Slovenija!

This week has been full on! We have been training hard at the course in Cunovo and I have been working on assignments. On Thursday Mike, Danka and myself cruised in the van to Ljubiana. We enjoyed a pizza in the city centre and paddled on the white water course there. The next day we drove up to a small town in the Slovenian mountains, near Bovec. It was a very scenic drive! Slovenia is a very beautiful country!! In the valley rested a quant wee village that was holding a sports festival with an extreme kayak race down the Soca river, mountain biking, rock climbing and parachuting. On the Saturday Danka and I cheered on Mike as he kicked ass in the kayak race! After several head to head rounds he was crowned champion! Was an awesome race with good competition, and it was awesome for Mike, esp. Since there was prize money!
It was a beautiful clear night with lots of stars so we slept outside on the grass after the concert that was held in the centre of the village. On the Sunday we travelled on to Solkan for some training on the fast white water, and then back to the land where beer is cheaper then water and our second home with the Benus’s, Slovakia!!!

Life in Bratislava

It has been a week now that we have been staying in Bratislava. At the start of the week I was really sick with a sore throat and some kind of cold/flu, so I was stuck in bed on Monday and Tuesday drinking lots of tea and taking heaps of pills. Thanks so much to the Benus’s for taking care of me! Esp. their father who came and bought me lots of medication. On Wednesday I felt a bit better and was back in action and training! So I wasn’t in the best shape for the weekends racing with only a few sessions on the course, but feeling much better so it was all on. The Slovak 2nd lot of selection races began on Saturday. My runs were both horrible. My first run I had a stupid 50 near the end of the course and my 2nd run I got caught in a few spots and lost heaps of time. Mike had 2 solid runs. His 2nd run was really quick but he had 2touches. Then on Sunday I had one ok run and another shocker. All good racing experience though. Mike had a 1 sweet run and 1 not so sweet run!
It was pretty tight racing, im glad it wasn't my team selection races thats for sure! We are pretty lucky in NZ!
It is super fun here chilling with our mates the Benus's and going rock climbing and skating and scootering and just paddling on the wicked whitewater that Bratislava has to offer. These next few weeks here are going to be good.

Semi Final

My Semi Final run went ok but was definately not my best. Right from gate 1 I felt slightly offline. I ended up getting two touches and being quite low in a lot of the Upstream gates. I finished up in 14th position.
We are now in Bratislava training and it is all good.

Tatra Slalom Race

On Friday we had the first race of this event. My first run was clean but had a few errors and put me in 20th, 2nd run had different errors but the same run time as my first so I ended up in 27th. Mike was fast and would have placed in the top 10 however he had a touch so this knocked him down to 21st. There were about 90K1M and 60K1W.
On the Saturday it was the qualifications for the Tatra Slalom. I had a good first run, that was clean but had a few minor errors. This put me in 15th, then my 2nd run was worse so I moved into 20th, just making it through to Sundays Semifinal(Top 20). It was very tight in the K1M and Mike missed Semi. After the race our Slovak mates, the Benus's took me up the low Tatra Mountains on a chairlift into the snow!!!was awesome, such a sweet view!
Today I have the Semi finals. Then tonight after the race we will head to Bratislava.

Pics from Trnavka, Witch party

Tatra Slalom

It will be a three day racing event this weekend here in Liptovsky. For results and info check out www.ktklm.sk It even has a live webcame of the bottom of the course!

