Camp Elsdon - Friday Night is Rugby Night

This was our first visit to Camp Elsdon, situated on the foothills in Porirua by the entrance to the Colonial Knob Walkway Track.  The camp often hosts school trips, and there was a bus load of school children all the way from Papakura, Auckland  staying in the large dormitory block all week. 

The camp has two grassed areas for camping.  The top area is full of permanents staying on site in caravans and campers in varying degrees of roadworthiness.  The casual campers like us park up in the lower area, along with several big buses who couldn’t fit in with the other permanents, and a couple of tents too.  The backdrop of native forest which forms part of the Colonial Knob Walkway makes this quite a pretty camp, and the view to the north takes in glimpses of Porirua Harbour.

Camp Elsdon

This weekend was the start of the long awaited Rugby World Cup.  With 20 teams competing in 48 matches in New Zealand over 7 weeks, Robin is in “Rugby Heaven”.   New Zealand hosted and won the inaugural  event 24 long years ago, and since that time our team have not managed to win the prestigious Webb Ellice Cup again.  There was no chance at all that Robin was going to miss the opening TV spectacular and the first game of the tour, just because he was at a caravan rally.  The whole country is  wishing our rugby team, the All Blacks, well.  There are flags and bunting everywhere, and just down the road from the motor camp we noticed this sign.

Go the All Blacks

Four of us sat glued to the TV in our caravan on Friday evening as the opening ceremony unfolded.  This had a strong Maori flavour and the theme of the opening ceremony was "the journey", with the boats representing the settlement of New Zealand. Maori warriors who had surrounded the park took to the field, performing a powerful haka.

 
The ceremony concluded with a massive fireworks display set up in several different locations in Auckland City. 

                           

Photos courtesy:  GRAHAME COX/Sunday News

Then the first rugby game got underway between the All Blacks and Tonga.  The whole country heaved a sigh of relief when the All Blacks proved victorious, although the strong Tongan team performed credibly well.  So, in the view of the writer who is a non sporty person, that’s one game over, only 47 more to go.  Robin, on the other hand, is keen as mustard to watch as many of these matches as he can fit in.  Go the All Blacks!