We are now well into winter, and well into the rugby season. We have been following the Highlanders who are having the season of their lives. We headed to Dunedin to watch their play off match, which they won against the Chiefs, meaning they headed to Australia the following week to play the defending Super Rugby champions, the Waratahs.
Sadly, our budget didn’t stretch to that so we had to watch it on telly!
We accidentally happened upon the Mid Winter Carnival in Dunedin which was taking place on the same weekend (21 June) and also marks Matariki – Maori new year. It was an awesome atmosphere, but sadly we couldn’t stay long, we had a rugby game to get to!
Of course, the route back ALWAYS has to be via the beautiful Catlins, and a stop at the Whistling Frog cafe for lunch. ON our way back through, we saw a wee crack in the road, not to be unexpected, there has been a lot of rain. We thought that we may see some land slips in the hills, but a day or so later, the wee crack turned into a ROAD slip, and now the route through the Catlins (this is close to the Whistling Frog) is now closed while they repair it! Wow!
The problem now is that it is an all Kiwi final, Highlanders v Hurricanes, but its in Wellington and Air NZ would charge us $1200 if we wanted to fly up there to support them in the Final. Grrrr!! Back to the pub I guess.
Ryding2Health is still going well, This next week, I get to pay myself for the first time That will be a funny looking pay slip won’t it!
The group classes are going well, numbers are pretty good and in a few weeks I am adding on a new class, due to popular demand! Mark laughs that he will be my secretary when he gets to give up his day job!
We are pretty glad that we have the Yunka now, as we are having a colder than usual winter down here in Southland. The cats know where the heat is, I regularly wake up to this view!
less than 12 weeks till spring starts, not long now!
Melanie Magowan 