Praha- Liptovsky

Time seems to be going pretty quickly! We have been travelling for just over a month now, everything thus far has been super sweet! On the weekend we went to the Czechs final selection races and went down the course as forerunners. On the Saturday the course was pretty easy, and on the Sunday it was quite challenging! Vavra dominated the K1men both days!!!It was cool to watch all the Czechs battle it out for the Czech team, a very highly contested competition!
We have now journeyed back to settle once again in the High Tatra Mountains of Slovakia. It was sad to leave Praha, we had such an awesome time there, the Czechs were very hospitable, especially Vavra and his family in Zbuzany!
There is a race here in Liptovsky this weekend and it is going to be big! We think it will be just as hard to make the semis here as it will be in the World Cups. A lot of the countries present have bought big teams. Unfortunately the water is freezing and the air temperature is not much better!
Check out Mikes blog for some really sweet pics of the witch party and kayaking!www.mikekayak.blogspot.com

Week in Praha

This week has been pretty busy here in Praha! We have been training at Troja and Trnavka. Tuesday we went to a concert(United Flavour) it was epic! Then Thursday night we celebrated out in the wop wops of Zbuzany with a witch party. There was a big bonfire, loads of people, food cooked on the fire, jumping over the fire! It was awesome!
Today we are going to Trnavka, this weekend it is the Czech's final selection races. We will be racing this weekend also.

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!

West Coast

Summer in NZ

It has been a while since my last update, as life has been very very busy!!!But ive been having some flippin sweeeet times!

I am now living with another paddler Mike, I will put up some pics of the view from his place. We have been training pretty hard.

I had NZL Team selections and im 2nd boat on the senior team so have been planning my big trip away to Europe!

I made a quick trip to Australia to compete in the Australian Open!It was a good experience and good to train on the big white water!

I then spent a really fun week in NZ, and managed to walk the Tongariro crossing in just under 5hours.

This last week I have spent in the South Island!Its been awesome! We had the Bullerfest(a mass kayak event) in Murchison!Wicked fun and party. Then headed to camp in Hokitika while we hit up the mighty West Coast rivers: Styx and Arahura. We had a 1hour walk in with our boats for the Styx run but caught a helicopter up to the top of the Arahura run!!!!So mint!!! Best day, and finished well too with fish n chips on the beach!

Then Mike and I headed to Wanaka to get in some Slalom training on the course there, Wanaka is still beautiful and such an awesome place to be!

Then in the weekend we had the Citroen Extreme race. A head to head race down some grade 4+ whitewater!It was a really fun event. I took out the Chicks title so was very stoked. Jamie Sutton took out the Mens, closely followed by Brad Lauder in 2nd.

Now I am back in Okere Falls doing lots of training and work and Study and chilling. Life is all good. Johno is over from Australia and has decided to come back here next summer to train and be god!Yay!

Cheers to all the crew I have been travelling with...Kat from Canada, Johno from Auz, and all the sweet Kiwis! and cheers to all the wicked guides that showed me all the rivers last week. West Coast rocks!

Okere Falls

I am now residing in Okere Falls just out of Rotorua. Its beautiful here!I am working at a cafe and Kayaking lots!I live right next to the river. I have also been going on missions to the beach collecting seafood. Last night we cruised over to the natural hotsprings you can you get to by boat! The weather lately has been awesome!

On Wednesday I am heading home to Otaki! This weekend we have two selection races for the New Zealand senior team. They will be on my home course Mangahoe in Shannon. So I will be relaxing a lot this week saving energy for the race in the weekend!

Summer 09

Happy New Year!!!
I sure have had an awesome past few weeks! After Xmas I cruised up the North Island to Rotorua. I met up with a whole lot of mates and we made a last minute decision to go to Gisbourne!In Gisbourn we partied in the New Year at Rhythem and Vines(Mass Concert with over 20thousand people!!!)It was awesome!I partied till 5am and then went to watch the sunrise:)
After that we went to Rere Rock slide just out of Gisbourne!!Awesome!
And cruised the East coast!!!Very Awesome. Slept under the stars right next to a beach one amazing night!We went fishing and snorkling and got some Kina and Paua. Kitesurfing. Swimming. and just cruised!!!!
Now I am living in Okere Falls(Just out of Rotorua by Lake Rotoiti). I live with Brad L and Rachel, its a very sweet house in an awesome location. Only 2mins walk from the river and only 5mins walk from the Okere Falls store(Where I will be working).
Life is very Blissful at the moment. I am loving pretty much every moment!:)