A boring day off for Maara Vaiimene?
Yeah right
From The Dominion Post, Wellington

For most of his life, Maara Vaiimene has been a quiet shopkeeper on an isolated Pacific Island, selling milk and bread to villagers.
And then the 63-year-old Cook Islander discovered Mangatainoka.
At the Tui Brewery, in the tiny Manawatu town, he bought a sombrero, drank litres of beer and started to sing. Surrounded by friends from the Cook Islands Golden Oldies Diplomatic Team, he crooned into his souvenir pint glass while the eftpos machine in the nearby merchandise store printed endless receipts.
The Cook Island team includes the island’s deputy prime minister, Terepai Maoate, and the Queen’s representative to the islands, Sir Frederick Goodwin.
Ranging in age from 45 to 80, the team of 30 will tour the East Cape of the North Island after the week-long World Golden Oldies Festival in Wellington. The festival boasts almost 200 teams from 15 countries. The Cook Islands team is one of the largest.
The teams rested after their first day of non-competition, and most of the 4000 players in Wellington for the festival toured the region. Some went to Wairarapa vineyards, others braved the Cook Strait ferry, and Mr Vaiimene and his mates paid $90 each to visit the home of Tui beer.
The day started badly as their bus brakes failed on a Karori hill. An hour later they left Wellington, sober and silent.
Tui Girl Susan Cameron pranced the bus aisle in impossibly short shorts and high heels.
PINTS
At midday, the bus and three others like it, collectively carrying 177 rugby tourists, hit Mangatainoka and the bottomless pints were dispensed and duly thrashed. Tours of the brewery were an unnecessary distraction in Mr Vaiimene’s mind.
The captain of the rugby team on the southernmost Cook island of Mangai stayed close to the beer taps.
In the 45-seater bus on the return journey through the Wairarapa countryside, he sang Pokarekare Ana in a warm, deep voice and Please Release Me with particular vigour. The bus stopped at The Tin Hut near Greytown and he sat in the shade, a flower tucked behind his ear.
One of his team-mates had also tucked a flower behind his own ear, and claimed it was a tribute to his many girlfriends.
“I wear my flower. It reminds me of my mistresses back home,” the teammate said, amid raucous laughter. “Bugger the wife.”
Yeah right.

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