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1st February 2008
Hello,
Well Oreti Beach Camp could not have been more
different to Papatowai. It was run down, scruffy, lots of old buses and
caravans and apparently 'acky'. Of course we'd booked in for one night
before we realised what we'd got. We thought "well! we'll make the best of
it for one night and be off in the mornining". In fact, it wasn't 'acky' -
yes the paint was coming off the wall in the shower, some of the doors didn't
fit and Margaret could only get hot water in the ladies hand basins - but it was
clean and you could see where the new owners had installed new washing machines,
electric hook ups and water stand pipes. We were off anyway first thing in
the morning and into Invercargill for a look round and some shopping.
While Mags was shopping I went into an internet cafe to update my virus
security. While I was there I down loaded a programme to allow me to get
weather reports via my sat phone; BIG MISTAKE, haven't been able to connect the
sat phone since to send or receive emails. Which is why communications are
erratic- any knowledgeable advice would be appreciated.
After this we went to Oreti beach to have lunch and
look at the Southern Ocean. It was a huge beach, like Perranporth but
much, much larger, and you can just drive on it almost down to the waters
edge. It was a beautiful hot day so after lunch had settled we swam in the
Southern Ocean - a place of awe for any sailor. It was getting late
by the time we left the beach so we went back to Oreti Beach Camp for another
night. On the drive back we passed a Rodeo being set up and found out
that it was being held the following day - Sunday - so we decided to see a bit
of New Zealand cowboy country life.
The rodeo was really good; it started with
youngsters as young as 4 riding bullocks whose size and presumably age was
matched to the kids size and age.they had to stay on for 8 seconds to qualify
for the judges to give a score, which may not sound very long, but I can
assure you very few got any points. There were minders who ran on either
side of the animal to minimise injury to the riders but they were only partially
successful as quite a few got kicked and bruised. It was the same for the
men only the bulls were big and mean and the minders were very wary of them and
frequently scrambled up the stockade to get away from a charging bull.
Again very few stayed on long enough to get any points.
The bronco busting was pretty much the same - men
only - but everybody was on horse back and slightly more riders stayed on for
the 8 seconds. The audience was something to behold; the fella's all wore
ten gallon hats, big boots and all the cowboy paraphernalia and the girls
Stetsons, short skirts and tasselled boots - it was a great atmosphere of
country folk enjoying themselves. It was a great day, very dangerous
and our Health and Safety would have had it shut by 9.30 in the
morning.
So we stayed another night at the run down Oreti
Beach Camp.
Roger & Mags
Mum & Dad
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