Polo. Possibly the most fun I've had fully dressed

In April 2012 I got a Groupon for a Polo Day down at JF Polo Academy in Cheshire, so on the 29th I donned the jodhs, & set off just after 8 from sunny Blackpool.
By the time I hit the M56 it was piddling, & by the time I found the stables in Gt Barrow, raining pretty hard.
There was no sign of life, so I called the mobno I'd been given by Groupon. The posh sounding bloke (at this late stage [Oct 14!] I can't recall his name) said he'd sent an E the previous evening to say it was postponed as the field was waterlogged. 
You don't say!  There was a puddle so big in one bit you could've trained dolphins in it :-/
So, after a brief stop for some goodies, I went back to Blackpool.

It had been reconvened for the following Sunday, so off I went again, this time it was a lovely May morning all the way.
There were 3 of us with a Groupon, but the chap only had a 1/2 day voucher. There was another girl whose family was there. Apparently it was a birthday present.
Posh Bloke asked us about our experience, & sorted me out with a hat. As usual I was given an adult one, & when I explained about needing a kiddy one coz of my kiddy sized head, I got the smallest 1 they had. I also got offered a pair of long boots as I was only in jodhpur boots, but I declined.
Initially we had to show PB our skills & I got a bay mare. She was fine at walk, but very stiff at trot & always felt disunited at canter (for those readers who don't get that bit, google 'disunited canter'). Not a comfy ride :-(  Apparently she had arthritis & was always stiff at first. I felt a bit sorry for her, actually.
Stirrups were pretty short, & we had to ride in half-seat all the time (google half-seat ;-q ). The reins were always in the left, too. Pretty obvious that one ;-p
btw - there are no left-handed polo players.
We were taught to stop & go using the legs, seat & reins, & turn by neck-reining. This wasn't a prob for me having done a Lot of gymkhana comps as a kid. Plus, I'd spent a week on a ranch in Colorado a few years back. A real ranch, not a dude one.
We also got taught how to ride-off. This is (sort-of) the equivalent of tackling in rugby, but doesn't involve anyone hitting the deck (hopefully ;-p ). Basically, you use your legs & reins to make your pony travel in a diagonal line, & use the inner knee to shove the opposing pony over so you can get at the ball. As with tackling, good fun :-D
After about an 40 min of riding we had a break, & I got a new pony. He was much better & really knew his stuff :-)

Once PB had checked us all out as safe, we put the nags back & went to learn how to hit the ball with our mallet. To do this we sat on a wooden horse - it had a saddle on, but no head or neck. I was last to go which meant I had a slight advantage having watched the other 2.  PB seemed pretty impressed with my follow through. I think all those years of karate & kobubo helped ~ striking through the target & all that? He also said girls picked it up better than boys. Apparently they are more relaxed & don't try to rely on strength to whack it. Anyway, having tried it sitting on a lump of wood, we got aboard again & had a go mounted.
Wot a larf ;-)
Fortunately, Pony knew what I was trying to do & was very patient with me.
Then it was lunch & the bloke left.

Lunch was a mega BBQ with massive burgers & yummy sausages. Salad, juice, tea & choccy biscs were also on offer. Having not ridden since NZ (with Suzy, Dylan & Pete in September 11), I was pretty knacked after all that half-seat work, but several burgers/sausages did the trick & revived me. btw - the wooden horse's bottom is on the left of this pic.

Next up was more practice at hitting the ball while moving, & I slowly got better & faster. My new pony seemed to be a mind reader, & was turning as I was thinking about it, but I guess that was his job! He was also very good at following the ball I had just hit, & picked it out of any others in the vicinity. Clever chap :-)  

A few other peeps had mounted up over lunch & were tapping the ball all over the field, so once me & the girl were reasonably accurate at trot, PB suggested a 3-on-3 game.

During the game, Pony came into his own again & chased down the ball with little encouragement on my part, & we even managed to score a goal.

