Upper Ngamu- Kaimais Creeking!

When the New Zealand weather report issues warnings of heavy rainfall there are not too many people that are super stoked on it, but there are kayakers. This week New Zealand was flooded with grey clouds all across the country. Fortunately this meant there was plenty of water to flood the creeks of the Kaimai mountain range that lies just out of Tauranga. On Friday Gregg Thomas and I cruised over to check the flows and after meeting up with Ben B, Tillzy, Jared M and Dave J we began our hunt for some white-water action. We ended up jumping onto the Upper Ngamuwahine. It turned out to have a long shuttle and a bit of a walk in that added to the mellow lead in section, but this was all in anticipation of a sick run with some very sweet drops! ‘Over the Handle Bars’ was the first and the lead into it was primo with a massive rock slide. The speed was wicked. Next up were a few mellow drops followed by the ‘Double Drop’. I checked it out and could see a sweet line. Unfortunately I did not have such a sweet line however, which sent me plunging over and upside down going into the second drop- not such a good place to be in. I came out of my boat but was lucky and had no injuries! The rest of the run was really sweet, lots of good moves and slides.

A very rad day- big ups to the dudes that I paddled with, all legends and stylee as F**K!

Pics from top-
-View at top of Handle Bars
-Me on 'Handle Bars'
-View looking back up valley
- Ben Brown stying the shit out of 'Double Drop'
- Me on 'Double Drop' about to get my ass kicked!




Photo credit: Gregg Thomas

Europe!

As the title suggests it is nearly time for me to board Korean Air's 737 and head to Europe. I will be accompanied on the brutal 24hour flight by my partner in crime, Luuka Jone's. I am pumped to go and feeling fired up to get back onto the European continent. We will touchdown in Prague on the 6th of June and from there we will be heading to Slovenja to prepare for the first World Cup in Tacen.
This year I will be travelling mainly with Luuka up until the Prague World Cup. Then my sister Heather will be coming over to help coach me and prepare me in my build up to the World Champs in Bratislava. Waiariki will also be providing some wicked support with the input of Antz our super good physio and my current trainer Sam Thompson! Totally stoked to have these guys on board as they are really awesome and will be great to have at the Worlds!For my European Race Schedule check out my calander tab at the top of this page.
Check out this wicked video my friend Mike Dawson made of my Czech friend Vavra. It is filmed at the 2011 World Championship course in Bratislava, a very awesome course with a lot of rad features including big drops, waves and meaty holes:)

V.H The Machine in B.A from Twelve Productions on Vimeo.

Adioss NZ

Mangahau- Top NZ Training site

Mangahoe Whitewater Center Full Run from Kiwi Creations on Vimeo.

Check it out!

Mangahau Training Camp

With only 20days till I depart New Zealand to begin my 2011 Europe Campaign time is flying! I have had about 2weeks out of my kayak due to my eye infection that developed after the scratch I had on my cornea a few months ago got infected- it has cleared up really well now and I have my full vision back again!:)

So Waiariki Training Camp at Mangahau was on! I was amped and ready to come back to the best Canoe Slalom site in New Zealand for some quality training with 5other athletes and Jane and Sam as support.

My first few sessions back on the white-water were pretty rusty but I soon got back into my groove and am slowly getting good feeling back on the water.

The camp was going really well with lots of nutrition, race prep and video review underway off the water and some preemo sessions on the water! This was until Luuka, Mike and my boats were stolen from the course in Shannon. After the initial shock set in we began our hunt to find the thieves and get our kayaks back! We were determined to not let this unfortunate circumstance set us back.

After a full on day of investigation with the local police we retired our search and hit up Otaki beach for a wicked sunset paddle in the surf. It was a great way to end a stressful day and for me, just what I needed, I was in my element!


Lukily for us someone found our kayaks and saw the onenews report so gave us a call and we were reunited with our kayaks! So stoked!

So training was back on and we were back firing on the Mangahau training site!