crowded with thousands of people wandering around and there was not much in the way of pubs, but there were plenty of cafes and bars. We finally found the Bluestone Room, a pleasant Monteith's pub tucked away in a back alley and had a couple of pints. We then went in search of dinner and found an upmarket food hall called the Elliott Stables where we started with some Spanish tapas and Estrella beers from a cafe called Faro and ended up at Besos Latinos with Sol beer and a Che Guevara tasting plate (samples of food from Peru, Argentina and Cuba).

Auckland skyline from The Viaduct

 
Then we went for a long walk down to the Viaduct (a wharf precinct set up as a fanzone by the RWC) and checked out the Waka (a massive Maori war canoe installation with a bar, stage and great exhibition inside). The marinas and wharves were mobbed at ten o'clock at night by pedestrians looking at the multi-million dollar yachts, cabin cruisers and three cruise liners moored under the city lights. It was a balmy night and quite a stunning sight.






Tired out, we headed back to the room to sleep. This was to prove a challenge for the next five hours as approximately 87.3% of all Auckland revellers felt it necessary to pass through the street below our window, buy some fried grease from the venerable 24-hour-a-day White Lady burger van and talk, sing, remonstrate and yodel loudly. Sometime around three in the morning we passed out, relieved that we would not have to be up early on the big match day.