The Spike: or, Victoria University College Review, June 1923

Manager

Manager.

The Aucklanders arrived in Wellington on Wednesday afternoon and were entertained at tea. The majority of our team left with the Aucklanders by the Lyttelton Ferry on Wednesday night, leaving about a dozen men to follow on Thursday night. We were met at the Christchurch Station by some good souls from Canterbury College and bundled into some char-a-bancs and So to breakfast. After partaking thereof at a more or less break-neck speed, we were whisked back to the station in time for the first South Express. Little of any note occurred on the journey. Everyone seemed to be taking care of himself in view of the strenuous contests ahead. We were met at Oamaru by the Otago delegates, Messrs. J. C. Leitch and A. E. Porritt, who explained all arrangements. And let me say here that the arrangements for the whole Tournament left little to be desired. Otago is to be congratulated on one of the best run tournaments for many years. The billeting arrangements ran smothly except for the inevitable chameleon like few who seem to consider that all sorts of arrangements can be changed and rechanged as frequently and as easily as their own minds. However, that's by the way. Friday was spent in preparation for the coming conflicts, and by some in partaking of the joys of the "Rendezvous," where dancing, music, girls, suppers, books and all sorts of other delightful things were to be obtained all through the Tournament.

On Friday afternoon also the Reception was held in the Allen Hall. The writer's brief recollection is the length of time devoted by various speakers to excusing or extolling Dunedin's weather, until those of us who remembered what happened at Dunedin last Tournament, began to have forebodings— which happily were not quite realised.

Saturday was devoted to tennis, boxing preliminaries in the morning at Marama Hall and the finals at night in the King's Theatre.

On Sunday there was a special service at St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral in the morning, and a service taken by students—one from each College—at First Church in the evening.

On Sunday afternoon we had a delightful motor drive up North East Valley, over the Port Hills and back by the lower road. The weather which had been behaving off and on, decided that we couldn't have tea on the hills as was originally intended, so we hied us back to Selwyn College, where the members of the athletic team enjoyed themselves thoroughly watching others eat highly indigestible cakes and so forth.

On Monday the Athletic Championships were decided, and in the evening the Debate furnished the usual feast of oratory and flow of "bowl."

The Tennis finals were decided on Tuesday, and on Tuesday night came the piece de resistance, viz., The Ball, field in the Art Gallery. And Some Ball, too! Null Ned. The north-bound express. on Wednesday morning departed from Dunedin Station with a highly important and delicate freight, viz., poor old Canty 's Easter Egg. But this is a secret. This time it was the Aucklanders who had been goaded beyond endurance and, so it was whispered, a silent and savage onslaught had been made on he delicate shell-like creature. There was a sound of stealthy footsteps by night and in due course, one box with fragile contents reposed in the guard's van of the north express, checked through all the way to Auckland.

Accompanying the aforesaid fragile freight were three Tournament Teams. An hilarious farewell at Dunedin, many games of "Beaver" at the wayside stations, where sundry stationmasters and local cops had the time of their lives wondering what to do about it all; a battle-royal on the Christchurch Station, where a worthy limb of the law found himself hoisted to a precarious and undignified height; and we arrived (more or less) on the good ship "Maori," and so home to Wellington.

We entertained Auckland at breakfast, and a devoted band bade them farewell from Thorndon Station. Ask Herby McRae how he said good-bye to his friends the porters. And so back to toil, after probably the most enjoyable Tournament since the war.