JANUARY 11th 2014
Albany Village - East Coast Bays (at Brown's Bay)
Dear Diary,
It's see you later Albany and on to East Coast Bays Library. Wow! There it is! North Harbour Stadium! It is just as awesome as it looks on TV! Huge floodlights for night play, and a majorly large stand that can hold 25, 000 spectators. I'm imagining the atmosphere at one of the big rugby showdowns! Mean!
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| Here's a pic from www.tourismnorthshore.org.nz to show you the stadium at night! |
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| I snapped this pic for you too! I spy the Harbour colours too - burgundy, black and white. |
If it had been during the school term I know I could log on from anywhere to 'Any Questions', it seems like there are librarians waiting in cyberspace to assist us too! Really they are librarians from the different branches around Auckland who are scheduled on a roster, so keep that in mind when school goes back. 'Any Questions and Many Answers!' The ultimate homework help motivators.
Helen and I tried a variety of sites to find the answers to my questions we even tried emailing Mr Frano Botica himself, the North Harbour Coach! We found his email address under the club contacts list on the North Harbour Rugby site. I'll bet he is a busy guy but you never know he may have information to add to this quest?
We looked at the history of the Ranfurly shield on a Wikipedia site, but Helen reminded me that I had to think critically about the source of my information. I asked her what that meant exactly and she was able to give me a few ideas to think about:
Who was the author of the site? What motivated them to write the information? Were they trying to sell something? What did they stand to gain? Was it a community site? Were they asking me for my details? How could I analyse whether or not the facts were correct?
So much to think about! Wikipedia gave me the background on the Ranfurly Shield, it also mentioned the ITM cup so I followed on to that link. The ITM cup was linked to the official All Blacks site so we reasoned that the info had a bit of credibility behind it. The we looked at Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand www.teara.govt.nz and read some info there too.
There we found out that yes, North Harbour had indeed played four matches as holders of the shield, winning the 'Log of Wood' back in 2006 then losing it in their fourth defence in 2007. The New Zealand Herald recorded the excitement of the players in an interview in one of their articles. Yep, they'd had the shield. I also found out that Counties Manukau are the current champions who will defend the shield first, when the 2014 season gets going!
The Earl of Ranfurly donated the shield in 1902 so it's an amazing artifact from New Zealand's rugby history. The shield originally had a football (as in soccer) scene impressed on it - so we had to show a bit of Kiwi ingenuity and alter the picture to add the 'H' shape of our rugby posts! Fascinating stuff!
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| Yep, the shield has been around a while! Here it is in 1927, at Shannon, courtesy of the Horowhenua Historical Society. |
And then of course I wanted to know if Harbour had any current All Blacks. We found out about Francis Saili, he plays back. On the North Harbour site we found Saili's player profile. He made a goal in early 2013 to make the ABs by the end of the year, he achieved this. What a cool role model!
My supervisor was rattling on about 'Bring back Buck, Frank, Frano and Troy', I think I am the wrong generation though and that might be something to research another time...
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| Here's Helen and some new friends outside East Coast Bays Library. |
Helen's made every kid on the programme a name tag for her wall. You can see by the amount of tags that the Bays kids are into reading in a big way! What a cool way to see how special you are to your community getting your name on the library wall. I wonder if Helen could put 'Tyler' up there too, for me? (Even though I won't get to stay long!)
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| Cool! Lots of reading buddies here! |
Helen tells me there are lots of nice beaches in the East Coast Bays - Castor Bay, Campbells Bay, Mairangi Bay, Murrays Bay, Rothesay Bay, Brown's Bay, Waiake, Torbay and Long Bay. Back before the amalgamated Supercity the area was known as East Coast Bays City, that was even before it was called North Shore City. Because the area was originally East Coast Bays City that is how the library came to be called East Coast Bays Library. Aha! The lightbulb is flashing on!
That's why Helen's library is not the Browns Bay Library...
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| A whole lot of bays! |
We are going to head off outdoors now.
We are going to play kilikete in the Village Green. I've not played before but I'm a bit of a gun with the old cricket bat so hopefully I'll pick it up quickly. Kilikete is the Pacific version of the game, many families in Auckland enjoy getting together at our amazing Regional Parks to play this sport. What a great way to keep fit and active.
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| Look at that great coaching! |
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| Howzat! Thanks for letting me join in! |
After an excellent game of kilikete Helen took Isaac and I down to the beach and treated us to an icecream on the way (there's a good shop near the library and they serve icecream and gelato! It's so hard to make up your mind sometimes...Too many yummy flavours). It was quite windy at the beach, Isaac had to hold on to me so I didn't take flight and land in the sea!
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| 'I'm glad I've got a buddy like you!' Hang on a minute I'm sure that's Rangitoto in the background? |
Well, I've seen Rangitoto from the other direction now, from the museum side and the Bays side! Seeing as we are coming to the close of D2E I'll share a bit of info with you so you can shoot in and get another stamp - Rangitoto means 'blood from the sky'. 'Rangi' refers to the Sky Father 'Ranginui' and 'toto' is the kupu (word) for blood. When Rangitoto did blow it may have been like blood if you think about it in a Maori context, 'Papatuanuku' the Earth Mother spewing out molten hot lava.
Speaking of lava I'm reading a great book at the moment it's from the My Story series of books about New Zealand and it's on the Traveller's booklist. It's called 'Fire in the Sky' and tells about the destruction of the awe inspiring 'Pink and White Terraces' beyond Rotorua. I really like this series because the authors talk about stuff that is important to kids so we can see what it was like growing up at that time, back in 1886 - it's kind of like time travelling, you can compare then with now and think about how things have changed.
Rangitoto defines Auckland city, how long will it remain dormant I wonder?
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| Source: Elsevier, Google Maps / HERALD GRAPHIC
Here is an excerpt from Cassandra Mason NZ Herald reporter dated April 11th, 2013.
A new discovery that shows that Rangitoto erupted "semi-continuously" for about 1000 years is prompting scientists to re-think what the volcano could do in the future.
The most recent volcano to erupt in Auckland, Rangitoto was thought to be close to 550-years-old and to have erupted once or twice in its lifetime.
However, new University of Auckland research shows that the volcano actually erupted "intermittently" or "semi-continuously" from about 1500 years to 500 years ago, smashing traditionally-held beliefs about volcanoes here and around the globe.
The findings are also prompting scientists to re-think how Auckland's volcanoes will behave in the future.
Read more here:
Wow...Scary stuff! I wonder how many of us have got our emergency kits prepared in case of a natural disaster? It was really awful to hear about Tonga and Cyclone Ian. I must ask my parents if they've got a kit ready for us? Helen said we can look at the Civil Defense site to get a list of the items we need to have ready.
Thanks for a great time Helen! The Bays are a picturesque place to hang out. I enjoyed building sandcastles at Long Bay. My next adventure involves traversing the Bridge one more time and beginning my journey South.
Here are my challenge questions this time around:
Auckland Harbour Bridge was a toll bridge in the past, how, where and why did you have to pay to cross over? I don't think there was a troll underneath?
Which New Zealand author wrote a story about the Wilberforces? What is the connection with this post?
Which Auckland suburb starts with 'O' and has an equine statue? (That's where I'm going to next! I hope there is somewhere I can pick up some new shoes these ones are giving me blisters...Ouch!)
Fa, later, T aka Little Dude.
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