Last few photos....

Chicago, stunning!!

Boys and more Levi's!!




Closest we came to a run in with the law

Me driving, them sleeping.....

Laurence SUP, Duluth

Me, SUP, Duluth whilst Geoff tried a new boat out
Self explanatory....


Absolutely brilliant plank exhibition found on top of kayak statue. Thanks and goodnight!!!! See you all next year.

Party Rock Anthem - LMFAO [OFFICIAL LYRICS]

This tune may have been cranked up on the radio a couple of times.......

Wrap up

Well the journey home with the kayaks turned in to yet another mission. We had to pay at every airline. Kelly, Marcus and Geoff spent the whole day in LA after getting an earlier flight. Thanks to them we managed to make our connection to the AirTahiti flight even though we were the last people to check in for the flight. Kelly also managed to talk them down on the price they charged us per boat. Finally back in NZ we ruched over to domestic transfer with Marcus and Geoff and paid to get their kayaks on. Lou then drove them to the domestic terminal , only to be confronted by yet another issue, the airNZ rep didn't believe I had paid for the boats so wouldn't allow them on the flight so the boys missed their flight and had to wait 2 more hours for the next after Lou paid extra and got a parking ticket too.
Thanks heaps to Jackie and the other lady at Virgin America and the guy at Air Tahiti as well as one person at AirNZ for being the only 4 airline people we met all trip who made any effort to help us.

The group that had stayed in Chicago got packed up and went back to the windy city to walk the 'Magnificent Mile'. Full of tops brand names.....sorry Jill, I couldn't really afford the beautiful rings at Cartier !!

Kelly had some fun on the flight home, passed out in a deep sleep she shouted "Dale" at the top of her voice and then kicked me hard enough to give me a dead leg. It bought a much needed smile to our faces!!

Well, that's about all from me folks, I'll post the last photos in a second.

Thanks kids for a great trip, you all were fantastic and your parents should be very proud of you.
Thanks again Dale and Wendy for organising such a great trip. I hope you're enjoying a much more relaxing time in Europe. Everyone is already looking forward to next year.......
I hope I helped you all have a fun trip and you think of great memories in a couple of years, the next time you hear "Party rock anthem" and you crank it up loud!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIOOwhmkoLo

Andy Fuller, coach, mentor, driver, rule fracturer, ice cream container cleaner (I somehow lost 3 KGs on the trip anyway!!) and now I'm off for a nap.

we got all the kayaks on for free

YEAH RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!! And we had to pay for our normal bags too. Matthew now has no kayak for 10 days and Kel, Marcus and Geoff are heading to LAX with a headache to sort with air tahiti. 10 kayaks, 14 paddles and 7 passengers.....
back to sleep, that was a bad 5 am start.
At least the airport parking guy had a sense of humour and after scaring the shit out of me.....let me off the $160USD fine for leaving my van at the kerb with Laurence trying to talk his way out of it.....very happy to see me run back out....

close to home

well, at last we got some kayaks on a plane when Dale and Wendy left today.
Meanwhile the 8 left went shopping at a huge mall in Chicago.
Straight after we shot in to Chicago city and went up the tallest building in North America, the sears/willis tower. I even braved the glass floor section 103 stories up!
We then shot back across town to Wrigley field, home of the Chicago cubs baseball team. We arrived late, found out I had been led astray by the online puchase and had tickets to tomorrows game. A few frustrating minutes and several $$ late we were in our seats. Locals told us the cubs would be thrashed (I hoped this as I have had many friends in Phildeliphia who were playing).
The Cubs thrashed the Phillies though and the kids sang their theme tune all the way home ....."go Cubs Go...."
A highlight was Bill Marray actor from Ghostbusters singing during the 7th inning stretch.
Poor Matthew, every time he got up to get a drink or a souvenir he returned to find he missed another home run!!!!!
Off to the airport at 5am for the first flights.......

Numbers.....

Hi everyone, it seems like many of you have had a great laugh at our expense. Don't worry, 95% of the time we've been laughing too!! I just didn't think it possible for so many random things to happen on one trip! Anyway, we were going to write a list of numbers on day one but this list will be way more impressive as we have our last breakfast together.......well sort of together, shared with about 30 other people in a crowded hallway of a motel near the airport in Chicago.

1 team

28 days away (or 56 for Dale, Wendy, Finn, Carl)

13 people

10 athletes

1 coach

9 kayaks at departure

0 kayaks at arrival

3 kayaks for the lucky few…shipped from Europe

8 days waiting for kayaks from LAX

4900 KMS my car has driven

5400 kms Wendy car….lots of trips to supermarket and Garmin getting her lost!!

