Gallagher Great Race and Lil Pumpkins Fun Run

This weekend, Silje (another friend of mine and international student living at Orchard Park) decided to volunteer for the Gallagher Great Race being held at the Waikato river. It seemed like a pretty interesting event, and neither of us had anything better to do, so we thought why not get some good karma and volunteer?

On Saturday, we signed up to help with the Lil Pumpkins Fun Run and Walk, which was a fund raiser for the Lil Pumpkins organization. It was really funny because we ended up just standing around and talking for about an hour before the race began.

I was assigned to marshall the first checkpoint of the face which was literally at the very beginning of the course, so about a minute after the race began at 10am, my shift was done.

The next day was the main event, which unfortunately ended up being just as anticlimactic as the first =/ We ended up standing on a bridge in the freezing wind and rain with really no purpose at all. Our job description was to make sure that no pedestrians threw anything into the river and to look out for debris. Now riddle me this... how were we supposed to stop anyone from throwing anything in the river, and if there were debris, what are we supposed to do about it way at the top of the bridge with no intercom? Not to mention that we were stationed beyond the finish line, so I don't think any of it would have mattered anyway. Nevertheless, there we were on the bridge in the freezing cold, maybe that's another reason why my now going on one month cold hasn't gone away yet.

Also, there were a bunch of random people walking around in costumes, don't ask me what that was all about...

These two girls on stilts, and another pair dressed as Alice and the white rabbit. My guess is that it had to do with the Fringe Festival, which is happening in Hamilton right now. I don't think I'll be attending anything in that event though. It's a bunch of shows and exhibitions, etc. I have neither the time nor the money, so I'm gonna pass.

I'd much rather plant trees.








The one cool thing about volunteering for this event though, was that there was a waka demonstration which lasted all of maybe 10 minutes and was the best part of the whole weekend long event.