October
November

5th October 2005

Hi there guys,
A few people asked us I we could send back reports of what we're getting up to here in New Zealand. We'll try to update it every month, and in the future may put the reports, with a few photos on Jonnies website.
We arrived in Auckland on Saturday 19th September, and initially travelled to Napier (North Island, East Coast) with Cameron Dury (Kiwi team paddler). We stayed there for a couple of nights and then travelled to the Tongariro National Park area for some skiing. Due to high winds we only managed 3days on the slopes, but that meant more paddling! We did a couple of sessions on the R.Tongariro itself. The Tongariro consisted of flat pools and grade 1-2 rapids with a few grade 3 sections on about a 30-40min section (great training river!).
After doing some skiing it was back to the Napier area for a race on the River Mohaka. This river was very scenic, with cliffs and waterfalls surrounding the valley. The water was a little easier than the Tongariro, but again a great training river. The race was a bit different to a Div A. There were only 7 of us, and that included the start/finisher Annie Caines of the Kiwi team! We paddled a couple of practise runs, agreed on the courses and raced the sprint and classic on the same day!
We then travelled North to Rotorua (famous for the smell of eggs/sulphur from the geothermal activity). Here we paddled on Lake Rotorua twice, out to an island and back, taking around 1hr30. We also did a session on the River Kaituna, famous for the 7m waterfall which rafts go over, and what Jonnie paddled over last time he was here in a wavehopper! I think we'll return there later in the trip and Jon can show me the way down once I've built up the courage!
For the last week we moved back to Napier permanently. We sorted out accommodation in a surf club, sleeping in the garage. It's an amazing place, on the beach, near town, next to an open air swimming pool, and is only £20 a week! At the moment we're training in the harbour whilst trying to find some jobs to pay for all this, we'll keep you posted!
Hope everyone's good back home, enjoy the Washburn
Grant & Jonnie.

Hi guys,

October has been another great month for us both here in NZ. We have settled into the surf club, buying some beds and picking up some free carpet off-cuts for the floor. The garage we sleep in is great most of the time, however we've now discovered that when it rains it leaks, a lot. One weekend in particular it rained heavily for two solid days, which resulted in a continuous waterfall in one corner and our kit getting really damp and wet. The weather has improved loads since then (now constantly in the 20sC) so it hasn't been as much of a problem.

I'm now working in a hotel as a waiter, just three minutes walk from the surf club (handy because I've been doing breakfast shifts!). And Jonnie has done some work for a local canoe manufacturer, fixing and building racing boats.

Paddling wise we're still doing the bulk of our training on the harbour with Cam Drury and the surf ski paddlers (racing sit-on-top kayaks for surf races) plus a few trips. Our first trip away was a race weekend on the West Coast organised by Ant Roebuck (Kiwi racer who lived and trained in Chester for a while). Essentially there were 3 races that weekend, one sprint in a tiny power station outlet (grade 1-2), a classic TT and an upstream/downstream 1hr30min classic TT both on the Waitara River. The Waitara river was really high with massive waves of at least grade 4 size. Jonnie won all three races and we both thrashed all the kiwis in the sprint, which was nice! Aarron Cox (1995 team race world champion) raced with us to try to make a decision about whether to do the Bala 2006 worlds or not, unfortunately after the weekend he sounded doubtful.

The next weekend it rained even more so we went to paddle our local Mohaka River. However we only got 15mins out of town when we came across a road block due to land slides and flooding (The next day we had to cancel going to a wine festival as well!). Not to be deterred, we went back to the harbour, did a good hard session then went surfing on a local reef break in our river boats. The waves were brilliant to surf, and great for your WWR boat handling skills. Unfortunately towards the end on the session I broached side wards onto a biggy, and basically got trashed. After lots of chuckles from Jonnie and Cam I emerged from a hand roll having snapped and lost half of my paddle!

Our final weekend away was to a flat water regatta/training weekend on a scenic lake near Rotorua in the North. All the top Kiwi K1 guys were there and gave us a bit of a thrashing in our river boats! With both of us reaching the B final in the 1000m it wasn't too bad, just painful! The evening here was spent listening to Phil Dooney (another 1995 team race world champion) tell us stories about the '95 worlds and his training methods which seemed to include LOADS of distance in NZ then living in Chester and following Melvin Swallows lead!

Right I think that's about it, the Usk sounded awesome, we were quite jealous!
Good luck at the Tour d'Nord,
Cheers,
Grant & Jon.