Two (or three now :S ) weekends ago Susan's friend Ruth bought Susan and I tickets to the Hamilton Chiefs Rugby game against Pretoria Bulls from South Africa. It was a really awesome game - I've never seen a professional Rugby game live before! At the beginning, there was a traditional New Zealand haka war dance, which was really neat. And, woot woot, Chiefs won 28 to 22!!
 |
| The Haka |
 |
| Warming up (with Sonny Bill) |
 |
| First kick... |
 |
| SCRUM! |
 |
| Line out!!! |
 |
| RUCK! |
 |
| Chiefs WIN! |
 |
| Shaking hands after the game |
The next day, Susan and I went to Wintec (school) early in the morning around 7:30am to help set up for Sensori Saturday. Sensori Saturday is a day of workshops and celebrations, which features the third year Early Education students and their workshops. I was able to take a "Dancing with Kids" workshop, which was really fun and artsy. And also a "Storytelling: How to tell a story well" workshop put on by a local author.
At the beginning of the day, there was a quirky women's ukulele group that performed, and there was morning tea in the marae (Maori community centre) on campus. At the end of the day, there was a Pacifica dance group that performed.
 |
| The Ukulele Group |
 |
| The Marae |
 |
| The Marae at night |
The NEXT day (Sunday) Sandra, my mentor at The Park, and Annie, the lead teacher from the Kindergarten room at The Park took me to Karangahake gold mines and gorge. Karangahake is a really nice place to go walking, but it is also the site of an early 1900's gold mine, which still has fragments of buildings, train/cart tracks, and caves that you can walk through.
 |
| HAMILTON to KARANGAHAKE to WAIHI BEACH |
 |
| The famous Lemon Paeroa bottle in Paeroa |
 |
| Crossing the bridge to Karangahake |
 |
| Old mining buildings |
 |
| More buildings |
 |
| The wheel! |
 |
| Crossing the river to go through the tunnel... |
 |
| The tunnel |
 |
| The other end of the tunnel (with Annie and Sandra) |
 |
| Annie and Sandra |
 |
| Railway cart track |
 |
| The tracks atop the gorge - lots of windows to look through! |
 |
| A "window" |
 |
| And crossing the river again |
 |
| Walking through the tunnels |
 |
| SPIDER! |
 |
| Me as a miner :) |
 |
| Walking onto the beach at Waihi |
 |
| Me on the beach! |
 |
| "Karen NZ 2012" |
That was that weekend! Pretty filled with adventures hey?! It's been great to be able to see so much on the weekends thanks to Susan (my homestay mum), Sandra and Annie (from The Park) and Tanya (from Wintec).
I'll put up another post shortly (meaning the next few minutes) since I have a lot to catch up on!!
Miss you all :D
Karen Trotter
