Road Tripping!

 

Ok, so we are here and ready to rock! or something to that effect, we landed on Thursday afternoon and spent less than 24 hours there before starting our road trip.

The most Rag-tag road trippers you are ever likely to see!

1st stop, Dunedin!

it was about a 2.5 hour drive down to Dunedin, plenty of lovely scenery and scenic views to take it, but also, as I will be driving at some point, lots to learn about NZ roads.

Like i said, some stunning scenery.

So eventually we made it to our camp site for the night and once we were set up, we met up with Brett and Anna and hit the bars!

It was the first night of the tournament, so it was the all blacks vs. Tonga tonight. We had seen a bar as we drove through Dunedin, the Duke of Wellington. A more English pub you won’t find! pork pies and pints of bitter! So there we are 3 scots, 1 in a kilt, standing in this most English of bars, cheering the all blacks! It was Fantastic! We conversed with the locals, drank the drink and eat the pies! (that age old question was finally answered, we ate all the pies!)

We went back to our wee home away from home and slept off our excesses ready to hit the road in the morning.

At 7am an alarm breaks the silence of the camp site, it is mine, it’s time to get moving, got to get to Invercargill by 11am, a 2.5 hour drive away, we would get breakfast on the road.

We rolled in to Balclutha around 8.30am, partly due to needing to stop for fuel, but  mostly due to only realizing that in the middle of nowhere and spending 45 minutes driving around looking for a petrol station, like I said, rag-tag!

After monster sausage and egg foot long sub from the local subway, It was time to hit the road again, a mixture of Billy Connolly and Greatest American Anthems kept sprits up!

Once in the site, the owners were running shuttle buses to the town centre for the game, we accepted the offer and got dropped off at the ground, game time!

We had GA (general admission) tickets, which essentially meant terracing!

Not a bad view!

I would love to tell you that Scotland played some amazing rugby, but that would be a lie, to say that they played good rugby is still a bit of a stretch, but at the end of the day, we won the game, and got the bonus point for scoring 4 try's, good days work.

After the match we headed to Waxy O’Sheas Irish bar, the local pipe band would be playing and it seemed like the place to go, and oh, it was!

The place was Rocking to the pipes!

After this, we hit Devil’s Burger, for some very tasty dinner. Then off to another bar for A quick half before getting picked up and taken back to the site, where we would watch the England – Argentina game.

The venue for this was an old converted barn, it reminded me of a holiday park I went to when I was little, ah memories!

By the time the game kicked off there were about 15-20 of us sitting watching, what turned out to be a typical English performance, I.E. the stole the win, despite being the poorer team. Typical.

So with that it was back to “Bessy” (the van) and to bed.

That Brings us to now, it is 8.28am on Sunday 11th September] 2011. Today marks the Tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, A quiet moment will be had later.

Also today it is Colin’s Birthday! So a birthday day out is on the cards, Brett and Anna are coming to town today, so we will hook up with them and party like it’s 1999!

See you next time!