Last week...Part 2...Saturday

Hey!

On Saturday, Dad, Jarrod and I got up at 2am - no I hadn't had any sleep! - and met a couple of other people from our athletics club at a local survo at 3, before heading down to Opotiki together for Paul's (one of our athletics coaches) funeral.
Well, the trip started with driving fairly(!) fast down the motorway in heavy rain -making it hard to see Terry's car in front, that we were following- and later on there was heaps of flooding, and a couple of accidents, that slowed us down.
We got through some decent flooding, but a bit further on it was to deep to go through, so we went all the way back, and around a bit, to another road that was to take us to our destination, and came to this:

 
 Those pics were taken out my window! Can  you see the tops of the fences?!



As the water was fairly deep right across the road, we stopped, unsure whether it was safe to cross or not.
The traffic (or whatever) people that were there, said 4WD's and trucks could go through, but no one else, although after that a heap of vans, and small cars were coming through from the other side.
Not long after a whole lot of tankers turned up on our side, so we (or the others, I had stayed in the car the whole time) made fort the cars, and followed them across.


Terry's 4WD in front of us - see how much water there is?



This is just outside my window as we drove through!

Anther pic out my window



Here you can see my door, as well as the floods

  After driving through the above, we uneventfully made our way to the Marae - where the funeral was.
Soo.. when we got there we stood outside, because apparently you have to be invited in... well we weren't there for too long b4 we followed everyone else to the cemetary - after returning our handbags to our cars, as you're not allowed them in the burial ground.., and walking through more water..uggh!
Well standing around the grave was a bit tearful, but otherwise ok, listening to people say stuff, sing songs in Maori, put flowers on top of the coffin (not sure why, but we found that  a little scary, so did it in 'teams' of two!, and one guy played a guitar (yes, I did notice that it was purple...!)
Anyway, when leaving the burial groud we had to wash our hands, and spray water on our faces.

The Marae, taken from the car as we were leaving.
Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera up with me.

Then, after getting (badly) sunburnt, we all went back to the Marae, wher we talked for a couple of hours before the food (a whole meal) was ready. It consisted of about three different types of meat, pumpkin, kumura and potatoes (off the top of my head), various sauces, etc in the middle of the tables, fizzy drinks, and, if you wanted it, dessert, which was also in the middle of the table so you could help yourself.

Not long after that we all headed for our cars and left. I dozed, and hoped Dad wasn't doing the same! I think it was in Matamata that we stopped at McDonald's, for drinks and a snack. From there we all separately made our way home.

Not sure what we did for the rest of the evening, but funnily enough I didn't go to bed very early!

Luv Bee