4700 ish kms wendy drove

1500 ish for dale

5600 kms for me including trip to fetch kayaks.

25 pieces of luggage at start, 14 arrived in Ottawa

46 hours time to get to Ottawa from Auckland

72 hours for Dale!!!!

4 flights of stairs to get kayaks to our rooms in this hotel

97 sets of roadworks

Score….Andy 34, Garmin GPS 3 (That’s roughly how many times I was right with no map and Garmin was wrong!!)

17 hour drive from Niagara to Wausau

10 hour drive last night from Duluth to Chicago

4 days, roughly how long we have spent in the cars!!!!!

8 baseball caps bought

2 overloaded minivans with 12 kayaks on the roof with 4 large bits of wood.

00 yes zero run ins with the law…..so far.

165455463654646 hours kids spent combined on the internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1 hour spent doing homework (combined for whole team from what I can work out)

72 loads of washing

1 foreign ’hookup’….but the boys are still trying……

8 different accommodations

9 kayaks and 14 paddles......that 7 of us are going to attempt to fly home with....

23 times we thought about hitting the bottle…….but 0 times we did

Racing, meal, SUP and lazer tag

The race course was pretty interesting at Duluth. It was a very hot day and just kiwi vs aussies.
A big drop, an up in the middle of the flow and a very tight surf in a big hole that was fast enough to give you whiplash. Our guys sucked it up and raced pretty well considering the nature of the course.
Laurence was top kiwi in 3rd, Finn 4th , Carl 5th, Cole 6th. Marcus 10th.
Kelly won C1W.
In the evening we went back to the course at 6 for a great italian meal where we watched racing from the 90's (Yes I had a 10 second clip!!) and surf and big drop movies. Many of the team went for a SUP (Standup paddle board) on the lake, many with trembling knees, worried about falling in.
When we got back we shot down to lazer tag.......I found something I can beat the kids at still....top scorer on both games. We played 8 kiwis against 8 USA plus Cole and Laurence. NZ DOMINATED!! I think Laurence shot some yanks!!!!!
Just leaving now for the sprint race and a 10 hour drive to Chicago. Foxy left this morning to go to Ottawa for 10 days more paddling, with our usual airport dramas, 330am, closed roads, detours a forgotten paddle and a refused kayak.....so, the fun begins again!!

Duluth photos

Middle hole/gate 10

Bottom drop

View of Duluth lifting bridge from our hotel

Matt, doing the video link from almost in the river!


Big drop at gate 3!! off the slab was the only route

Rugged landscape of start area. I can't call it the start pool as there was no pool, only rocks!!

Conjoined cold idiots!!!!

Duluth

We're in Duluth now.
The river here is a little low, the flatwater gates are gone and the river run is too low. Apart from that it's perfect!!
It's not quite what we had hoped for in the last week but we're making the most of it. We had 2 WW sessions yesterday and one this morning and then off to race tomorrow.
We have some nice accommodation in town right by the wharf and not far from a lifting bridge and great chocolate shop!
The course is quite rocky but we think we've found most of them now. There is a big rock slide at gate 3 and another 3 significant drops down the course. The last is quite fun and tricky.
We seem to have plenty of injuries (Carl-back, Kelly-shoulder, Marcus-back, Anna -shoulder, Foxy-shoulder) but they're keeping their spirits up.

Fun Day

Yesterday we had another day off paddling. Everyone was still pretty tired and we had no good whitewater to paddle (The course in Wausau isn't running).

Instead we drove 2 hours south to the town of Wisconsin Dells. It's like a mid-western version of Las Vegas, a town built purely on a theme. Their theme is water parks!! We went to the Worlds biggest water park and rode the worlds longest water coaster. Half the kids also managed to get on the 'scorpions tail' where you start in a tube and free fall into a spiraling drop at huge speed.

Following this we shot down the road to the outlet malls where we got new sunnies, jeans, shoes, shirts, skirts etc.
A quick Taco Bell and then raced back to Wausau as I was out to tea with old friends from the 90's.

This morning we're off to Duluth, we may have to use a pry bar to get the kids out of these luxury rooms. We have 3 days of slalom and river running to look forward to and then a race over the weekend before we start to go our separate ways.

BBQ photos

A great location for a BBQ....

Dale and Wendy relaxing at last....


The whole gathering.