However, that wasn't a good as it sounds as the 'real' polo players were running rings round us 2 novices & I'm pretty sure they let me score???
I also lost my stirrups at one point when Pony went haring after the ball & did an emergency stop before turning left on a pin head & bombing it back in the other direction ~ oops!

Me trying to hit it backwards!

 

 .

All too soon it was 4 o'clock & time to stop.
I'd taken a carrot, so I shared it with Pony after I'd un-tacked him and given him a shower with the hose. They were all pretty sweaty, so I helped with a few others, too.
Then it was back in the car & up the road.
I fairly whizzed home, so I wasn't sat still that long. Even so, I stiffened up a Lot & I could barely get out of the car. The following morning I felt like I'd been run over by a rhino - several times :-/ but managed to get into work.
All in all a great day, & one to keep on the back burner for another time :-D
OAO

And so back to Auckland & beyond

As I said before, Robbie took me to the bus station after our lunch & soon I was in Auckland. After all the wide-openness of everywhere else I'd been ~ even Wellington, I didn't like it & couldn't wait to get out into the suburbs.

The bus took me out to Parnell & it was short walk down a residential street to the City Garden Lodge. I dumped my kit & went out to find where I'd eat & watch the game vs England. Parnell was one of those suburbs where just about all the shops etc were on the main route thru, so it didn't take me long.
Once back at the hostel, peeps were getting painted up for the game, & as you can see, it was a mixed group :-) You can also see I was still a redhead!

Most of the guys in the pic had tickets & set off for the stadium shortly after, & I went looking for dinner. I ended up with a takeaway, but also decided on a pub for later.

This is a pic of the hostel from the drive. The benches on the left were where the group pic was taken.

And this is the cute hostel cat. He looked like he had Seal-Point blood, & like a lot of Siamese, he was quite noisy :-)

Sadly Scotland lost very narrowly to England, & ended 3rd in their group. That meant they never made the 1/4s.
The pub was full of Kiwis supporting Scotland & they made me very welcome. There were a few other 'tourists' there, too, but only one Englishman. He must have felt very alone ;-p

As I had an early start for the airport, I didn't hang about after the game, & walked home having see Scotland play in all 4 of their group games ~ 3 live & 1 nearly live :-D


Next morning I was up before 6 & at the airport for my connection to Sydney by shortly before 8. This bloke fell asleep almost immediately ;-p, but was very friendly when he woke. His name was Rob, I think?

Coming into land I got a couple of photos of Australia!

Maybe I'll get more one day!?
I had a few hours to kill before my flight to Heathrow, so I wandered around the Duty Free, sampling the perfumes & hand cream, & treated myself to a couple of bottles. I remember one was a Shirraz Vioignier blend. No idea at this late stage what the other was.
Bizarrely, I still had the empty SV bottle until a couple of months ago. McPherson. I think?


So that was my 2011 Rugby World Cup visit to New Zealand. A few months after I got home I thought I should go back & visit the places I still haven't been to: the Northland and Bay of Islands, the East Coast of North Island, and the West Coast of South Island. Plus, I still hadn't swum with dolphins, I'd love to ride in more places, & I have a hankering to spend the night on Mt John & see the night sky, Southern Hemisphere style.
So, watch this space!
OAO (for now)

Hamilton ~ the one in NZ

OK. Here we go with the NZ stuff again. It's now many months since I took these pics & trained in Hamilton, so it'll be a bit more woolly than if I'd done it in 2011 when I got home.
After arriving at Hamilton bus station from Rotorua, I found my way to J's hostel, checked in & got ready to go training. I didn't have a gi, but my Budokan track pants & a Wado T sufficed.
It was about a 20 minute walk to the dojo from J's. If you recall, I'd made a flying visit back in Dec 9 on my 1st trip to NZ, so I knew where it was.
The session was a basic mixed karate one with a few kihon/renrakuwaza & then partner work. I stuck myself in the back corner out of the way as I was well out of practice. However, Robbie said something like "I can see you've been well taught" so it mustn't have looked too bad.

