Inspired by discussing Francis and Helen's fascination with horse-racing on New Year's Eve, and encouraged by a free bus-ride, on Tuesday (January 5th), Randall and I attended the Ruakaka horse-races 30 km (19 miles) south of Whangarei. We went with four other cruisers and thoroughly enjoyed watching the eight races and the diverse crowd of punters. Neither of us cheapskates was tempted to risk any real money but Randall devised a set of imaginary bets, expecting to feel good about how much money he saved by not spending real money. Instead, he won a trifecta (correctly predicting the top three places in one race) which, even though it would have only paid $53 on a $2 bet, would have given him positive winnings overall if he had coughed-up the cash. So much for that plan. While we could see some of the appeal of the sport to racing enthusiasts, we are not likely to get hooked on it ourselves.



A close finish at the Ruakaka races

I suspect that Randall feels similarly about cricket. We attended a semi-pro match in Whangarei which was a very relaxing affair to watch. The local team did not win but it was a pleasant afternoon and gave us a chance to closely observe a New Zealand dotterel (more typically a shoreline bird) that was protecting its ground-nest near where we were sitting on the sloped lawns around the cricket ground. This was a limited-overs match (50 overs or 300 bowls for each team) so it only lasted for about 6 hours...not 5 days as do some of the international test matches.



Watching cricket in Whangarei

We also greeted the New Year with various boat projects, in my case cleaning and waxing all of the external stainless steel (not my favorite chore) and Randall started sanding and re-varnishing some of the external wood. We were also preparing for our trip the USA. This was made a little more exciting by the discovery just four days before we were due to leave, that water was entering the boat by back-siphoning in through one of the bilge pumps. This was not a good state in which to leave Tregoning for a month, so Randall was kept busy solving this problem.

This required him to completely re-route one of the bilge-pump outflow hoses which was not an insignificant task. However, he completed the redesign in good time so that we were able to pack for our trip feeling confident that the boat would stay dry. It was very fortunate that the back-siphoning had become apparent before we left on our trip. We like having such good luck!



New Zealand dotterel