LAUNCHED! - Royal New Zealand Navy

WN 06-0024-23WN 06-0024-21WN 06-0024-22S i m o n ’s T o w n n a v a l b a s e , w i t h t w o o f t h eS A N ’s M e k o 2 0 0 f r i g a t e s a l o n g s i d e , a s w e l l a st h e f l e e t r e p l e n i s h m e n t s h i p D R A K E N S B E R G .RUGBY TOUR TO SOUTH AFRICAoff the fieldCPOPTI Nigel Hooper reports that duringthe tournament all the Kiwis enjoyed thecomradeship between the four nations’navies. For him the off-field highlightsincluded visiting Table Top mountain and,later, Nelson Mandela’s cell on RobbenIsland. But overall, the best part of the tourwas the opportunity to meet the SouthAfrican people, who clearly appreciatedthe New Zealanders.For LT Rob McCaw the highlight wasa truly memorable visit to their LiasionOfficer’s old school:“ Unfortunately didn’t visit one of the SANships... man, they looked the part, that’s forsure! We didn’t end up coaching the biggroup of school children as programmed;instead we all drove out to our LiaisonOfficer’s old High school.“It was a predominantly black schoolabout two hours drive east of Simon’sTown. The area was surrounded bymountains that just appeared to springup out of nowhere – and no vegetationon those rocks. (A stark contrast as theschool was just past the extremely lushwine district of Stellenbosch.) Due to thesurrounding mountains, the area wasabsolutely scorching, it was topping 35ºCthe day we were there, and it wasn’t yetsummer! To put it in perspective, in Simon’sTown most of us were wearing jackets andtrackies.“We got straight into a training afternoonfor their 1st XV (and others). We split theminto groups of around 8 kids and put themthrough a number of different drills -everything from chipping and regatheringto lineouts and of course, the Haka. Afterthe training we went and had a bite to eatwith the kids and the staff, thanking themwith the obligatory waiata.“When the food was finished, we went fora walk through the school. We were metin the ‘quad’ by over 1000 screaming andcheering school kids, who just wanted totouch the players. The scene was amazing,with this ever-growing number of kids, andthe distant yelling of their teachers heardin the background as the kids fled theirclasses to catch a glimpse of the Kiwis.“That reception had to be repaid so weall gathered in the centre of the quadbefore breaking ranks, stripping off oursilver fern-badged black training Tees andcommencing an ear-shattering, passionfilledHaka set, the likes of which thesekids would never forget. The team roaredout three haka to the absolute enjoymentof the crowd.“After re-gathering our clothing from theC P O P T I N i g e l H o o p e r s a y s t h a n k s t o t h e c a t e r e r s36 N T 1 1 7 D E C E M B E R 0 6W W W . N A V Y . M I L . N Z