The Horse Lips Mascot

Keen as mustard to see more Auckland highlights, and feeling the guilts from a week and a half on the chop, the four of us headed out to Rangitoto Island in the mouth of the Waitemate Harbour for a wee bit of much needed exercise. I was feeling particularly guilty so decided to join Iona, the superwoman of the Tour, for the Rangitoto Run. Regular followers of the blog may remember Iain and I did this a few months ago with Chipper when he was here. See here. Its a tough old climb and I really struggled but it felt great to get to the top on such a beautiful winters day...

Classic Horse Lips

We dotted around the island for a couple of hours, planking, exploring volcanic caves and generally fooling around before heading back to the mainland in the early afternoon. 

Captain Cave-Man

With such an active morning already in the bag we rewarded ourselves by coming off the ferry and heading straight for The Patriot and a cold pint. The nonsense chat flowed, at about the same pace as the beer, and before we knew it, we were on the 4pm jaegerbombs. We had already planned to go the North Harbour rugby match that evening and, as the afternoon progressed, we decided the only way to attend the game would be in fancy dress. Cue Ike's Emporium, an Aladdin's Cave of fun in Devonport, as exciting as the shop in Mr. Benn but set out more like Steptoe's yard. 

It wasn't long before we'd found out costume for the evening; we were going as Captain Birdseye look-a-likes to rival the Harbour Rugby mascot, The Harbour Master. Then it came to us in a vision. Our very own Horse Lips Tour Mascot. 

Now dressing up at a Harbour game is a little bit like dressing up at, perhaps, an Edinburgh game: it's just not really done. Thus, we quite quickly became the star turns of the evening, particularly with Suzy shouting at random people in the crowd, "Have you seen ma bo-at?" in a very dubious Geordie accent, followed by a couple of rounds of, "Thou shall have a fishy on a little dishy", and completing her arsenal by asking the doughnut seller, "Have your doughnuts got 'oles?" (Again dodgy Geordie accent). 

Choppin' on (Rugby Bingo numbers on hand - classy)

Have you seen ma bo-at?

We attracted so much attention in forty minutes that the stadium organisers got us on the pitch to do the half time entertainment and Suzy even ended up on tv! How's that for Iain reminding us when we left, "Now I work with a lot of these people, so try not to make too much of an arse of yourselves..." Ha, ha. 

Liesl gives the instructions

Only really one way to finish off such a silly day. Back in The Patriot playing Kings with our lovely horse. 

LM :)