I would like to take this opportunity to thank the New Zealand Polocrosse Council for the opportunity to travel to NSW Australia for the Scholarship. Without the support of our Tuwharetoa Maori Trust Board, Mighty River Power and other organizations in our Turangi Community and the Board my trip would not have been the success it was.  I also thank my own Club Tuwharetoa Polocrosse Development Squad. 

I had been selected to fly over to Australia on a NZ-NSW Polocrosse scholarship for a month, which allowed me to stay and experience the life of two Australian Polocrosse families. Terry-Lee and I left home at about 12:30am on Thursday the 9th of July to the Auckland airport to catch our plane to Sydney! It was my first time out of the country so I was real excited and real scared at the same time.  I was also proud to be representing my club, my whanau, the Iwi of Ngati Tuwharetoa and our whole polocrosse community.

We finally arrived in at the Sydney airport where Paul Carter was waiting patiently for us to arrive, he found us and then we had to wait about half an hour for the under 21’s to arrive so we could hit the track and travel down to the Scone Polocrosse grounds where the under 21’s were staying for the weekend. After we dropped them off Terry-Lee, Paul and I carried on to a town called Kurrindi where we were meeting Jane Melbourne who then took us down to another little place called Narrabri which is where we were staying. Terry-Lee was staying with Jane and Loch Melbourne and I was staying with Scotty Richo and Natalie Rutherford.

We arrived at our Australian Homes quite early on Thursday nightI was woken up at approximately about 6:00am Friday to go try out my horse “ Princess” which was the horse I was riding for the 2 weeks that I spent with the Rutherford’s. She was a lovely Australian stock horse. Later that afternoon we set off for the Scone Polocrosse grounds to go and play in the Bunnan carnival. I played for the Maitland club that weekend and Carey-Lee Cornelius was in my team as well. We didn’t come anywhere in that carnival but the second weekend we went to Bingara and there I played for Galloping Gully in a team with Joe, Sarah and Clarke Melbourne, Terry-Lee, Chloe Rutherford and me. We took out the competition and I was real rapped because not only we did that but I also managed to get best international number 2! We made the most of having fun and playing games with everyone in the galloping Gully club considering that was our last weekend with them! I was real upset to leave that club because they are the type of people who would fit in perfectly with the people in our clubs back here, they made us feel right at home and we just felt like we were with the Tuwharetoa club the whole time we were with them.

When we left them we went to 2 lovely Maitland families who again straight away made us feel like we were at home. I went and stayed with Jamie-Lee and Julie Brian and as for Terry-Lee she was going to stay with Chub and Sheryl Thompson. We had a slight taste of what these families were going to be like because we had already met them before when they come to New Zealand. The first weekend I spent with them we didn’t go to a carnival because they were all too far away so we decided we would go to Lance and Lyric Anderson’s place to have a training weekend to prepare for the big NSW Zone Championships the following weekend. During the week we went and did a bit of shopping, went ice skating and we also went swimming with sharks and sting-rays believe it or not.   Riding in the bush on our horses, meeting herds of kangaroos is something I’ll never forget.  Unfortunately that week went way too fast and the big weekend was finally here. Another early morning starting at 4:30am getting up to travel half an hour down the road to Ach and Sheryl Andersons to travel with them in their big flash goose neck truck to get to Young which was not a quick drive! 10 hours later we arrive at the Young Polocrosse grounds where they held not only the NSW Zones Championships but it was also our last weekend in Australia. We met Terry-Lee’s whanau who came to support us and take us home.  Terry-Lee and I played in the same team again which was North West Plains. We also had 2 poms an Australian boy and also a Canadian boy in our team.   We also met up with PJ Dempsey, our whanau from Tuwharetoa, as he stayed behind after the NZ Under 21’s went home and will be playing polocrosse for the next few weeks also. 
We won our first 2 on the Saturday and we were all excited to play on the Sunday hoping we were going to play in the finals again because that would be a real big thrill for the whole team, but unfortunately we lost our last 2. Sunday was getting on and as the day slowly passed by my tears were building up for when I said good Bye and a big thank you to all the people who I met and last but not least the families that I stayed with!  I also felt aroha for PJ, and was sad to leave him behind.

That was a real great experience and I would definitely go again if I get the chance to.  I had the time of my life over there. For all you young guns that are playing I think you should go for the Scholarship because I have never had so much fun in my life and it’s an amazing experience and you learn a lot about the sport you love!  The skills and experience I’ve gained are awesome.  My Australian whanau were so awesome, I learnt as much as possible about riding and training horses.  The Polocrosse in Australia is hard and fast and playing with them is mean. 

I hope to be return the hospitality for my Australian whanau as many tell me they are coming over her to stay. 

The friends that I have made I will cherish always.

A huge thank you to my Tuwharetoa Polocrosse club, wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for you guys every single one of you made this opportunity possible for me and especially to the New Zealand Polocrosse Association for giving me this opportunity of a lifetime!

Kendal Te Akau