After, I was given a lift back to J's & I joined a few other UK nationals of various colours by the telly. One, Stuart, was at pains to explain he was supporting the Welsh, English & Irish.
I had plans to go & look at the Botanical Gardens next day, Friday, so I made my way upstairs where my fellow hostellers were also getting ready for bed.
Next morning, having noticed the brick BBQ looked like a face, I took a pic (no.1), & shortly after made my way across the road to the gardens. Pic 2 is a map of the layout.

The next pic is a tree (you don't say, Shirl!) Well you know me & trees?
Following that is one of the lake near the cafe, & the little waterfall.
You can tell it was still quite early ~ before 10, as the sun was still quite low: it being the NZ spring - September.

I had a quick brew stop ( & a choc goodie), & while I was sitting in the sun heard the unmistakable sound of a Maori chant.

So I followed my ears & discovered there was a Maori culture exhibition, & the chants had apparently been the sound of some punters on the river in a Maori canoe ~ a Waka.

There were quite a few marquees, & in one I found this guy carving allsorts of awesome stuff out of wood. Some of the staves had a great feel, although they were shorter than Bo. Some were rigid & some more whippy, but all would have left a nasty bruise!

The next tent had loads of info-boards, so (as I'd done previously) I took pics of them to explain things about the Maori culture & artifacts.

I recently had a discussion with a friend about the Haka, & like most peeps he was under the impression that the one performed by the ABs was 'it'. Having been to this exhibition, I tried to explain that a Haka could be performed for many reasons, not just a "I'm gonna mash you" war cry. He reckoned it shouldn't be allowed before a rugby match!
I didn't agree. I love Haka & would love to be taught one, one day. Maybe I'll put that on my Bucket List? ? ?

Here's what Wiki says:
Although the use of haka by the All Blacks rugby union team and the Kiwis rugby league team has made one type of haka familiar, it has led to misconceptions.[2] Haka are not exclusively war dances or performed only by men.[3] Some are performed by women, others by mixed groups, and some simple haka are performed by children. Haka are performed for various reasons: for amusement, as a hearty welcome to distinguished guests, or to acknowledge great achievements, occasions or funerals.
War haka (peruperu) were originally performed by warriors before a battle, proclaiming their strength and prowess in order to intimidate the opposition. Today, haka constitute an integral part of formal or official welcome ceremonies for distinguished visitors or foreign dignitaries, serving to impart a sense of the importance of the occasion.
Various actions are employed in the course of a performance, including facial contortions such as showing the whites of the eyes and the poking out of the tongue, and a wide variety of vigorous body actions such as slapping the hands against the body and stamping of the feet. As well as chanted words, a variety of cries and grunts are used. Haka may be understood as a kind of symphony in which the different parts of the body represent many instruments. The hands, arms, legs, feet, voice, eyes, tongue and the body as a whole combine to express courage, annoyance, joy or other feelings relevant to the purpose of the occasion.

You can see from the info-boards, the Haka is classed as a dance. So I should defo get my act together next time I visit and learn at least one.

Reading through the pics now makes me realise how much I've forgotten from wandering through the exhibition for about an hr and a 1/2
What a good idea it was to take them :-)

Though I would feel pretty naff doing the whetero (remember the rules about 'wh'?) or pukana, I guess if it's part of a dance I could shove my embarrasment aside for the duration.
Here's hoping I get the chance to try, one day.

After I'd been into all the marquees it was time for some scran, & my nose told me there was some good stuff getting cooked nearby ;-p

I found this bloke making 'pancakes'.
Basically it was a cockle omelette & although it looked like a vomit sandwich, it Was totally yummy.
It was washed down with the ubiquitous plastic cup of tea!

I'd noted there were various themed gardens from the plan/map, so I made my way to the Japanese one 1st - no surprise there, then.

The first pic is in the 'natural' style showing the various aspects of nature ~ trees, rocks, water etc.
There're probably Koi in there too, somewhere. It's not Japanese without gloriously coloured carp.

The next 2 are the Zen garden type. That's the kind I tried to create back home, but I never rake nice lines into it like this one (& like you should :-/ ), & my gravel is looking decidedly dreary at the mo. I shall have to bleach it white again soon.

