Wellington

Last weekend we flew up to Wellington to watch Ireland take on the All Blacks at Westpac stadium. Our flight was at noon and on the cusp of a strong SW wind which gave the take-off and levelling a shaky experience and initial turbulence forced the cabin crew back to their seats minutes after the seatbelt lights were turned off. However, the middle of the flight was quite calm under the circumstances and half and hour later we were heading in for a landing which was almost as bad as the take-off. Wellington is known as the windy city because of the Cook Strait and this was no exception!

After meeting Esther at the airport, we took a short bus ride into town and our YHA hostel was only a few minutes from where we were dropped off on Courtenay Place. We were up on the 5th floor and had a fantastic view over the harbour and bay and the street below.

Our next destination was the stadium itself to pick up the tickets and our hour round-trip made us ready for lunch where we met up with Keith and Jenny. Our first choice was a Monteith's Pub but their menu didn't tick anybody's boxes and as we headed up the street for something else we bumped into our cousin Stephen. We all walked up to the Cambridge Hotel bar and were served a huge meal of burger and chips which I just couldn't finish. Sinking a poor pint of Guinness (an obligatory and fruitless chore) we made our way further into town to another Monteith's bar for drinks were it was still pleasant enough to sit outside and watch fans make their way to the stadium where we soon joined them.

As luck would have it, we had only sat down for two minutes before the heavens opened up and the worst weather we have seen in New Zealand descended upon us. You can read all about the game here, suffice to say that a few silly mistakes and a lack of drive in the last 20 minutes cost us the game and we lost 21-11.

Sitting out for an hour and half in storm weather, we were soaked through and the temperatures were at freezing as the rain pounded us from above. Needless to say we made our way quickly back into town to get into a warm pub and holed up for the night in Molly Malone's where a piano player entertained us with cover songs as we consoled ourselves more at being cold and miserable than losing the game.

As we were sitting at our table, we got chatting to a South African lady who seemed to have some connection to the game and gave us a few spare copies of the match programme and returned later to inform us that the Ireland squad would be having a few drinks at the place called Lagerfields only a few streets over. We decided to follow her advice and rather than have a final drink at Molly's, we made our way to Lagerfields which turned proved fruitless as there were no players there, only trendy people looking poncy. Since we were there we stayed for a nightcap before making our way back to the hostel where we happily slipped out of our wet clothes and went to bed.