If you go to the lagoon today you’re sure of a big surprise,

If you go to the lagoon today you just won’t believe your eyes,

For every kid that ever there was has gathered there for certain because,

Today’s the day of the Canoe Polo Oceania Championships!

Palmerston North’s Hokowhitu Lagoon is usually a lovely peaceful place full of picnickers and ducks wandering about together under the trees. But water beside the happy sandwich eaters and bread throwers isn’t always just for aesthetics. Every now and then the New Zealand Canoe Polo Association holds a tournament on the spread of water, roughing it up for a while.

Canoe polo is like a cross between water polo and basketball, with five players on each team, all in kayaks, trying to get a volleyball sized ball into a suspended goal. With the rules stating that it’s completely legal to ram into other players’ boats and push them under if they have the ball, it’s an exciting game to watch.

So if you’ve seen your fair share of picnic tables and grunting geese and are ready for a change of pace, hop onto the NZCPA website’s calendar page and see if there’s a canoe polo tournament in Palmerston North coming up anytime soon.

As a kid, going to a show at the Regent on Broadway was a huge treat. Despite the fact that the couple of shows I got to see there were amazing, breathtaking works of art, I don’t remember them at all! The memories my pre-teen brain decided to keep from the trips are all of the theatre itself.

A strange thing is happening on Palmerston North’s Broadway Avenue,

The people are pausing to see something new,

They’re stopping and staring in the middle of the street,

Crouching and bending just to get a better peek,

A huge Tuatara is the source of their pondering,

And his face off with a lovely dancer has stopped them from wandering.

Not many people know this, but I’m actually world famous in Palmerston North. Well, world famous by relation. My great granddad, Mr Charles Kenneth Byles was in fact the very man who erected the first ever cross on the clock tower in The Square.

We all know that the only cure to the exhaustion felt after a hard day of retail therapy in The Plaza comes in a cup and is served in a café. Having experienced many of these rough days myself, I have familiarised myself with the café scene in Palmerston North and have, in fact, found the perfect place.