0 then BBQ

After one of the most hectic 2 weeks of our lives......yesterday we did a big fat nothing!!!!
Kelly and I went for a flatwater session. Everyone else went to the movies.
Of course while we were all playing, Dale and Wendy were as always.....working...more emails and sorting various plans for the rest of the trip or making sure things are ok with the business they own that they have closed for 2 months for this trip. These 2 are absolute legends. Their planning for this trip was impeccable. Yet, for some reason there have been more weird and unexplainable things go wrong on this trip than any other one I've been on in 30 years of kayaking and travelling the World. So many in fact that we now seem to able to predict them in advance!!!! They have held their heads up high, and despite unbelievable (hey we all know life could be far worse!) situations have kicked on through with barely a murmur of complaint.

Whilst on the subject of legends, we picked the kids up from the mvie and headed to see Corrie and her family and friends at their house for a good ol' USA style 'cook out' BBQ. GPS got us lost for the 37th time but when we got there.......Fantastic food and company, thanks so much you guys, what a great evening and the first time I've seen Dale and Wendy relax so far :-)

Photos

Team on the Wausau WW stadium statue

Mrs Owen..for those of you who remember her.

Carl and Finn on podium

Kelly 3rd

Proud Dale when we have the top 4 spots in B-final.

Finals day.....

Here are some highlights unedited from the paddlers today…

Carl’s highlight was being able to hold it together throughout the whole weekend and not being influenced by other paddlers to try faster lines etc and of course the biggest highlight was getting Second in Juniors and having a clean run.

Cole’s highlight was his two clean sweet runs on Saturday coming in third both runs. On Sunday he had a solid semi final run apart from one gate he tripped up on putting him out of the finals. Trying some different lines in the B Final he held them together coming in second in the B final.

Laurence is cool. But really… racing was really cool I had good couple of runs, one in heats and in the B final. I missed out on the actual final though. For me this race was a learning curve on how to approach a race mentally.

Anna’s highlight from this weekend was sitting through rain and unbearable heat and observing the rest of the team do so well

Kelly’s highlight was putting together the fast and smooth sections of individual runs during the past two days and coming 3^rd junior women k1. Being with some different competition and having a blast in c1 even though the run wasn’t how it was planned was another highlight!!

Finn’s highlight of the weekend was making finals after a mistake in the semi finals. Then going on to come third junior and fulfilling his goal of doing a run that felt like he couldn’t do better (other than a touch). Another highlight was hanging out with all of the Canadians and Australians at the river.

Marcus’s highlight was doing solid runs and feeling great at the end. I missed out on the finals by one spot which was slightly frustrating but on the whole my race went very well and I am happy with my result.

Matthew’s highlight of the race was knowing he had done his best and pulled off the moves he had planned, despite messing up the last gate in the B Final. This race will be something I will always remember and I have learnt lots of new skills from. Watching the top three runs of the days was incredible.

Foxy’s highlight was making finals despite a sore shoulder and some mistakes. Had a great time at the competition and had a very good finals run although he made mistake on one of the upstream gates which ruined his chances at a medal.

Geoff's highlight this weekend was competing with some extremely inspirational athletes. I can safely say that this has been a huge learning curve for me, like having to deal with huge amounts of pressure and competing to the best of my ability without mistake. In my semi final run I ended up with a pretty poor time, stopping my chances of making the A finals. I went onto the B final and finished 5^th. After this race I now have new goals to focus on.

Wendy’s highlight was watching the whole team achieve well but Finn getting his bronze was pretty cool, the whole team looked really professional in their white tee shirts and black shorts and stood out from all the other teams – they all helped at the end to clean up the site and pull down the gates and made us proud.

Dale was very happy to see the entire team looking great in their team gear. The whole experience of Wausau has been fantastic. Being settled all week with a good routine of training, sleeping and eating certainly paid off with a great last day of results. I’m just so proud of the way the kids conducted themselves all weekend right down to when they took down all the tents and gates for the organisers at the end of the day.

Andy, well not everything went totally to plan in the semis but the final runs of the day were pretty much stunning. Just about everyone finished with a flourish. 2^nd, 3^rd and 5^th in A-final and amazingly 1^st,2^nd,3^rd and 5^th in B-final. Kel flew down in K1 too finishing 3^rd. There was only one protest from us, it was too bloody hot. I think I sweated half my bodyweight!! I was a very proud coach ;-)

Note on results

when you are looking at the results please be aware this includes over 18's too. In men it is the bibs around 40's. Confusing eh! So Carl 2nd, Cole 3rd, Laurence 6th etc....

Live coverage of racing

Today there is live coverage HERE
click and enjoy watching, Matt has done a great job I understand.

photos

Local crowd


Racing

Upstanding for the USA national anthem before racing starts.

Pre race kiwi camp, mid course

Sam Murray (Ex Alex /NZ jnr team) Wendy Dale and a body or 2 (Kel+Anna?)

