Liptovsky Mikolus

This weekend is the Czech Republic selection race. We will be doing foreruns, as we are not able to race.

Brat-Liptovsky

The last few days we have been here in Bratislava doing some training on the course at Cunovo. Unfortunately this week I have caught some kind of bug and was not able to train for the 1st 2days. I am feeling better today though and it has been good to get on the white water here, it is an awesome course. Today we are driving back to Litovsky Mikolus, the Czechs have their team selection race there this weekend and we are hoping to race, but unsure if we are able to yet.
Sweet better cruise...

Slovakia

Race No 2

On Sunday it was a whole new race. Unfortunately I was feeling very tired and not very well. So for me the race was nothing more then a paddle down the course. I incurred a 50second penalty when I missed one gate in my 2nd run. My 1st run was okay but had 3touches. I placed 31st. It was a good course and good experience racing. I am now feeling really motivated to work on my weaknesses from the race and looking forward to training hard these next few months. We have another race in 2weeks so that should be good.
Mike raced really well in his 1st run putting down one of the fastest times, unfortunately he had a few touches. He was coming 8th after 1st runs but ended up in 15TH out of the very competitive K1Men field.
Maria of the Czech Republic won the K1W and Lukus of Czech won the K1M.
We are now staying in Bratislava with Dana and Matej Benus. They have a wicked as house here in amoungst some trees.
For more results from the weekend check out... www.ktklm.sk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=153&Itemid=99
I will try get some pics up soon.
The weather has continually been sweet, we have been so lucky with it.
We are staying here in Bratislava to train for a few days and then planning on cruising back to Liptovsky Mikolus later in the week as there is a race there for the Czech Republic that we are hoping to enter.

Liptovsky Mikolus, Race no. 1

Today we had our 1st Race over here in Europe. The fields were strong with paddlers from Russia, Japan, Slovakia, Slovenja, Czech, Poland, NZ and some others. There were approx. 130K1M, 70C1M, 40C2 and 62K1W. The C1men were up first and was dominated by a Russian guy, Lippatov Alexander. K1W were next and Dana Benusova of Slovakia put down a very smooth 2nd run to take the Womens Title. The other classes are racing at present so I will put some results later.
My 1st run was pretty solid with a few minor errors, including a spin at the top of the course and 3touches. I was sitting in 16th place. I felt reasonably happy with my paddling, as it was a big improvement to the performance I did on this course last year. I hoped to improve my second run by at least a few seconds, and be clean, however I unfortunately hit a few gates at the top and lost concentration for the run.
I am looking forward to racing again tommorrow. It was really good racing today and being able to put all the things I have been working on into practice in a race.
Off to study...

Liptovsky Mikolus

We are now in Liptovsky Mikolus, which is situated in the high Tatra Mountains of Slovakia. There is lots of snow on the mountains up here and the water is Kudvar Zima. We have started properly living in the van and it has thus far been all good. It rained today and the van didnt leak so we are happy. Tommorrow we have a race. There are 130K1Men on the startlist and 64K1Women. Training has been good. We have been hitting up the hotpools with the Slovaks. I will update as soon as with results from the wkd..

Off to Slovakia

Heading to Slovakia today as we have a race there this weekend! We have our van all sorted and our scooters!

The Latest...

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!Easter weekend was epic! We drove out to Trnavka once again to battle the mighty rapids! And we got to stay in one of the local farm houses! Which was like something out of the 1800’s! It was so cool! We even used an outside fire to cook our chicken and bread for dinner. There were a lot of people around for the weekend paddling on the course but it was all good. We went out for dinner on the Saturday night to a traditional Czech restaurant, it was dobry. We went paddling again on the Whitewater and went rock climbing, it was sweet! Big thanks to our awesome hosts Valvra and Jana!!!And I must mention that the weather thus far has been very summery and amazing! It was 24degrees today! We seem to have come at just the right time!I hope it lasts.
We are in Praha for the next week doing some training before heading to Liptovsky next weekend for a race.

TRNAVKA!!!

Today we went to a rather big white water course called Trnavka!It was AWESOME! The water was very fast and there were a lot of tricky features! Although I didn't quite dominate it, I made it down fine and had a great time!
We bought some easter eggs today for the celebrations we will be having this weekend! Easter celebrations are a little different in Eastern Europe compared to New Zealand. Over here the boys get to hit the girls with sticks as part of one of their traditions!
Tommorrow we will be heading back to Trnavka for some more action on the white water!
For now I am off to do some study!!!As my Uni work is in need of my attention!

England-Europe Mission!

After many many hours of flying I finally made it to London! Lizzy and Mike kindly came and picked me up from Heathrow airport and we headed back to Nottingham, doing a bit of Van shopping along the way! It was awesome to be back in England!The weather was even nice:) Mike D and I then spent the next day searching for a van! We came across one that looked promicing, however when the seller failed to give us the registration documents we decided it was a bit dodgy and to move on! The next day we came across an LDV convoy Long wheel Base Van!It seemed pretty sweet so we invested in it!
After a long overnight journey we arrived in Praha. We had one small hickup along the way with a tyre blowing up on the German Motorway!But we were lucky to be in a position to pull to the side of the road and stop quickly. We are now in Praha staying at Valvras house. It is outside of Praha City a fair bit and is really cool!It has been a lot of fun! Today we went paddling on the course which was good. Then we went to watch a Ice Hockey match!It was awesome! Ice Hockey is really big in the Czech Republic.
Tommorrow we are heading to a Kayak course called Tranavka, it is a really big white water course. I am quite excited. For now I must go to bed as the jet lag has hit me very hard, I am sooo tired! We must sort out insurance for our van tommorrow as we cannot drive without it!

2009 Trip begins

It is time to once again pack my bags and fly to the Northern Hemisphere! It has been pretty busy the last few weeks with study and training but I am now on my way, out of the beautiful Okere Falls. It has been one of the best summers here in NZ with loads of kayaking on the Kaituna river, East Coast for New Years, exploring the West Coast, and just chilling with mates on the lake, river and of course at the Okere Falls store!

Friday the 3^rd of April was my last day here in NZL. I managed to check my kayak and overweight baggage on with no extra charges or worries! I was very relieved!

Now ill be in the UK for a couple of days getting all sorted for hitting up training in Europe!