DAY 122
Week 18
CORINTH (Texas, USA)
Friday October 20th, 2006
TODAYS MILEAGE – 0 miles or 0 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 16444 miles or 26464 kilometres
One more sleep ..... but a shit load of packing to go!!! 
I'm really looking forward to touching down in New Zealand. Every since I was a kid, a couple of factors have always perked my interest in spending time in the land of the Maori's.
My first taste of New Zealand was a school project (Traeger Park Primary) in which we could pick any country and make a presentation to the class. My project ran 30 pages with images, stories and history of the the country. By comparison, out of 25 students in my class, 24 picked Australia as their country for the project. Wanna guess, that even back then, who was paddling thier own boat and refusing to be part of the crowd???
One of my best mates "Rab" and his older brother "Skidders" step-father Hara is a native new Zealander and someone whom I've always respected and looked up to. At around 8 or 9 years old, when my own family situation was falling apart, Dad Hara and Mum Josie (as I call them to this day, as do a lot of people who've came in contact with them), would welcome me as I'd lob round to their house on Ashwin Street and knock around with Rab or Squeak and half the neighborhoods kids until sun went down. The thing that impressed to me to this day, was that they were non-judgmental and very supportive and the overwhelming presence of family above all else.
When I first started playing rugby, I spent one year with United Rugby League, under their coach Dick Henderson and it'd be fair to say that I was miserable. I spent half of the next season at Telford Memorial before being shipped to Darwin. Upon returning to Alice Springs in 1980, Hara got into my ear and I was a Westies boy until heading over to the United States in 1996. Westies was family to me in part because of the team spirit, but also because of the Kiwi's like Hara, Hau, Darky, Bushy, Blacky, Tama and their mates, the likes of Mugsy & Annie, Pete & Cath, Roscoe & Marie. Some of the "guitar" sessions, barby's and social gatherings left a huge impression on me.
The cool thing is that for a week while in Wellington (NZ), I'll be playing rugby again with the fellas who not only help shape my rugby career, but more importantly they also shaped me as a person.
See ya when I'm looking at ya.