We woke up in Hamilton , had to drive an hour and a half(ish) to Paradice rink in Auckland to get our gear and then to the airport to catch our flight .... things didn’t start off so smoothly since we are both still wiped out from our all nighter in the hospital the day before . Sleep was much needed but we had to march on forward . When we left Cam said bye to his girls and we drove off to Auckland . Nothing spectacular aside from the scenery . Can’t get over how beautiful it is here in New Zealand 🇳🇿.
We got to Paradice and realized we had more time then we had realized so things slowed down for us a bit as we checked in online to avoid any hassles . It’s always great travelling with another player because sometimes you get to the airport and they don’t want to let you go on board with any extra weight so instead of pulling out my spare carry on bag we just tossed my skates in Cams bag and I carried my mask on board .... it’s still the same amount of weight on the plane !?!? I’m not gonna get into moaning about airlines but c’mon ! 😝. We bumped into klick klack Kyle Kaliniak who was having a coffee waiting for our flight and we all boarded for the 1 flight ... plane pulled out then pulled back in as it leaked all the hydraulic fluid out , that’s not good . Air New Zealand was pretty efficient and they boarded us pretty quickly onto another plane they had hanging around and we were off .
When we landed we had to rush a bit to get our rental car and get into the Octagon to check into the New Zealand Masters Games .... before we got the car I had to hit up the fruit stand in the airport near baggage claim ! The fruit here is to die for , so 🤤!!! Got the car , had a few laughs then Quintin landed and the four of us hopped into the suv and we were off to check in where we got our backpacks 🎒 and our lanyards . Cam and myself signed up for Pétanque which to us westerners is called lawn bowling or bocce for my Italian friends . Klick klack Kaliniak went to run a 5k and Quintin stayed with the boys back at the mansion we rented for the week . Our house is sick ! When we showed up at the pétanque club we realized we were by far the youngest competitors but we have never played competitive pétanque and agreed to make the most of it and make sure everyone we met enjoyed our presence . The first team we played was a mother daughter combo who we had a lot of fun playing but we lost in the end 7-6 in a close one but we all had fun and the next team we played was against a Colombian woman and her husband and we whooped their ass’ 13-2 ... again we had fun playing them and going to the third game we were favoured to make it to the finals but we blew our chances to a couple gals doing the Charleston 💃 they were fun too ... overall we didn’t win but we had a great time and we wish we had convinced the whole team to join us . We walked away winners even though we didn’t hit the podium . Could you imagine if I was telling you I was the masters champion of New Zealand in pétanque ? That woulda been pretty cool 😎
Back to the house with a pit stop for some beers and when we got back we had a few bevvies with the boys as our house was filling up . This place has 4 bedrooms , two living rooms , a solarium , and three bathrooms with a laundry ... perfect place to chill with the fellas between games . Speaking of games , tomorrow we kick off the hockey tournament with two games vs. Dunedin Penguins black and Dunedin Penguins white . One of the teams has defaulted their games in order to play with each other this week and there seems to be some confusion over why but I will talk to Benji Potvin when I get a chance and he will explain it better .
Check out the view from the patio , will try to get some more writing done later .... almost caught up with everything . Time to have a bbq 🍗
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