It's not the winning it's the taking part........

We had been planning on traveling up to Hawke's Bay sometime in the future and when we got an e-mail from our local tennis club, Kilbirnie Tennis Club, inviting all members up to a tournament in Havelock North, we decided that it was as good a reason as any to explore the East Coast. Havelock North is about a thirty minute drive South of Napier. The map below shows it's location. You cannot read it but it is more or less in the same place as Hastings.

We left on Friday afternoon and arrived in Havelock about four hours later. We passed some nice towns along the way, One place in particular stood out from the rest. It was a small town called Greytown where, according to our driver, a lot of Wellingtonians go for a days shopping.

The next day we went into Napier and you can read about what we did there on Sharon's Blog by clicking here. While the girls where looking at buttons and the like I took some pics of the town itself. Napier is known for its Art Deco architecture. Here's some pics taken on a rainy day.





As I was taking the pics I noticed the date on all the buildings was the same as per the pic above. Then I remembered reading about Napier in the guide book and why all the building were Art Deco in character. In 1931 Napier was devastated by a terrible earthquake! Click here for the stats and here for some interesting facts. My favourite fact was that the whole area tilted upwards by about seven feet and 2230 hectares of land was raised to sea level.

As we have said previously NZ is known as the shaky isles and I found a good web site here which explains about earthquake prone NZ. There's a direct link here to an animation of how NZ has moved over the last four million years which I think is interesting.

Anyway while we were driving up B, our host, mentioned that the Dalai Lama was giving a talk in NZ soon and by some strange co-incidence I saw the poster below in the shops. Sharon and I hope to go hear him in Welly. I want to ask him if he is a betting man, does he like Tibet!

Later that day we went to the local Te Mata cheese factory- I thought there were saying tomato for a long time. The food was great if you like cheese, obviously. Here's a pic of us outside.

On Sunday it was time for some tennis, well that was the reason we had travelled. We both played two matches and as the title of the post says "it's the taking part that counts" so we needn't say anymore! Here's a pic of some of the guys playing.

I noticed in Kilbirnie Tennis club that they only pass the ball back to their opponents under the net. I thought it was because Welly is windy, but they did it in Havelock North too. According to C, our driver on the way home, it's considered good manners to pass it under the net. Oops......In Ireland you lob balls at your opponent from all directions and just shout "one up" as they hurdle towards him. To be fair though I don't think in Ireland you can pass the ball under the net? Ian what do you reckon?

Anyway that evening after handing the shield back to Havelock North we headed back to Welly, to await the arrival of Sharon's sister.

If nothing else the weekend proved a useful distraction for Sharon, but it was much more than that and gave us a chance to meet some really nice Kiwi's.

Cathal