[RC] Trens Tesmen (Translation: Trans Tasman) Part 1 - Jay Randle
New Zealand. The Shakey Isles(or is that Hawaii?),Land of the long white cloud(it's actually grey).Home of Mordor and a ring that caused some trouble a while back.A place where everyone really does wear black all the time.A vivid image is that of Derek Armitage wearing his green and gold Aussie jacket walking the boardwalk in Wellington harbour surrounded by a sea of black jackets.The proverbial "sore thumb". There is around 4 million people in NZ.That gives them around 266 000 possible All Black sides that would be capable of beating our current Wallaby squad.But we weren't there for rugby.Bet they wish we were now We drove from Wellington to Whanganui.You should know that the WH in NZ is actually pronounced PH ( as in F)depending on which part of the country you come from,so it could actually be Whanganui or Phanganui.I don't think the locals even know.I heard both.We stopped at Paraparaumu on the way.Now don't get too carried away reading that twice because it is actually pronounced patapatamoomoo.Crazy Kiwis.I mean Aussie place names make perfect sense like Oodnadatta or Coonabarabran.Easy as. The team met up in Whanganui at the hotel and we all went for a swim in the pool for bonding and spent some time sunbaking on the beach.We threw beachballs around and frizbies as well. Oops none of that last sentence is true.If you threw a beachball on the beach it would end up in South America and the frizbie would probably come back to you after circling the globe on the gale force winds.So in NZ they may well call frizbies boomarangs.I think they have heard of pools but they have never seen one.At least not an outdoor version.The sand on the beach is black and the driftwood should be called drift trees.Whole trees were all over the beach.Quite amazing and the rocks on the beach were all pumice and as light as a feather.Doubt that you would want a swim at that beach unless you had a deathwish or a wetsuit 3 inches thick. Ride base was around 18mins from the hotel.A pleasant drive through the greeness that is NZ past the sheep and dairy herds.Deer farms dot the landscape and it is incredible to see how much livestock they can squeeze onto small blocks of land.Here we need about 2000 acres for 2 cows,a pig and a sheep and even then we need to hand feed twice a day but in NZ there is so much feed that 100 head can spend a week on 1 acre.If you took an Australian horse to NZ they would have a panic attack and a seizure,collapsing in a heap just from not being able to work out where the hell to start eating and their cones and rods couldn't process the lush green colour causing temporary blindness.Two days later they would have a body score of a hundred and no girth would be long enough. Ride base was a couple of paddocks at the base of some steep hills covered in sheep with a woolshed and some yards.A lovely sight and of course no shortage of feed.On our arrival there were a few trucks already there and the Aussie horses were waiting for our riders to get on board.Wonderfull to see the Kiwis look after us so well and having horses available for testing 3 days before the ride was excellent. You don't need to hammer in a waratah (star picket) in NZ you just drop it from 5 inches above the ground and it settles around a foot in the earth.They also use telescopic metal yards.Ooh they can be tricky lining up the holes.Apparently they have some rather odd rules about yards over there.Voltage meters and such that I won't bother going into now.Also no gooseys.Not a one.All trucks with a couple of floats.Apparently the gooseys get bogged too easily.No surprise there.Pretty sure if it isn't raining in NZ it is just about to. They also have earthquakes.They gave us an earthquake one morning.5.1 on the richter scale.Now I've never actually been in one before but I have come to the conclusion that Kiwi earthquakes are soft.Soft like butter.Cmon Kiwi quakes take a teaspoon of cement and harden up ya pansies.I didn't even notice.I think my shoelace slipped off my boot and the end touched the ground gently but that was about it.If we had an earthquake here it would open huge cracks in the ground and swallow whole cities.Soft Kiwis,soft. Chapter 2 The Aussie invasion Coming soon(sorry 2 finger typer.I need a break) G
