Hot News - Archive

8th March, 2005

The Hackett family left Auckland at 4:20pm on the Friday expecting the normal three hour trip to Rotorua. We were not expecting the five hours it eventually took!

Two very serious accidents, one on State Highway One around Mercer and the other on State Highway Two by the Castle meant all traffic south was stopped and banked up. A great start to the weekend but we got to Rotorua safely and compared travel horror stories with the other Auckland teams that had either just arrived or were soon to arrive.

Saturday dawned sunny and cloudless however we must have offended the Petanque gods as Janet and I lost two of our first three games. Luckily we fared better in the afternoon winning all three meaning we snuck through into the top sixteen.

Sunday dawned a bit colder and with a sprinkling of rain then progressively got hotter and hotter. The morning format was barrage and despite being the lowest qualifier in our group we won our first two games to be 1st qualifier.

We were through to the top eight (our best result yet for this tournament) and then despite some brilliant play from my wife my game failed me and we lost 13-8. Still, a great weekend!

The eventual winners were Andre and Christian whom beat Dirk and David 13-0 to take home the top prize of five hundred dollars!