The next couple were actually taken after I'd done the other gardens - see below, but (as usual), technology got the better of me.
Anyway, it's a super-sundial, (apparently an anelemmatic one ?) and you can tell the time all over the world on it.
I E'd Hamilton Garderns about it, & they sent me this:

A Short Guide to the Time Court

The Time Court is a combination of a sundial (which tells the time of day) and a solar calendar or ‘Pelekinon’ (which tells the time of year). Using the Time Court you can determine both the date and the time.
The metal needle that casts a shadow on the tiles is called a gnomon. As the position of the sun in the sky changes, the position of the shadow of the point of the gnomon moves across the ground in a particular and predictable pattern.
The thick blue curved lines trace the path of the shadow on particular days of the year. There is one curve for the first of each month. There are also curves for the Summer Solstice and the Winter Solstice: these are the lines that are closest to and furthest from the gnomon, since on the Summer Solstice the sun is highest in the sky and casts the shortest shadow, whereas on the Winter Solstice the sun is lowest in the sky and casts the longest shadow.
When the shadow falls between two of the curved lines then the exact date must be inferred. It is possible to draw a line for every day of the year, however for simplicity’s sake when building a pelekinon it is preferable to select a small number of evenly spaced days.
The thin light blue figure-8 shapes are called analemmas. Their shape is a result of two features of the Earth’s path around the sun:
1. The Earth is tilted relative to the plane of its orbit. In other words, the line between the North and South poles is not at right angles to the direction of the Earth’s travel.
2. The Earth does not travel in a circle around the sun. Instead its path is an ellipse.
If you marked the sun’s position in the sky at the same time every day for a whole year, the result would be a figure-8 shape. Thus, the shadow that is cast by the sun describes the same shape on the ground. Each analemma shows where the shadow of the point of the gnomon will lie on each hour (the small bronze inlays show how it is corrected for daylight saving time).
When the shadow of the point of the gnomon lies on the intersection of an analemma with a thick blue curved line, the current date and time will be ‘on the hour’ on the first of the month.
I don't know about you, but I think that's really interesting.
IRO the other themed gardens, sadly there's something wrong with my SD card & apart from the Indian ones ~ outside & inside,  the pictures won't upload :-/

I wandered all over the rest of the place, then I set off along the river into town. A lovely walk in the NZ spring sunshine :-)
It was a lovely walk along a path by the river ~ the Waikato, & as per usual for yours truly, as water was nearby, when I got a chance, off came the shoes & in went the feet.

There were a group of lads all messing about in the river, jumping in etc., so I persuaded a couple of them to dive/jump in for me while I got a pic

This is one up a tree just prior to him jumping in!

And this is him on the way down

Town was Still quite a walk off, but it was a really nice day, & the walk was lovely. Soon after I got onto the main street, I came across this statue of Rik Rak from the Rocky Horror Show. I think that's how you spell his name?




These tackle targets were outside a rugby pub ~ only in NZ, eh! ;-)

After a brew & a bite I walked back a slightly different way & picked up some food to cook for tea.
Back at the hostel I made tea & ate in a kind of Yurty thing they have in the front garden ! !
Most atmospheric.

Then, as there was a game on, I walked down to the nearest pub & bagged a seat & a cider.
On the way there I noticed the moon, & here's a picture. It's orientation quite surprised me as I thought it only came up like that in lattitudes nearer the equator?

A couple of Welsh girls from the hostel joined me just after the game started & we walked home after a good game - NZ won again!


The next morning I got a lift to the Dojo & we did some Shindo Yoshin Ryu Ju Jitsu for a couple of hours. As with the Wado on Thursday, I was very out of practice, but had fun anyway. Robbie is a great coach & explained very well.
After, we all went out for lunch at a nearby Asian, & Robbie treated me to mine. Cheers Robbie :-)
 I thought I wrote what I had, but I can't find my notes. It was Japanese :-q 

Then Robbie kindly took me to the bus station & I caught the afternoon bus to Auckland.
Of which I shall write in the next blog.
OAO