Munich to New Zealand

Well the end of this wonderful trip has come - a wee bit of a sleep in for some in the morning followed by a pretty good buffet breakfast with a wonderful range of pastries and eggs and meats and breads and cereal and fruit...... then began the task of cleaning out the vans. The boats needed to be unloaded from the trailer and dried out along with all the paddling gear - that done some of the kids crawled into the vans and tossed out the rubbish. There was a fair amount of left over belongings collected from our accommodation in Liptovsky which of course nobody owned - how can you not own spray decks and lifevests and paddling tops and undies and teeshirts and socks ..... it all got spread out on the grass and was gradually whittled down - just as well because someones kid had no undies at all ....
Aaron and Dale returned the U23 car and Dale picked up the rental for Wendy and him to travel off into the sunset .... if only it was that easy!! Kids needed to fill in the whole day because they didn't fly till after 10 last night - they were all keen for a Munich city experience but getting parking in the city for the big vans was proving to be a game breaker .... maybe catching the train in from the airport was the best option ...... now this bit of the trip your paddler will have to tell you about ..... we have no idea what they did or what they saw while they were in the city with Pavel and Martin and Aaron.
Next piece of information we had was that they were on their way back from town and that they had had a good time ....then 3 hours later the best news of all, the boats were checked in no hassles no excess baggage fees .... everything went smoothly - such a relief for everyone. Your paddlers are flying home.
The past 4 weeks have been wonderful, smooth sailing and very easy to manage. Your kids with no exceptions have been a credit to their families and New Zealand. (although we tried to disown poor old Dan when he was a little ill in a tiny cobbled street in Lubljiana ) Everyone of them have stepped up a notch with their paddling. They have experienced paddling at 5 different European kayak courses, they have seen castles and tiny cobbled villages, venice and canals and gondolas, caves and immodest Europeans in their undies. They have eaten " fry pan food" without complaint, real Italian Pizza in Venice and experienced more car park lunches than they care to remember. They have worked out how to communicate with people who have very limited english - they have worked out how to buy stuff with a currency other than new zealand dollars - and Lukes managed to build up a diplomatic liaison with the Slovakian girls kayak team ... and every kid has built links and made friends across a very wide cross section of paddlers from around the world. We have new boats and paddles, new paddling gear and hopefully a renewed determination to train hard and achieve to the best of each paddlers ability. We were very pleased to be able to help support the team on this trip - we don't often have the opportunity to give our support to kayaking and have really appreciated the chance to be a part of this trip with these kids. Our coaches were fabulous and worked tirelessly day after day to enable our kids to achieve. Good luck to everyone in their future endeavors.

the old city of Verona - Wendy and Dales holiday begins

writing the last blog on the terrace above the Mediterranean sea on the Cinque terre - with wine at long last