NORTH ISLAND MOUNTED GAMES CHAMPIONSHIPS
New Zealand April 2008

My trip to New Zealand for the North Island Mounted Games Championships held in the Hawkes Bay area of Napier/Hastings went great. The Australian team was made up of Michelle Brown (WA), Samantha Smith (TAS), Brendan Dyer (QLD), Ben Luther (NSW), Myself Jessica Beckhouse (NT) and our Coach and Chaperone, Sean Corbin and Natasha Ellery from WA. The competition was made up of 9 North Island teams, 1 South Island team and of course the Australian team. Before the competition started, we had to try a wedge of borrowed horses, to choose 5 that would be suitable for the competition. Without these borrowed horses we would be out there on foot so I thank the horse owners very much.

The first day of competition was on Saturday the 5th of April, which was the Teams Challenge. The day consisted of 14 races, with a couple of them being new to the Australian team. We got a few tips from one of the other team and gave them our best shot! The horses went great and we placed 4th behind Wiacato, Auckland and Hawkes Bay.

Saturday Night we let our hair down a bit at the official dinner with a ‘skit’ from each team. With short notice we put something together and managed to get a prize for the best skit. The Wiacato team thought it would be a great idea to get the Aussie’s up for a race that involved lollies, whipped cream and dry wheat bix for their skit; which we came out on top in! Sunday the 6th bought sunny weather and the North Island Championships, which again consisted of 14 games. After a few mistakes we tied with Taranaki however after a count back on the fishing race, which we won earlier in the day, we placed 4th again. We were all happy with the result, as we were riding borrowed horses, that we’d never ridden before and had to learn new games and rules as they are different to the Australian rules.

The trip wasn’t all serious and about games, for a couple of days before the competition we had some free time. Thanks to Kendall Hinton, (who was the lady we were staying with) for driving us around to do the tourist thing. We got to see a lot of the country side, went on a jet boat around the bay, played mini golf, those of us over 18 went wine tasting and we did some shopping. On the way home we had to stop over in Auckland for half a day. So we took the opportunity to look around the city. The was a reverse bungy (which went from the ground up a 200km/h) in the middle of the city. So Brendan and I had a crack at it. I thought it was great fun, but I’m not to sure that Brendan enjoyed it as much as me! Everyone got along great and we all had a lot of fun.

Jessica Beckhouse
Northern Territory Representative
Australian Mounted Games Team.