Jinx update (see below)!

Well......after a long drive and getting held up for an hour at USA border we made it to Syracuse but no boats here yet. We're in a motel for the night and will go at 7am to the depot round the corner to collect boats and start the 6 hours back to Minden. On the plus side we met a great guy when we asked for directions and he runs a major shipping company so next year......!!!!
Dale has banned me from talking, the guy at USA customs thought we were partners on holiday and had a great sense of humour (thank god!) never mess with USA customs!!!!

This morning the team had a good session on upstream gates and sprints before packing and heading to Minden. They now have boats for the boatercross tomorrow.....good luck team.

more photos

NZ/Aus 8 way computer wars!!!!!

Carl, big trophy

Anna

Carl

Course checking, MKC

Twister clouds

Team stretch

Team plank

Foxy, freestyle silver

Laurence

Photos

Double plank!!

Foxy at Waikiki waves

MKC

Kelly at pumphouse.
Pumphouse course

boats almost....

Here are some highlights from the paddlers today…

Laurence’s highlight is spending quality time with me as his coach (yeah, he’s still using my boat and being nice!!)

Anna loved her 2^nd run down the Ottawa river and surfing again at ‘waikiki waves’.

Kelly got surfed in the biggest hole on the first rapid and loved it. The hole was 2 metres high and she looked like a pin but was actually in pretty good control and worked to the end and out like a pro!

Finn is loving the fantastic spread of food here at MKC

Marcus enjoyed yesterdays race (and loved beating Finn!!). He was one of the of the few who managed gates 11-12 forward and had a fun race. The big surf waves at Ottawa were fun and helped him step up a level.

Matthew had a great day on the Ottawa surfing ‘Waikiki’ wave and loved seeing the amazing landscapes on our trip so far. He’s also enjoyed learning new skills on the river here at MKC

Robert was in his element paddling on the Ottawa. He came 2^nd in the freestyle comp and was throwing some amazing tricks on the big waves as we all watched in awe.

Geoff loved the weather on the Ottawa river so much, he went skins all day to add to his sunburn from the day before. Several pints of 'aftersun lotion' later he is turning brown not red!

Sorry about the lack of contact, no internet near here. We have been at Madawaska Canoe centre just outside Barry’s Bay in Ontario. This is a lodge on the river banks right by the slalom course. It is owned by Claudia and Dirk Van Wijk (their daughter Katrina has been paddling in NZ over the past couple of years) who have a rich history in their family of slalom and down river paddling.

Once again the Canadian and Australian paddlers were incredibly generous in lending their kayaks to our team for another great race.

We started with down river sprints at 830 am in really cold conditions which continued through the whole race. Standouts were Carl Whitehead and Anna Higgins who won their classes.

This was followed by the slalom at 10am. The course here is natural, wide and has a few holes. Just like the last slalom, things got technical at gate 11 but our team seemed to have it sorted. The top paddler here from Canada got 50’s both runs pushing the limits.

Carl Whitehead won a huge trophy (see photos) for winning the entire race. Kelly got 3^rd junior C1.

Marcus did a great little speech at prizegiving and presented the organisers with a book about NZ.

Dale and I are now in Syracuse collecting the boats…..let’s hope I didn’t jinx that…then we’re off to Minden for 4 days training and racing. Then we’re off to Niagara falls where we have been offered a jet boat ride in a monster submarine style jet boat courtesy of Joe Kowalski at Wilderness tours.

Here’s our team travel tip, NEVER follow a GPS in Canada or trust anyone when they say “it’s close” or “about an hour away!”. We have been lost more times than we care to remember and the worst was when we arrived at the start of 61km of gravel road……no we didn’t continue!!!!

On the way here to MKC we travelled in to bad weather. I said “wow this looks like perfect twister weather”, we then stopped for gas and were told twisters, hail and 90km/h winds were ahead! We ventured in to black skies with circling clouds and all eyes were on the sky. Apart from heavy rain we escaped but whilst getting directions were met with stories of trees down and hail as big as jaffas.

Wendy here ….. just a quick update on the location of all our boats and gear …. Its taken all week to organise but they are now on a truck from LA arriving in Syracruse sometime later today (this is Thursday) . We have been offered the use of a big mini van thing from here at Madawaska Kanu Centre, we have taken the seats out and Dale and Andy are driving from here back down into the USA and are hoping to meet up with the truck at the freight facility in the early evening – they have some $$$$ to convince the driver to let them unload the kayaks tonight into the back of the van and they will drive back through the night to meet up with us in Minden tomorrow morning a big drive of around 14 hours all up – huge relief to have a positive plan now in place – its been very stressful for everyone – kids were very stoic about using gear which had been loaned to us and boat sharing at the races was a tricky experience. We are very thankful for the support of the Australian team, the managers of the various venues and facilities we have been at. What goes round comes round and we have some hospitality to dish out in new Zealand in the future when these guys come to visit us.

