massey birdwood settlers association

The Massey Matters Treasure Hunt took place on Saturday 23rd March.

The idea of the day is for residents to get to know their neighbourhood and find out what  activities are held in the area, where they are, and what you maybe able to do.  Not only activities of course but what treasurers there are in the neighbourhood, like for example the beautiful native bush that surrounds Moire Park and the names of some of the plantings.

The event ended on the fields of Moire Park, outside the Massey Athletic Club which sits adjacent to the Rugby Club rooms. The park being one of those hidden treasures as  are the athletics club and the rugby club.  New Zealand keeps learning about the treasured  Massey male residents the rugby club finds who go on to become All Blacks!

The event started at two points, the blue route from West Harbour Primary, and the other route, the red route from Colwill Primary. Both routes had a mandatory stop. The Blue route  at the Jadewynn Garden Project and the red route visited the Cedar Heights Community Garden.

Our intrepid Secretary, John Riddell,  was invited along to take photos, and ended up becoming the camera subject as he tried walking a straight line at the Auckland Transport station in Moire Road.

After being asked if he was pregnant ( well I suppose his age is showing around his middle) or was epileptic, he then had to  don  “beer” glasses which provided the sensation as if he had drunk 6-8 glasses of beer.

After doing a high a high five with the lady from Auckland Transport, the idea was to walk the yellow line with out knocking over the cones.

Don’t drive if you have drunk 6-8 beers, because you’ll drive sideways up the yellow line and knock over cones, and that is on foot!

Policemen please note that our Secretary assures us that he only drinks  maybe two bottles of light beer or has a couple of glasses of red wine.

Kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves planting plants at Jadewynn or turning the soil at Cedar Heights, the other interactive site was the CAB station on the corner of Royal Road and Widmore Drive where you could try your hand or should that be hands at juggling.

As our photographer/secretary was driving the course the Church of Good Shepherd proved to be just that, for $5 you could get your car washed at their station. Should add that people walked the routes, our photographer drove both courses in order to take close to 200 photos of the event.

The next active site, and it had to be a fitness one, was station number 13 in Granville Drive. Why did it need to be an active site? Well you were nearing the Athletic Club so you may well be needing to get into shape for athletics! At this station , sponsored by Ripped Training, you needed to do 5 press ups, on the ground or using the bench provided. Secretary John actually did 10 pressups as Tai the Head Trainer who took the photo did not operate the camera for the first set of 5 bench press ups.

The Treasure Hunt was part of Massey’s Neighbours Day festivities celebrated with a good picnic/carnival atmosphere at Morie Park which was  made all the better by the free sausages barbecued for us all by Les Duffield from Neighbourhood Support, his family and the Police and paid for by Massey Matters.

All good things must however come to an end. After the prizes for the Treasure Hunt were handed out, the entertainment was had, the speeches were made and Les indicated he had no more sausages, the day was over and everyone started packing up.

What will the event be like next year and where? Well done to the organisers for an excellent day,  and please do not say that you were also responsible for the nice weather as well.