1. Louise doesnt just think kayaking on the river, she dreams about it too!!
2. Luuka and me doing well i dont know.... posers!!

JUNIOR WORLDS SITE 2007

This is where Junior worlds are being held next year

1. Me looking like a mummy/zombie!
2. Me at the Italian border
3. Some of the team at the Italian Border

1. On the way to Bovec having a quick stop to see an amazing waterfall coming out of a cliff!
2. Louise and Luuka in Bovec
3. Sue before she goes for a quick dip in the icy cold water

ALWAYS FUN WITH THE GIRLS!

1. All the girls after devouring huge icecreams, mmm yum!
2. Our room at the Uni hostel, never tidy!!
3. Louise just chilling out

1. Hamish in the town square in Lubjiliana
2. Money, in the hundreds and thousands for real!
3. Kidda, our funny wee coach

More photos of Tacen

EXCITEMENT GALORE

Wow what an exciting last couple of days. To begin, yesterday the team all decided to do a river run down some grade 3 rapids on a river by Bovec. The water level was pretty low but still all good fun, BUT as we began unloading the boats many dark,black clouds started to near very quickly.......we all quickly junped into our plastic boats and started the paddle and the stoem hit us. Huge gusts of wind hit us from the back, I struggled to even hold my paddle up as the wind kept catching my blades and spinning me around.....then came the rain, it bucketed down and I was wishing at the moment I was wearing my trusty full dry top but unlucky for me all i had was my titanium top. ( Even less lucky was Andrew wearing only a short sleeved top, CRAZY¨!) And then came the hail, and I dont mean normal pea sized hail, Im talking golf ball sized hail. It hit us all over, worst being the knuckles which had no protection. The pain was excruiating to say the least. Most of the team huddled behind rocks, trying to escape the terrible storm. Most not including one crazy member of the team who quote, 'that was the coolest thing ever!!' mmmmm shot andrew!!I couldnt disagree more but every man to himself! So after the storm passed and the indents in my skin from the hail started to go back to normal we continued down the river with no much more excitment. The water was freezing and I hadnt felt cold for a long time so it was quite a nice feeling for a change!!
Okay now that was adventure 1, bring on adventure 2!!! Today we decided to go for a flat water paddle. Finding a lake to do this proved a mission. With a few missed turns, four wheel driving in out two wheel drive van thanks to our great navigators of Louise and Kidda, we gave up hope of our first choice of lake and decided to try for another lake that was marked on the map. As we all in convey drove to this lake I along with most of the team noticed that we were meandering our way up into the mountains........and before we knew it we hit the Italian Border. The lake just happened to be in Italy, good one!! haha and thinking that we would be staying in Solvenia today, Sue had safety hidden all of our passports away back in our apartment in Bovec, so no passport, no border crossing, no lake to paddle!!!! After coming back down from the border we had a look at a castle/museum on the way and then headed to the river we paddled on yesterday for a sprint session, well what just happened to be on the river bank but a snake.... and who just picked up the snake( whick was dead) and put in around my paddle and in my boat, BRYDEN AND ANDREW, big bullies. It was disgusting and stunk and I had a dead snake in my boat..ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Just a bit of excitment for u guys!!

SOLKAN

After a small drive we arrived in Solkan. This is where Junior Worlds will be held in about 2 weeks, yeha!! We have been training on the river 2x a day to learn the course so by Junior worlds we are ripping it up!! We are staying in a Uni hostel, and whoa I would hate to live in this Uni hostel for a whole year. Im rooming with lou and Luuka and our room is a shoebox, its tiny!!! No room to move!!! And they have communal toilets, interesting!! It is only about a 5 min drive to the course so is pretty good. It has been up to 40 degrees here, im melting!!! haha!!! We have been swimming lots to handle the heat! Hope all is well back home, keep up those comments and emails!!!

Sweet gangstars!!!

THE ALMIGHTY TACEN

Today, we are going to watch the race at Tacen. Last night we went and watched a flat water slalom race which was in a canal right in the middle of town, it was amazing!! All the top paddlers battled it out in a head to head race to see who was the best! The top of each class won 500euros, nz 1000 bucks, wohoo!!

THE GIRLS!!!

TACEN

TACEN......................I survived!!!! haha today we went training on the almightly Tacen. Tacen is pretty decent whitewater and now I have found out pretty good fun too!! All the team did some sweet rolling especially louise, she was playing with the fishes all day. We just played around on the course, tried a few moves and had loads of fun:-) Later on we went back to the river for more training. It was an open training session so pretty much there was so many people trying to paddle it was chaos! Tonight we went out to this party which is in the middle of town and is for the start of summer. It was super fun, all of us danced hard and screamed madeup words for all the Solvenian songs, wow it was awesome.haha even funnier was on act on the main stage that consisted of three guys stripping down to a g-string. This is at a party of mainly teenagers, haha luuka even got some of it on video, sly horse!!! back training on Tacen tomorrow, should be good. Ill put some pics up tomorrow, peace!

