Rugby, Football coaching, mountain biking and Piha

Hi everybody, did you miss me? I know it’s been a couple of weeks since my last blog, but I just didn’t find the time to write one. I am actually sitting in the bus right now on my way to Cape Reinga (it’s the north westernmost tip of the North Island of New Zealand) and decided to start with my new blog because almost everybody on the bus is sleeping. First let me say that this country is really beautiful. I mean, when you’re on the road you see beautiful green landscapes and hills everywhere you look. It’s pretty amazing that’s my opinion and you should really see it for yourself to fully understand what I’m saying.

So I’m on my way to Cape Reinga at the moment with like 50 others after we arrived at Pahia, Bay of Islands, the day before. It’s a three day trip and tomorrow we will go on a dolphin spotting cruise and if I get lucky I will also have the opportunity to swim with them, but you will hear more about this trip in my next blog. Right now I will tell something about the previous weeks. Let me see where do I start. Oh yes, I know it. You probably know rugby is the biggest sport over here and the All Blacks (the national rugby team) are as popular over here as the Dutch national football team is in the Netherlands. The All Blacks have actually just qualified themselves for the rugby World Cup final a few hours ago. With that said, on Saturday 3 October we went to a rugby match in Auckland. It was pretty fun, but the stadium was far from packed so that was a bit disappointing. After the match we celebrated one of the guys’ birthday and had a fun night out. The following week it was school holiday in New Zealand and from Tuesday till Thursday Premier Skills had a holiday programme for the kids. Roger asked me if I wanted to help with the coaching those days. So I did and I had three amazing days working with some great and enthusiastic kids that really wanted to improve themselves as a football player. I assisted Brendan with the coaching and most of the time we had to coach the youngest group which also meant that we had to coach a real star that goes by the name of Ronaldo (one of the smallest boys in the group who was wearing a shirt of Cristiano Ronaldo). At the end of the three days our group (with Ronaldo) turned out to be the best group, yeah! It was really great to see those kids enjoy football and to see them leave with a smile on their face was really satisfying.

That weekend Nils, Maarten, Christoph and I decided to go to Rotorua which is about 200 km to the south from Auckland. The other guys had already been there before on an organised trip, but they wanted to go back and do some other things then they did during that trip. So we left Saturday morning to go mountain biking that day in Rotorua and on Sunday we wanted to visit some thermal pools. Sorry, but before I continue with my story I have to make a confession. I am not in the bus anymore, the rest of this blog is actually written from inside my apartment in Auckland after an amazing weekend at the Bay of Islands. But as I mentioned before I will tell you about that in my next blog. Just keep an eye on my Facebook page for the photos and videos from that weekend.
So back to our trip to Rotorua. We were very lucky with the weather that weekend, although the sun made the mountain biking a bit harder, but there were some great trails and it was fun to do. After the mountain biking it was time to get some dinner, because we were all starving. We decided to go to Cobb & Co, a family restaurant, where we had a great and delicious meal. The next day we went to relax in the hot water of a thermal creek nearby Rotorua which was really nice.

The weekend after that we went with a group of 8 to Piha Beach, see the fairy falls and some other beautiful places in the area. Piha Beach is on the west coast of the Auckland Region and is one of the most popular beaches in the area. Unfortunately the weather was pretty poor that day so swimming and relaxing on the beach wasn’t a part of our day at the end (something most of us had hoped for), but despite the weather Piha Beach looked beautiful.
After Piha Beach we visited one last waterfall before we went home. Funny thing happened over there, because there was this group of people all dressed funny and with weird make up on shooting some sort of film.
I think I have managed to tell you the most of the last few weeks so that means this blog is coming to an end. I have just finished sorting out almost 400 photos from my last weekend at the Bay of Islands so keep an eye on Facebook if you like to see them. I will upload them very soon. I can’t wait to tell you about this trip on my next blog which I will probably write in the beginning of next week.
Cheers!!