Worst kayak key hiding attempt ever!!!!!

Race reception Friday night.

Had a great day with lots of visitors today. Early in the day a guy came up and said "Thanks so much for brewing Speights"!! I missed when all the kids turned up and were buzzing around the kiwis asking how they become kayakers. I also met Mrs Owen who has housed many kiwis and Aussie in Wausau over the years...I had heard many great stories in the past.

Matthew's post

First day of racing at Wausau today, everyone did their best and all the New Zealanders made it through to the semi finals tomorrow. Michal smolem took out the junior category today with an incredible lead of ten seconds. The amazing performance from top athletes has been great to watch. We are all exited for more racing and feel well prepared thanks to our coaching from Andy and Michelle we have had of the last few days in the scorching heat. The course will prove to be a challenge for us but it will be great fun. This trip has been a great experience for us all and we have enjoyed traveling around Canada and America. Especially to Niagara falls. The fireworks display next to the waterfall was something we will never forget.

Matthew Arnott

Racing time

Wow, what a day. I am so proud of everyone today, I have never seen most of them race so well.
Results are on the Wausau website,
http://www.wausauwhitewater.org/Documents/2011%20Documents/Wausau%20Open/Saturdayendofdayresults.pdf
Highlights were Geoff's first run, Laurence's first run and Finn's 2nd. Cole had 2 great runs and Foxy's first run was solid and clean like his namesake. Carl had an ok first run (neither me or him were satisfied but his solid training put him 2nd anyway) but risked too much later on.
The team had prepared well yesterday so when the water didn't come on for 1/2 and hour we didn't sweat it like the others. Then everyone went for solid first runs in case the predicted storms arrived. The storms didn't but wind did so some 50's and slow times came on 2nd runs as people tried to guess where the pole was going.
Everyone made it to semis and have now walked the course at least twice after demos and are set for the morning.

Race time

Sue beat me to it so you know where to find coverage hopefully.
I set the course and put it up with a Canadian and American. Demo runs looked amazing if I do say so myself. The course is pretty straightforward apart from a run through a sticky hole at 3 and a hard down in left eddy on big drop.
Racing starts around 10am.
We just had a reception with dignatories like the mayor and past Olympic gold medalist Joe Jacobi (C2).
Today has been stinking hot but some rain has been forecast to cool things a little over the racing.
Half the team did a final session this morning and looked great whilst the others took time to recover and nurse minor niggles (Carl's back is sore and Foxy's shoulder whilst it looks like Anna will be sitting this one out.)

Live coverage Wausau Open

Today there is live coverage HERE
click and enjoy watching, Matt has done a great job I understand.

Photos

Main drop in the middle of the course


Top hole, very sticky, has claimed many tails this week!

Top 1/3rd

Geoffs Blog...

Our team trip has been fantastic so far. We’ve visited the great Horse Shoe Falls in Niagara, Ottawa River and participated in the Canadian Summer Series. My personal highlights include the Minden course that featured steep gradient and strong eddies. Also the night in Niagara was excellent with the display of fireworks was cherry on top. Then the next day we travelled past the great lakes Ontario, Huron, and Michigan. It’s pretty cool to see the biggest lakes in the world. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Geoff.

(From Andy...)

Today we had just one session on the course. We did split 1/4 runs down the course and everyone had good runs. Matt and Geoff have their paddles back and they look great. Sadly Anna's shoulder is pretty bad so she looks in doubt for racing this weekend. Thanks Pete Eckhart who is one of the Aussie coaches and physio and gave her a good check up this afternoon.

I went for a run this morning and stopped right next to a deer 3 metres away who just happily sat and eyeballed me for about 3 minutes while squirrels hopped past!

Michelle Kvanli from USA K1W team has been helping coach our group this week and she has been fantastic, thanks Michelle.

Blog contribution from Marcus

Our trip so far has been absolutely amazing. Kayaking on the Ottawa River and visiting Niagara Falls were big highlights. The night at Niagara Falls was one that I will never forget, having dinner right beside one of the seven wonders of the world was amazing, and finishing off the night with a great display of fire works was the icing on the cake. The races so far have also been great as they have been run smoothly thanks to all the helpful volunteers. The venues have been great for warming us up to big races at Wausau.

(From Andy...we found a guy who has repaired paddles like new and he's on a mission to fix ours. Anna subluxed her shoulder this afternoon in the sticky hole late in the course. We're waiting till the morning to see how bad it is. Tonight we had a visit from Corrie who worked as a doctor in Alex, she bought more food (she had left tons for us on our arrival already) and stayed for the evening catching up with everyone).