demos, parades and dancing girls

This mornings session saw us sharing the water with 72 boats with only three quarters of an hour allowed - the ICF had decided that to make it work everyone would have just two runs, leaving at 20 second intervals and doing a full run down the course with no stopping ..... yeah right. You do the maths - they didn't allow enough time for everyone to get two runs for a starter and you know paddlers - they don't take any notice of  "don't stop in the eddies, keep going, don't practice your crosses ....." add in the odd roll, swim and dawdle and you have a recipe for disaster.  The session before us was very entertaining with only 65 boats on the water but heaps of crashes and stressed paddlers cursing each other .... some pretty aggressive paddling was observed. The course is very busy with boat scrutineering, bib collection, start lists, accreditation, parking, bad parking, blocking the way parking, boats everywhere and hundreds of people. Today the weather has improved with a little bit of a cool breeze this morning but the afternoon was hot and sunny for the demonstration runs at 4pm. The course is not that hard (according to Pavel and Martin) but has long stretches of sprinting at the top end followed by more technical gates from half way down. You can catch the live streaming on the link on the ICF page. Tomorrow we have U23 k1 men Shaun at 8.43 and 11.09 and Malcolm at 9.10 and 1.36. Followed in the afternoon by the U18 K1 men Matthew at 14.50 and 17.51, Callum 15.21 and 18.12 and Finn at 15.35 and 18.26. The U18 C2 Finn and Marcus 16.34 and 19.25 and Dan and Luke at 16.43 and 19.34. and that's it for tomorrow.

just one of the many aisles of hundreds of boats in storage

watching demos

the humped back bridge with our lot watching demos on a very overloaded bridge

Tonight was the opening ceremony and we all assembled in the centre of the old town to get into line for the parade. There were young people dressed in national costume holding each countries name and we lined up alongside. Ella, representing the Cook Islands, had almost the youngest name bearer of the lot.

Ella and her Slovakian girl

Ella in the parade

New Zealand team with Patrick as the flag bearer

entering the square

turning into the square to form up alongside the 44 other countries

listening to the speeches, spoken in both Slovakian and English

the dancing girls entertainment after the speeches

Martin loving the dancing girls

It was pretty cool watching the parade of all the athletes and their support crews - there were lots of people watching and clapping and once everyone was assembled in the square there was a welcome song played by two guitarists followed by a few speeches, none of which were too long and all of which were translated in to English. You got the feeling that the people associated with the event, which by the way is the biggest canoe slalom event yet, were all very proud to be hosting so many countries here in Liptovsky Mikulas. After the speeches the guy in charge announced that we would now be entertained by the cultural part of the festivities and on came some dancing girls - doing a kind of cheerleading, areobics, hip hop, 'dancing with the stars' interpretation of a Slovakian pop song. Everyone loved it, Martin swayed in time to the music, and after one item that was it, all over. Home we came. Dale and Aaron away to a 'Banquet' for team leaders etc - and the kids all had a second tea since the first one was eaten at 5.15 before we left and of course they were all hungry again by 7.30 when we arrived home. Early start tomorrow for some and then staggered arrival to the course for the others - these next few days will be very long and the kids will have to pace themselves.

castles and princesses

Its 7 o'clock at night and I am here on my own (with two sick kids) - oh the peace and quiet!! Teas finished, the dishes are done and the rest of the crew are at training .... bliss. Two girls sick today, so that just leaves Tommy and Matthew ..... no time for them to get sick now the competition is upon us almost.