Ottawa River

Here are some highlights from the paddlers today…

Carl not happy about waking up at 4am with jet lag…sucked it up and spent a great day in the sun and just loved the big water. He had great surfs and was really stoked to see close up action of Laurence getting beaten in big holes….see below!!

Cole spent a huge amount of time of time on the big wave by ‘buseater ‘ where we had lunch by the river. Initially he paddled on to the wave heaps and then just fell off. However when I came back after lunch he had it wired and was getting good spins, reverse surfs and even ‘blunts’.

Laurence dropped in to a small hole had a nice surf then fell off and hadn’t looked behind him where there was a massive hole waiting to collect him. Paddling 2metres to his left Kelly and I saw his face and the words ‘HOLY SHIT’ just as he dropped in for a beating! He loved it and it gave him the confidence to attach the massive colloseum wave which he also surfed whilst it towered above him.

Anna said paddling ‘Colloseum’ a monster rapid was awesome and surfing big waves all day. It was great to see the girls with their ‘man pants’ on ripping up on a huge river.

Kelly said surviving ‘colloseum’ a huge rapid where she got the line a little wrong and nearly took a hiding was a big highlight. She told Dale and Wendy how at the bottom of the eddy ‘coach’ ordered her to walk back up and surf a nicely formed 1 metre wave. This gave her heaps of confidence and shortly later she was happy playing in a pretty sizeable hole that was later used for the rodeo comp.

Sorry, the others went to bed before telling their highlights ;-)

OK, time for an update.

Today we paddled on the Ottawa river which is renowned for it’s big water. Everyone had a great day. Better news is that our boats are confirmed to be with us by Thursday night. This has been a huge logistical mission but hopefully will conclude soon. Jet lag is coming off slowly and the weather has been great. The low key race in Ottawa was great although borrowing boats wasn’t ideal of course. The Canadian and Australian team were incredibly generous lending boats and gear.

This afternoon we had the kayak rodeo. Half the team (let’s call them the north island pussies ;-)) was exhausted from 3 hours on the river already but the hardy south island guys sucked it up and ‘represented’. Rorbert Hervey (Foxy) placed 2^nd in the junior mens freestyle.

We are staying in a big raft/kayak lodge base. Hopefully the internet will improve and I’ll be able to get up all the great photos from Pumphouse and now Ottawa river.

Racing over...here comes the big stuff.

I'm sitting in a really nice raft base by the mighty Ottawa river. Kelly and Anna tell me they have put on their MAN PANTS and we're off big water paddling for the day. We have a day of plastic boating coming up with big surf waves and holes and a bucket of fun I'm sure.......more later

Yesterday we had a great day of racing at the pumphouse slalom in Central Ottawa. Plenty of borrowed boats but everyone had ok and the sun was blazing so lots of sunburn too! It was raining in the morning that's why we got caught out!!

Kelly was 2nd junior K1, 2nd junior C1. Laurence brown topped our group followed by Carl Whitehead. I think the adrenalin was running high for Laurence as he found a big hole in the bottom of my new boat that he was racing in. He was very relieved to find out it was there from earlier in the day when it fell off the roof of the van on to my head....thanks for the sympathy bro'!!!

We'll dig the results out later or post a link, just rushing out the door to the river.....

Travel photos.....

Everyone on laptops....something of a familiar sight!!!

Bear tracking.......
The team have been warned to look out for bears!!!!


Cole and Laurence soaking up the atmosphere in transit, Tahiti.

Team photo

We are lucky to have a team photo...the Aussies still have people stranded in Tasmania due to the ash cloud apparently!!!

Ottawa

Everyone is now re-united back in Ottawa. We still don't have many kayaks, they are being freighted from LA to New York and we should see them around Thursday.

All the team got to paddle the great little course at pumphouse in the middle of Ottawa today. Carl, Cole and I had collected our shiny new Vajda Kapsl 2 kayaks, fitted them out and had a good paddle. The rest of the team borrowed boats from various local Canadians and managed to get about 30 minutes on the river. We had an evening out at a restaurant followed by a little retail therapy on the walk home.

The bottom of the course here flows straight in to a tunnel. Carl went to explore but when he got to the bottom found he couldn't get back up......hopped out and walked up someones garden I think he said......and then had to sprint across a 6 lane highway to get back to the course....just to prove kayaking is an adventure sport even in the middle of a city.

Sunday we are getting up early for a paddle on the course hopefully before a midday race and then drive to wilderness tours for 2 days of whitewater paddling and fun whilst we await our kayaks.

Jetlag has been hitting most of us pretty hard, that's why I'm writing this at 5am (!) and Wendy has amusing stories of waking people up in the middle of the afternoon and them not knowing who she was or where they were! The next couple of days should hopefully see us settling in and feeling higher in spirits.