NZ Junior Scholarship Recipients
6
On Thursday night we packed for the weekend carnival and early the next morning we set off on a four hour trip to the St George polocrosse carnival. When we arrived we unpacked and I was able to meet a few of Tansy (the club I played for) club members. On Saturday I played number one for Roma club in the D grade. Unfortunately we lost our games but had a great time and was able to get used to playing in a different country.
The next week we worked the horses everyday and I learnt lots of new playing tactics and skills by playing small, fun games of polocrosse in the evening with the family. On the Monday we went to Toowoomba shopping and I really enjoyed that. While we shopped with Meg, Wayne dropped dad at the airport and he flew back to New Zealand.
On Thursday we packed again for a big weekend away, this time leaving extremely early on Friday morning for an eight hour drive to Alton Downs. I was put into a chukka team with two other players in Capricorn club for a special competition against all the other juniors. We lost our first game and won our second but my host family’s daughter Rachel was in the final on Sunday and one of her players was sick, so luckily I was able to play with he. We lost the final by one goal but I had an awesome time and met a lot of people my age.
On Monday I went to school with Rachel at Dalby State High school and was pleased to learn and mix with people at an Australian school again meeting lots of friendly people.
Report by Katie Wills
Near the end of June this year I flew out of Wellington airport for a Polocrosse Scholarship to Queensland, Australia for three weeks. My dad also came along for one week. We arrived at Brisbane airport about 7pm and were greeted by my host family the Doyle’s, Meg, Wayne, Rachel, Craig and Caitlyn who came to New Zealand and stayed with my family at the start of this year. We then travelled to their small property about three hours inland from Brisbane and 20 minutes out of a small town called Dalby.
The next day we had a look around their farm and learned a bit about Australian lifestyle, we then got in their six polocrosse horses and I first rode a horse called EJ, I then had a turn on Ringo and instantly liked him. On Wednesday we went to the Jondaryn woolshed not far from my host family’s house, here we learnt about Australian farming history and other interesting stuff.
Me on Ringo St George
Me & Rachel
Katie on the right
Katie with the ball.