 Todays training was not until 8pm this evening and so a trip to visit the Orava Castle was planned to combat the cabin fever (not that the kids think that being glued to a computer screen is cabin fever .....) Just the juniors went leaving Anna sick in bed and in the capable hands of her brother Shaun and poor old Jess off colour and spending the day with Kellie.
Orava Castle is  45 minute drive from here and was first inhabited in the early 1200's and it has had constant modification and additions ever since. It has been a very important protection for the long-distance merchants route leading to Poland. Part of the lower castle was also a very ornate palace at one stage. It poured with rain on the trip over and the vans were full of grumpy faced teenagers ..... the passing scenery wasn't great and the rain didn't help. Cleared up and the sun shone weakly as we arrived, purchased our ticket and joined the crowd outside the castle gate waiting for the guided tour. You cant go inside on your own and unfortunately we had missed the English speaking tour and ours was entirely in Slovakian. I have to give credit to the kids, they rose to the challenge and were attentive and excellent ambassadors for New Zealand - and of course Martin and Pavel translated the juicy bits for us. It probably helped that the girl guiding was easy on the eye ....apparently. It was an experience of a life-time for us all to be inside a fully restored castle - the brickwork, stonework, narrow winding staircases, huge fireplaces, low doorways, 4 metre thick walls, holes in the walls and ceilings to pour boiling oil out of onto intruders, the torture chamber, the dining chairs which the rollicking nobles sat in to dine and drink, they sat sideways like a saddle and had a wooden bar around them to hold them in as they got more and more inebriated, the bed chamber where it was common for the guard to remain in the room with just a curtain around him while the 'lovers' had their fun. Needless to say the kids loved Martins re-interpretation of the stories. Pavel told the girls not to sit on a particular chair because it was haunted and if you sat on it you would be married within the year...there were paintings of many of the previous owners each one depicting the mans personality, for example Luke showed me one man who had a crippled arm and hand painted, apparently he had caught his wife being unfaithful and had skinned her, so he was portrayed as a crippled wicked man - and Dan showed  me another of a man with 6 fingers on one hand and 4 on the other because he was very good at taking (6 fingers) and not good at giving (4 fingers) and on it went.

walking into the castle towards the drawbridge

guarding the way in

entrance tunnel with holes in the ceiling to pour the boiling oil through, its very long and goes almost in a circle and would have been very dark making it hard for intruders to see where they were going and what lay in store for them, Dan's quote of the day was 'wouldn't they just follow the lights?'

inside the castle courtyard heading into the residential palace - Patrick, Matthew, Robin, Luke

listening to the Slovakian guide, girls a bit cold so cuddled up

higglety pigglety building of additions and alterations over the centuries

Martin and Pavel interpreting

our lot standing around the entrance to a 90m deep well within the centre of the castle listening to the guide 

Callum and Luke in the torture chamber, the racks - slowly wind you up till your sockets popped and your limbs pulled off, there was a bed with stocks for your feet which were coated with salt, the goats were brought in and they licked the soles of your feet raw, more salt was applied and the torture continued

Pavel - found his princess - he says not many people get their photo taken with a real princess in a castle.....

stairways leading up and up

climbing up and up to the top of the castle tower - the cantilevers were very dodgy and it didn't pay to think about it, some others in the tour couldn't cope with the heights and had to climb back down

still climbing - the top part of the castle sits on a wedge shaped piece of rock with shear cliffs falling away on all sides - the wind was whistling through the stone slits at the very top and the view was incredible

almost down again, central courtyard

back down again

A great experience - although it took about an hour longer than we anticipated and we didn't get home for lunch until just after 3pm. Dinner at 5.45 and away to training. Dale and Aaron both at the team leaders meeting tonight. Our training tomorrow is at 11am, boat scrutineering tomorrow, demo runs at 4pm and then the opening ceremony at 6.30 although we still don't know where it actually will be held.

visit to the caves

Sleep in this morning - breakfast not till 8am - training today is between 5 and 6. We needed to take some time away from the accommodation environment and headed for the mountains and a wonderful cave system which we were able to tour. This involved walking up from a car park through forest up a steep path to a building which fronts the cave system. The woodland is full of wild flowers which we grow in our perennial gardens in New Zealand and it was beautiful to see them all growing in their natural environments (well to one of us at least) Martin and Pavel negotiated a discount for us - 6 Euros entry and another 8 Euros per camera if you wanted to take photos inside (we have to own up to the fact that nobody paid this so the photos below have been taken illegally). Everybody headed off into the huge underground limestone cave system with a guide. The cave system is actually 8.4km long with many many side tunnels and caves leading off the main route. The trip we did was about 1.7km of steeply descending and ascending steps and paths with guard rails protecting us from drops, numerous small clear ponds and the river which had originally cut the cave system through the limestone. The caves were discovered in the early 1920's and opened to the public for tours in the 1930's. There was water everywhere with humidity 95% and the air temperature was 6degrees C. It was a fascinating trip seeing the stalactites and stalagmites and heaps of other limestone growths some of which looked like lilly pads in the clear ponds, others which looked like huge waterfalls made of deposits in gold, white and grey and others which looked just like fossilised sewerage. Five minutes into the cave we had to wait while a hyperventilating tourist from another group was lead back out of the cave by our guide otherwise it was a very slick operation which is part of a world conservation agreement.

