With the start of the Rugby World Cup just over a month away my excitement is building. Last week I received my final match day ticket for the Ireland vs. Italy match in Dunedin and that was the key to my kid like excitement going through the roof.
In 2005 my friends and I decided that we were going to go the Lions Tour of South Africa in 2009, make it our once in a life time trip, no holds barred, great rugby, great country and great times. Unfortunately the trip never came to fruition and we all sat at home watching every last minute of every game on TV. But when the final whistle of the last Test match blew I knew that I had one last chance of a trip of a life time; the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand! This would be even bigger than the Lions tour; this was the ultimate rugby tournament taking place in a country where rugby is just the way of life. I could not think of anywhere else I should go for my dream rugby trip.
And so the planning began, dragging in my mate Jonny we set about planning how, when and where we would be going, how we would be getting about and how long we would be staying. From the start I wanted to take the full two months of September and October off, getting to New Zealand in plenty of time for the opening ceremony and then taking the time after the tournament was over to visit other parts of the South Pacific. Slowly but surely thou this idea came to an end, as I could not afford to take the time off work and the price for my once in a life time trip was rocketing.
Our plans changed and we decided that we would just attend the Ireland pool matches which would give us around a month in New Zealand. We applied for and got the tickets and it was then time to start looking into our travel. The last few months of 2010 were spent trying to get a prices for flights to New Zealand and getting quotes for camper-vans and car hire companies, looking into youth hostels, hotel's and camp sites. With Jonny back home in Ireland and myself based in London it was hard to try and work things out and therefore it was decided that when I was home over the Christmas holidays the two of us would sit down together and once and for all get things sorted or at least know which direction either one of us had to go to get the trip sorted. When I arrived home my Dad had been doing a bit of research of his own and had looked into a sports travel companies offering deals to the RWC for each of the home nations, this was something that we had thought about but had considered too expensive after a sitting down with a few beers and a few glasses of wine everything seemed to point in the direction of going with the sports travel company. Everything was there for us, flights to and from New Zealand, internal transfers, accommodation etc. All we had to do was the pay the money.
It was settled, as long as the company allowed us to use are own tickets we had already purchased we would go with them and sure enough, little under a month later our names were down and it was all steam ahead for the Rugby World Cup 2011 in New Zealand.
Over the next couple months I am going to try and blog as much as I can about the buildup too and of course the trip itself. I hope that you all will be able to enjoy this trip with me.
