Well we got back from the Coromandel yesterday and although absolutely shattered we have rugby games this weekend and a trip to the South Island starting on Monday so no time to stop!

We all had tickets to the Australia v Ireland game and we planned on leaving early afternoon so that we could get to Kingsland and have a few drinks somewhere before heading over to the stadium for the game.

The morning was a lazy one and for lunch Dale made a gorgeous frittata with all sorts of treasures in it and an array of salad things and dippy things to go with it. That set us all up for the rest of the afternoon and off we went to Kingsland...

…on arrival at Kingsland we suddenly realised that maybe we had left it a bit late to travel in as we couldn't get into ANY pub…NONE….NADA…every single one was full and had queues of people waiting outside them, the worst thing was that the weather looked like it was about to start throwing it down any minute, so we dashed into an Indian restaurant that said, although the food was fully booked we could order drinks at the bar.

Excellent. Although it turns out we weren't the only ones with that idea…

…the restaurant very quickly became RAMMED with rugby fans lining the walk ways standing in between tables and hanging around the bar, so much so that the staff were having to fight their way through the crowds to deliver food to tables they couldn't even see for all the people standing around! I couldn't believe no one had complained or that we hadn't all been told to leave, when one of the staff came over and said that it was getting a little out of hand and that he had to close the bar for drinks so we would have to leave after we had finished (he was very good about it, certainly wasn't throwing everyone out, just saying that we couldn't buy anymore)

Not to let that stop us, we managed to blag some freebie Poppadoms from one bar man and I quite shamelessly found myself robbing a half drunk bottle of wine from one of the deserted tables for the rest of the group to drink!! (waste not, want not)

Once out of the Indian, we decided to get some food before heading over to the game - it was here that I donned the Ireland t-shirt that my friend Vince had given me and managed to get a few photos of me with a few Irish fans (not difficult to find when almost every Kiwi at the game was supporting Ireland - everybody here hates the Aussies….) The atmosphere in the Stadium was electric and the noise that erupted when Ireland won was just incredible!

A cup of tea before bed and a bit of packing ahead of my trip to Hamilton the next morning for the Wales game and sleep came very easily.