Saturday 15 August

After a morning stretch, a short ball work session in our back garden and the shooters getting their eye in on the outdoor netball rings, we headed to the stadium to play our final pool match against Fiji.

As per usual our match preparations involved some serious … or at least attempted … booty shakin’.

During that time the more talented of us (Madi and Court) sat back and threw condescending looks to all involved.

The matcha against Fiji was a great game to finish off the pool matches.

We played four strong quarters and proved that we deserved the top placing in Pool C.

A special thank you to our St Joseph`s supporters who were once again vocal throughout the entire match, and even performed a far superior rendition of ‘Home Among the Gum Trees’.

To celebrate making finals we were treated to a gourmet dinner with all of our parents, where we finally consumed some red meat, which is rather difficult to come by on Rarotonga - much to Scrofty’s delight, being a vegetarian!

Coincidentally, a psychic was in attendance (possibly sent as a spy by our competition) and was offering readings to everyone.

A special mention must go to Sharnz who drew the coveted Romance card from the tarot deck which we thought was fitting after her "friendly" encounter with Barry, the dog, last week.

As it turns out we were all destined for great things, and left extremely satisfied, with our confidence sky high!

Sunday 16 August

After a later start to the morning - due to it being a rest day in the competition - we had a light session down on the beach.

Everyone was pretty excited about this because the sun had finally returned after several days of overcast skies and "sunshine liquid" (or as we call it in Australia, rain).

Steve, our physio, was running the session and tried to make it a bit of fun. After advising us that Donna, our manager, and Cathy Fellows were guarding the tennis ball collection that we would need for poison ball, he also advised us that we should “make sure they get a little wet” upon our retrieval of the balls.

Being the disciplined athletes we are, we obediently followed his orders and half emptied our drink bottles on them, much to his delight.

Where Steve went wrong though was overestimating our loyalty to him.

Given we still had half full bottles it was just too tempting not to dish out the master some of his own medicine.

We got the feeling that he didn’t find it as hilarious when he was the target.

We were given free time for the rest of the day, which was spent doing anything from study, to watching DVDs and sleeping, to spending time with parents, to climbing coconut trees and learning about the various uses of coconuts.

After a day of unwinding we came together to have a last supper before we head into the business end of the trip.

Most of us hit the pillow early last night, but for some it was not without a fight from a "cheeky moko" (gecko).

According to one source “it literally flew from the ceiling and attacked me.”

Sure Court, we all believe you.

Aere ra!

Courtney and Sophie