Rugby World Cup Road Trip: Welcome to rugby rehab

A 39 degree pool will pacify even the most die-hard rugby fans. Photo / Matt Johnson

In today's entry, Matt soaks up the hospitality in Hamner Springs.

Roz was meant to be on lifeguard duty, but had put down her flotation device for a minute to talk defence.

Japan and Canada's draw - the first in the tournament - was troubling her. No mean feat for a woman unfazed by daily work in the highly-volatile environment that can be a water-slide. The problem, she was telling six Canadians almost now completely hidden by the steam, lay with their defensive lines.

Both teams.

I had planned to drop the Kea Kaha-mobile off at the Alcohol & Drug Rehabilitation Centre that for years had been synonymous with Hamner. Visit her during family week and tell her to stop taking money out of my wallet for brake fluid. But the booze-hounds had either dried out, double-dipped, or moved on.

The only rehab now was for rugby fans.

Over in the 41 degree pool, two honeymooners from the UK were basting. Skin ruby-red. Malcolm looked at his bride lovingly; said he had other priorities now... perhaps even a family on the way. Exhibited his willingness to take on these new responsibilities by talking loudly about the deep-seated feeling Kiwis have for certain English rugby referees named Barnes.

But as the thermal reservoir bubbled away, the monologue waned.

Over in the 39 degree pool, the French were feeling positively communal. It was like a Pepe Le Pew love-in:

The Blacks? J'adore!

Oui... who cares, if we win zis, we win zis...

I had never seen people shrug underwater before.

Put it down to the heat.

And as I tried to venture into one of those pools where big taps sprayed water onto your back (each tap taken by a smiling, drooling moron), it struck me what the first political manifesto of my Sweet As Party (or SAP) will look like. Our first law change will ensure all radio talkback callers have to be immersed in thermal spring water either twenty minutes before they call or during the actual call itself.

Imagine how that would go:

"Gidday. First time caller, long time listener. Just rang up to talk about all these... all these... "

"Are you there?"

"Ahhhhh... that's lovely."

Afterwards, I did what anyone who'd just spent two hours at the hot pools then tried to drive a 6.8 metre campervan did. What people used to get sent to Hamner for doing. I ran over a lamp post.