I arrive back to the Oaks Hotel to find the travelling companion that I will be rooming with for the next 21 nights has already checked in, I have to admit to being a bit nervous, however, the moment I met Fio I knew things would be just fine. Fio will be a regular feature in my blogs so more about her/us later.

We go down together and meeting our CEO, James and the rest of our travelling companions. There are 17 of us including James, a mix of ages and countries and my instant feel is a good one which proved to be right thank goodness.

We are booked for the All Blacks Experience so it’s straight into the bus and off we go!

Whaia Te Iti Kahurangi; Ki Te Tuohu Koe, Me He Maunga Teite!

Strive for Excellence; You should only bow to the most lofty Mountain!

We got the opportunity to watch both the male and female teams perform the Haka and trust me the women were way more fearsome! It is no wonder they are such powerful teams and as warriors in the past, it is no wonder they were fearsome people’s. The Haka is an expression of intention and installation of power within the players and fear for their opponents!

The name of every player, male and female is recorded on the walls of the grounds building. Plus their is a wall/board of all tournament results all recorded by year and colour of winning teams – there is a lot of Black!

This was a great experience and they have a super shop at the end with a good choice of things to buy. All I can think of is weight as I have an internal flight to Christchurch in 7 days and I am already at 30 kg, so restraint was shown, but not too much.

Included in the tour is an educational team chat where everyone sits in a purpose build “changing room” for visitors which then leads into and inter active area where you can practice your throwing, kicking and agility abilities which was great fun and was a good ice breaker for our wee team too.

We head out for a bite to eat and a relatively early night as we are starting as we mean to go on with an early morning cycle at Karangahake Gorge. Fio and I get better acquainted and despite our 25 year age difference we are a good fit which is great and amazing news she is a sound and good sleeper so hopefully I won’t disturb her too much, yay!