HERALD STAFFERS SHARE MEMORIES OF GREAT SPORTING TRIPS

Want to soak up the heart and soul of New Zealand provincial rugby? Forget heading to Eden Park or Westpac Stadium.

Ruatoria’s Whakarua Park is the place to go.

While the All Blacks wobbled their way through the 1999 Rugby World Cup, Ruatoria was the destination for thousands of footy fans for the NPC third division final when hosts East Coast — previously the easy-beats of New Zealand rugby — took on Poverty Bay and won 18-17.

Ruatoria’s population of 800 swelled by more than 3000 for the day — including me and a mate.

And what a day — some footy fans set up base on the back of flatbed trucks, others rode into the ground on horseback. And the vast majority were decked out in the Coast’s sky blue colours as they cheered their local heroes on to a famous win. Afterwards, fans and players alike celebrated long into the night — and the next day — first at the aftermatch hangi and then at a host of parties around Ruatoria.

It’s a long drive down to Ruatoria via some of New Zealand’s more challenging roads — but it’s a route well-travelled by me since the 1999 final, which started a sporting love affair which will never be over. — Weekend Herald chief of staff Neil Reid

When you see locals at a sports event on the other side of the world, you are witnessing their unfettered, unguarded emotions. As travellers, it can be difficult for us to find and experience raw, local emotion — but in a heaving sports stadium, it’s served up by the minute.

A couple of years ago, I sat in the stands at Estadio Diego Armando Maradona, getting swept along in the cheering for Buenos Aires second-division battlers Argentinos Juniors in their match against Estudientes. There was a several-hundred strong brass-and-drum orchestra thrashing away in the terraces and every now and again some lunatic would charge at the riot police protecting the away team’s family members. Final score 2-2 — but the fans were the winners on the day. — Herald Travel Editor Winston Aldworth

Ithink of a lads’ trip to the 2001 Hong Kong 7s. Between Flaming Lamborghinis in Wan Chai and searing tom yum goong soup at Chungking Mansions, I got a taste for sports journalism.

My mates bet me the cost of a night out that I couldn’t get on the field — without accreditation — to interview the New Zealand team after they won the final. Always up for a challenge, I completed the task with tape-recorded proof and, as insurance, got my feet on the front page of the South China

Morning Post’s sports section during the requisite haka shot.

I enrolled on AUT’s post-graduate journalism course the following year. — Herald cricket writer Andrew Alderson