Lubjiliana

Today after an epicly long journey we arrived in Lubjiliana. It took about 10 hours to get here and we hit all the 8am morning traffic on our way out from prague so we were moving at snails pace for over an hour, not cool!! We travelled through Austria before arriving in Solvenia. Its beautiful here in Lubjiliana, so hot!! The team is staying in three different apartments, two close and one about a 15 min walk. Our apartment is cool, only about a 15 min walk into the town centre so we will be doing some exploring tomorrow hopefully! We are not racing at Tarcen anymore, it was decided that a race there would not benefit us in prep for Junior worlds,(tarcen is huge!! i will try put some pics up tomorrow!!)Everyones stuffed after the long trip, hamish, andrew and I cooked dinner tonight, it was delicious!! Pasta, Sauce and Saussie, mmmmmmmmmmmm

Im sitting in the Boathouse in Prague with the laptop, its awesome, i love wireless internet!! Recent updates for me; race day 2 on sunday didnt eventuate for me, i was very sick with a bug from the river we think and spent the day lying in the shade not feeling good at all. The rest of the team raced and did really well with Hamish taking out U18 Men C1 and the C2 boys won too. Chris came 3rd in the K1 Men so top effort. We headed to Prague after racing on sunday and have been training here for the last couple of days. The course is where the Senior World Champs are being held and is good fun. The water here is still really dirty so have to be careful to not get sick. I make sure my mouth is sealed before i roll, if i have time!! We had a look around Prague yesterday. It was really cool, pretty expensive tho and really touristy. We went on the Charles Bridge which Prague is famous for which as cool, had to be careful of the pickpocketers tho! Hamish and I even got approached by scray, smelling begger, was pretty freaky!
Today we went to Roudnice which is where the Junior Worlds will be held next year. It was a pretty cute little town it was in and the course was good fun, the team next year will love it! Now im boiling hot, the whole team is soooo brown, can't wait to come back and see you little whities!!!

RACE DAY 1

Today was our first race at Ceske Budojovice. I had a terrible tummy bug yesterday morning and spent the good half of firday sleeping and feeling pretty ill. I was hoping desperatly that i would recover in time for our race today and thanks to the ingredients in coke I killed the bug and was feeling in shipshape for racing today. The course they had set had a few technical moves and was really long. I had two pretty good runs which put me overall in 6th place out of about 24 girls I think ranging in age from juniors to seniors. In my class, under 18 Women I came 2nd and got a sweet certificate and a goodie pack with an exciting blowup ring floatz thing and a calendar wohoo. The other two kiwi girls 50ed which put them out of contention for top placings but tomorrow us kiwis are going to take out the top 3 hopefully. Hamish did really well coming 2nd in his class and the c2 boys 1st even with a 50 so pretty successful day all round. Last night we had our first big storm, no one believed me when I woke up and said I heard a huge storm in the middle of the night. They all said I was either crazy or dreaming, it was super funny tho when we went to put the boats on the roof and they were all wet, haha i wasnt going insane. We are all starting to brown up and I think I have finally started to get used to the heat. Happy days

Cezch

Before I forget I must mention, to mz disgust, the number of hookers on the border into Chezch. It was so yuk, these filthlz women hanging round on the side of the road, wearing absolutly nothing and getting picked up by filthly men, ewwwwww.
Well back to whats been happening, we are training in Chezch for the race this weekend. The course is pretty cool, has a chute similar to the Kaituna but the water is anything like the Kaituna. Its filthly, brown. They me that it doesnt make¨ü sick but its still horrible to look at. I had a dose of heat stroke and dehydration today, i spent half of my afternoon session curled up in the shade sipping on water with salt in it and feeling crap. Im starting to come right now but it was pretty scary feeling like that and Im going to be drinking heaps to make sure that never happens again. It has been about 30 degrees each day, lovely for my tan and i havent even got burnt yet so doing well. Im going to try and put up some pics from another computer so hope they work. Missing everyone lots, XO

Merano

We went to Merano this weekend just been. Its in Italy and the township is cute with lots of old buildings. We even got to go out to a concert one night, we didnt know what they were singing but it was still a good experience. the racing was a huge eye opener, the other girls were amazing and it just showed me how hard I need to work on my paddling to be competitive at juniors in a month. I enjoyed the racing, the whole atmosphere was great and I got to catch up with a few of my mates from last year which was cool. Check out the results on our team website. We are now in Cezch where we will be training and then racing this weekend. Had a look at the course today, it looks like fun and hopefully the race this weekend is more successful for me. All these races before junior worlds are really good to get used to racing with lots of people on different rivers so by junior worlds we will al be ripping it up haha. the computers here are really slow but ill try put some photos in the next place we go too if its faster. thanks to everyone for theie comments, im missing u all heaps XOXOX

Last full day in Augsburg

Wow time is speeding past. Thanks for all the comments, it is very exciting getting comments! well today is our last full day in the beautiful Augsburg. We have been training 2x a day here on the Eiskanal which is pretty fun, quite tiring too!! Everyone is starting to look a little worn out!! the girls all went out shopping yesterday, i got a cute little spotty top and few other odds and sods. The shops here are very cool! The weather has finally strated to lighten up and today we have sun!! It's a miracle!!! Andrews a tweaker or so he likes to think.

1.me outside the coolest church in Augsburg
2. Luuka
3. Bryden looking like a babe
4 Kidda our coach, pretty amazing guy!

1.Luuka and Louise
2.Luuka walking up the clock tower
3.Beautiful bakeries!

1. View of the town square from the clock tower
2.All the K1 clan hanging out at the course after our long trip over
3.me with some statues on our early morning stroll