debrief outside cave entrance

Pavel and Matthew warming up after exiting the cave

extra clear water pond in the cave (photo by Deahna)

underground wishing well

walkway through large cavern

Tommy 

Malcolm

Quick visit to Tescos for yet more groceries, home for lunch and a relax for the kids and off to the course at 3pm for a pre-race run through to simulate race day before they did their full runs. New signage up on the side of the new building, more marquees and heaps more boats and vehicles at the course. Dale and Wendy went and collected Kellie Bailey from the railway station. She had traveled from Prague by train and is here in an official capacity as a judge for the ICF.  Jess was very pleased to see her and Kellie was put straight to work by Aaron taking photos with his camera. Full runs went well for the kids and they are still learning from talking to the coaches after each run and watching video review when we get home. It is interesting to watch them walking up and down the course observing the other paddlers. Kellie came home with us for tea and then we dropped her to her ICF accommodation. Another site seeing trip planned for tomorrow before our very late training session at 8pm in the evening.                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

A few pictures

ordinary old day

Cool again this morning with team leaving for the course in team track suits as opposed to tee shirts and shorts. In fact Martin said he was freezing standing on the bank and wants a team hoodie for next time!! He said the wind whistled down the neck of his track suit jacket - Pavel just smiled, as he does. Another big adventure to the supermarket - only took 5 staff to help find 'curry powder' today and the key word was
'India' in the end - its become almost another version of 'the amazing race' for the staff in the supermarket , they recognise us now and you can see them either run for cover or start to giggle ... then the charades and mimes begin ... Pavel has written us a cheat sheet of key meat words in Czech which is a bit helpful because its almost slovakian .... we show it around and combined with the mimes and noises we manage to get something to buy, not sure half the time what it actually is, pretty sure tonights minced meat wasn't beef - (don't tell your kids). The Australians are back from their few days training in Krakow, the Germans and Chinese and Russians have arrived and also 30 paddlers from Czech Republic. Martin and Pavel have gone out tonight to have tea with them. The British have a military operation going (not Dads Army either) and are always very flash in their turn out, paddling gear - all matching - spray skirts and life jackets matching and their team casual uniform all matching and impeccable - however we have Matthew, with his KIWI boat.

Kiwis in action

Dads Army - Captain Mannering and Wilson - Just joking, we are very impressed and these guys were so nice to pose for us

padding out and keading up Deahnas new boat

now its wet and second hand .....

flat water training - sprints, looking down the dry, right side course in the distance

one on one sprints, Tommy v Marcus

Deahna's new boat arrived and she spent time under the shelter of the new building padding it out and adding Kead-it to the ends to protect it from the Liptovsky stones. Flat water training this afternoon at the top of the course, split into two groups doing short sprints, gates and 360 turns.

 Accreditation has opened, all the teams tents are up and the first provisional start lists have been posted on the notice board. There are 63 boats in K1W U18:, 84 in K1M U18: 67 in C1M U18: 29 in C2 U18: 53 in K1W U23: 86 in K1M U23: 58 in C1M : 

Its now getting hard to get a car park near the old boat house especially in our big vans and we are wondering where they are going to put all the race car parking now that they have filled the car park with the teams Marquee.

Very hungry and cold kids arrived in from paddling at 6pm tonight - rain was threatening again so its a big rush to get a space to hang their gear under the veranda of the building. Big tea followed by a bit of a sauna for some of the boys. Hope this sends them to sleep early ...

steamy sauna - foggy camera - Marcus, Dan, Patrick