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

leaving Liptovsky - heading to Munich

Up early - massive pack up operation after a very early breakfast - already running behind schedule and stress levels rising - didn't bode well for the day to come .... we had planned to get to Bratislava for a surprise paddle on the course between 11 and 12 which was the only time available to us - kids were slow to move in the morning - needing prodding and poking to get the vans loaded - strangely enough no one owned the spray decks and helmets and paddle tops and undies and tee shirts and socks etc etc etc - which were collected from around the clotheslines and bedrooms ..... finally managed to get away with the Gilberts and Kellie following us - we had plugged the indicators for the trailer in back to front and so it made it really hard for the direction challenged Gilberts to actually follow us and try and anticipate which way we were actually turning - problem fixed at the 2 hours stop off .... running really late by now but finally arrived at Bratislava over half an hour late for the session but the nice people let us have an hour session anyway - kids were off - that got them moving - boats off the trailer, gear on and running to the start pool - girls were the only ones to actually scout the course - boys yahooing and surfing and taking the plunge down Niagara (the very large bottom drop) - back to the top to do it all again. Lunch eaten for the last time under the trees in the car park - very hot day - loaded back up and set off for the 5 hour haul to Munich and trying to get there in time to go out to the Hoff House for dinner - this turned out to be one step too far and discovering a crack in the tow bar of the trailer slowed us up for the last 250km. Tired kids rallied for a team dinner in the conference room of the hotel before bed.

at the bottom of Niagara

Martin in action catching the action

Jess down the falls

packing up 

the last car park lunch

last day of racing

Another cloudless day although there was a bit of a cool breeze on the stands in the shade - heaps of spectators and a very full car park - we have been warned about gear going missing as teams begin to leave and pack up not only their own gear but others as well .... the British have lost paddles. Finals all morning with very exciting racing in K1w and C1m. This afternoon we had the last of the teams races with four teams from our group competing. 

First off were the K1WU23 girls of Anna, Robin and Haylee (doing a cameo appearance for this team). They had a number of touches and a couple of 50's and finished well back in the field - they were followed by the K1WU18 of Jess, Deahna and Haylee again - they also hit a number of gates, had 3 50's and Jess and Deahna both managed to fit in a roll as well - (they were looking for bonus points ....) 

Jess, on the roll, Deahna coming down

 The C1M of Ben, Shaun and Patrick did a better job of the course with no 50's but still finished well down the very competitive field - they worked well as a team but didn't have the pace of the top teams.

middle paddler Patrick followed by Shaun at the tail

 Finally the C1MU18 of Callum, Marcus and Tommy also did a better job of the course with no 50's but a pretty high number of touches meant they were well outside of the top finishing times. Fortunately during the breaks we were entertained again and again and again by the dancing girls - who had stepped up to matching costumes and by the end of the day were getting pretty good at the dance because they did the same one each time ..... the music for  this competed with the horns and drums and clackers and whirly gigs ( and trumpets today!!!!)and the announcer - but sometimes they just turned the dancing music off in the middle of the dance routine and the girls just kept dancing anyway or stood there with their hands on their hips - very funny -

yeah - go the dancing girls !!

yeah - go Slovakian horn lady!

 The day came to an end with the medal ceremonies for the days finals and the massive pack up operation for all the teams began - there were boats and trailers and people and vans and smelly kayaking gear everywhere. We had gained an extra 7 boats to try and load and it was a nightmare - the jigsaw of which ones go where is inside Martins head and he was working hard to fit them all in - we have ended up with boats inside the vans again but managed to just have them loaded on the bottom layer. Just need to fit the bags and paddling gear around them tomorrow morning and life will be sweet.
Headed home for dinner which was rounded off beautifully by the arrival of Claire and Roger Gilbert with chocolate, vanilla and caramel layered icecream, peaches and wafer rolls for dessert.Thank you very much - it was a great finish to our time here in this Penzion. Very early start tomorrow as we need to be up and loaded and away by 10 to 7 in the morning. We are heading to Bratislava to stop off and look at the course and have our lunch and then the long haul to Munich.

card games after dinner

Barbara and Callum .... 

Team outside the front door of Penzion Kristin - what a great bunch - (Tommy and the U23 have gone already)
Mr and Mrs Munro will be pleased with how much Dan has grown in height since he's been away, both Dale and Matthew are over 6 foot and he's nearly as tall as them ...

Finals and Teams

A cooler day today and after breakfast everybody headed to the course to watch the first of the finals. Bigger crowds today with the parking in the paddock across from the course 3 or 4 rows deep - we try to move down one end of the grandstand to keep away from the very noisy Germans, Slovakians and Polish people who today introduced big drums to their noise makers of choice. The speakers for the commentator are right in front of the centre of the stands and when he is not talking above pre-recorded music, they have fiercely loud rock and rap music blarring which gets turned up even louder when a slovakian paddler is on the course - which happened heaps today during the finals. Headache material and not that pleasant - however it does mean that our end of the stands is not that crowded which is good. Sandwiched between the runs on a stage opposite the grandstand they had displays of dancing girls in mismatched costumes, mismatched footwork, and it was a bit like watching your kids dancing in their bedrooms when they think you aren't looking.

finals watching - quiet end of the stands!

Marcus in the middle

The mens K1 finals were magic to watch with the top 3 places on the score board changing after each new run. It was top class racing on a very challenging course dominated in the end mostly by the European paddlers. Our guys competed in the K1U23m teams, K1U18m  teams and the C2U18m teams events this afternoon. It was very obvious that the Slovakian, Slovenian, Polish and Czech teams had all spent time practising together for these events and the most important thing to do was to not 50 ..... we didn't manage that bit very well with all the teams incurring 50's to some degree or another. However our teams were certainly not the most chaotic and at times there was a bit of a muddle on the course when the teams weaving turned into knitting with knots - and the tangle of boats made for entertaining viewing. Judging must have been a nightmare and in fact all the European teams had inquiries lodged both for and against them and results changed even after results were finalised - go figure!! Our C2 boys of Luke and Dan had gotten a bit rusty having had a day off and managed to 50 the first gate in the teams run and another 50 and a roll for good measure further down the course. Marcus and Finn looked calm and confident but we know they were petrified and hanging onto their seat belts - however they managed the clean bit of the teams run and were followed down the course by the newbies to C2 Patrick and Tommy who coped very well with their
cameo appearance - ended up at the wrong end of the score board for medals.  Junior K1 run with Callum, Matthew and Finn was marred by a 50 early on - Callum was leading by a large margin in this race run but that's not the point in teams racing and Matthew and Finn brought up the rear today - cute but ineffective for medalling - entertaining. The K1U23 men managed to clock up a few 50's and a number of touches but never got into a tangle so that was good. Our girls and C1M don't really have a hard act to follow tomorrow, but the number of clean runs over the entire competition has been incredibly low so they will have their work cut out managing some low scoring runs.

u23k1 Matthew and Shaun doing the upstream gate dance

Matthew, Shaun and Malcolm negotiating the treacherous last two gates 

team run planning with Martin and Pavel ......

Martin working on the teams strategy with boys ..... don't think they were listening as well as they should have

This evening we went out for dinner and were joined by Maureen and Kensa, Agnieszka, Mr Polaczyk and Lukasz, his brother Gregor and his partner and baby and also Claire and Roger Gilbert who managed to find the restaurant unaided.

The old town centre of Liptovksy ,at night, is quite attractive compared to the rest of the town and the kids all found an icecream shop for dessert and then we headed home - more racing tomorrow and then we need to start on the packing up of boats and gear in readiness for an early start to Munich on Monday morning.