Slovenia- France!

Saturdays Racing proved to be a successful day for New Zealand! Mike Dawson proved he has the speed and is as fast as the best qualifying through to the final in 10^th position and this was even with a touch! In the Final he placed 10^th which was super awesome and a creditable achievement, big congrats to Mike!

With the racing over Team New Zealand met up at our favourite Mexican Restaurant in Ljubljana and celebrated Mike’s success. Then early the next day Luuka and I were on the road and heading to France! After our unfortunate weekend of racing on Tacen we decided we needed another race under our belts.

A few smooth coffee stops in Italy fuelled our bodies and minds and kept us going till we reached the land of baguettes, Croissants and pain au chocolats- France! Driving into the French Alps was awesome and we were treated to some stunning scenery, even if the sun was nearly gone when we reached the French territory.

We had arranged accommodation before we left Slovenia in a Ski Chalet in the depths of the French Mountains, close to L’ Argentiere. However the dark of the night and the rugged roads meant we struggled to find our villa. It neared Midnight and Luuka and I felt desperate, we needed to sleep, we were hitting the wall. We ended up pulling in to a villa we found that happened to be left open and crashed there for the night, we left a note and a 20euro bill and took off at sunrise to seize the day.

L’ Argentiere rests in the valley of the French Alps and serves host to beautiful scenery. The White Water course here is somewhat similar to Kawerau in New Zealand with fast moving water and rocks at the bottom of the eddies. It is a natural course though which is definitely nice for us, coming from New Zealand where we only have Natural courses to train on!

‘Cafe Au lait sil vous plat’ has become a saying that roles off the tip of our tongues with ease these days as we have been hitting up a nice local hot spot that makes good coffees that would match the standard of our local ‘Green Bean’ back home. Training is going well, L’ Argentiere is a physical course but provides a few good features. I am really happy to be back here in France, it is a beautiful country with amazing food and culture and the people are lovely. It is good refocusing this week on the upcoming world cup.