We set off on our naked bus (its the name of the bus company) from Nelson to Picton where we were catching a 5 hour ferry to the north island.
The ferry ride over was actually a nice ride to the north. The boat had a cinema like room so we just watched 2 movies and then we were in Wellington. Luckily we could see our hostel/hotel from the port so we didn't have to walk far. We stayed in a place called Down Town Backpackers which was a converted hotel. It was huge. A lot of dorm rooms and cafe and a pub. As we were mainly in Wellington to cheer on the England boys we decided to upgrade from a dorm to a budget private room (again, only $3 more then the dorm rooms) we guessed that the hostel was going to be full of drunken kiwi kids in fancy dress for the rugby sevens so we thought we'd avoid dorms.
We had a total of 5 days in Wellington (New Zealand's capital). For the first 3 we explored the very small city. One thing that we did learn about Wellington is that its called windy wellington for a reason. Literally, hat losing, knicker showing wind...if you are wearing a skirt. It happened all the time and Cj looked like Sonic with his wind swept hair style.
Overall we weren't too impressed with Wellington. It was a bit boring and we felt 3 days was too long. We took part in a free tour of the parliament building. That was quite interesting, England (especially the Queen) is still very involved with New Zealand's parliament.
We wondered around the shops. It was a Tuesday so we took advantage of the cinema's cheap tuesday deal and finally watched Wild for like £4. We have been loving our exchange rate.
On our third day exploring we saw signs saying 'rugby sevens parade' it looked like it had been and gone so we thought we'd missed it until we heard roaring whilst in Burger King. We sat upstairs and actually got a good view to the high street. We saw our English boys on their parade float. We gave them a cheer and they waved back. Whilst we were buzzing for the rugby we decided to visit the fancy dress shop to get our patriotic flags.
But before this, Cj decided he wanted his haircut so he went to the barbers whilst i stayed in Burger king (it has free wifi). He came back about an hour later with rage and shock on his face. He just told me we've got to go back to the hostel, so i just followed confused.
I looked a bit closer when back in our room and noticed that his beard was half the length with a lil goaty style and he had no eye brows. The barber went to town with his scissors. Cj was not happy.
After some more trimming of the beard Cj managed to make it look more fashionable but he was so upset he'd lost his 2 month growth. So i learnt, never to get on the wrong side of Cj's beard, and exactly how attached he got to a bushy hairball.
After this drama we eventually managed to sort out a fancy dress outfit for the sevens, just with a moody Cj. This turned out to be a lot more effort then imagined as the fancy dress shop was rammed. Everyone was clearly last minute outfit planning.
That night, the night before day 1 of the Wellington rugby sevens our plan of staying in a private room to avoid the drunken kiwis back fired. Our room was next to a dorm as we Shared a bathroom and the dorm full of lads was pretty loud at 2am. We missed the memo of a sevens night out before the first game. Anyway, we grabbed a fry up in the cafe, painted our faces and joined everyone else in the pub for our first rugby pints (before midday). I say pints, i only managed 1 but Cj had 3.
I bought these tickets as a birthday present for Cj. He is mad about the famous NZ All Blacks Hakka so i originally wanted to try and get tickets to an All blacks game. I knew this may be hard as they are the best rugby team in the world. My second best option was the sevens as the All Blacks (2nd ranked rugby sevens team in the world, south Africa are 1st) were playing.
We were surprised that the stadium was only half full. Compared to the sevens in Twickenham filling 80,000 seats every year. Westpac was a lot smaller with only 30,000 seats. This did have one advantage as it meant we could sit anywhere we wanted. So, we sat on the front row in the sun. The atmosphere on both days was actually pretty buzzing considering the empty seats.
England beat Canada but lost to New Zealand on their first day but they did ok as they came second in their group. Cj got a lot of attention on the first day due to his patriotic make up. He may even make the local paper.
England played New Zealand at 9pm so it was a long day. We should have gone out along with everyone else but we were knackered. We could not handle day drinking along with 8 hours of rugby. It didn't sound like the kids next door made it out either.
Day 2 of sevens. We woke for round 2 knackered but we painted our faces ready for England v Fiji.
We strategically sat away from any Fijians. Fiji had been playing very well, they are beasts and were looking like they were going to win the tournament. They had a huge fan base, pretty much half the spectators were waving a Fiji flag.
So we watched quietly not expecting to win, we then started to cheer a bit louder and we waved our flags turning heads as England knocked Fiji out the games. We made it to the semi finals. Whooo!
Walking around the stadium showing off our England flags we were loving day 2 of rugby.
Our next game was against Scotland. When this game started at around 5:30pm we faced the reality of everyone chanting Scotland. No one liked England. There was even a few 'freedom' chants. There was surprisingly lots of scottish flags waving about as they had quite a crowd compared to the 3 England flags waving about. Thankfully we sat right behind an english family so we were not alone. It was actually one of the most heated/entertaining games throughout the whole 2 days. Even for the rest of the supporters. Thats how much everyone dislikes England. Scotland was definitely very popular (mostly because we knocked Fiji out and half the spectators were Fijian). The score was pretty much neck and neck for 6 minutes of the game (the games only last 7 minutes) until Scotland scored a try with only 30 seconds to go. So whilst everyone in the crowd was celebrating Scotland's win, the english sat intensely watching the games last 30 seconds and booomm...we jumped for joy (all 10 of us) as we scored a try to bring the game to a draw then another straight away in over time. Sit down Scotland you are out! The crowd went silent. It was a good moment waving our flags as we made it to the final.
The final wasn't until the end, about 9pm so we had a while to wait. We decided to walk about and get a hot dog. By this time the crowd were a bit tipsy and we had some banter towards us. Mostly people still cheering Scotland on in front of us. It was funny though. Our final was against New Zealand. It was pretty obvious the All blacks would win, they are very good. We decided to sit away from a big group of Kiwis as the beers were fuelling and supporting England may not go down well.
We lost by quite a few points. The All Blacks are too good. At the finale ceremony the All Blacks took their tops off and performed the Hakka. I was so glad we got to see it performed as thats what i wanted Cj to see. If you hang around until the very end the rugby players walk around the arena shaking your hand. So we stayed and we got to meet the English boys and some of the All blacks. That was pretty cool.
We ended the rugby weekend by hitting the street party. Wellington installed big marquees on the harbour and made them into outdoor clubs. Cj got refused entry for one, apparently he was too drunk (or just had the english flag painted on his forehead), we went to the next tent. It was a pretty good night out. We ended in McDonalds (we got a photo with the best fancy dress costume at the sevens) and passed out ready for an 8am alarm.
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