Wednesday 18th
Our trip from Singapore to Paris was long but uneventful. We were on a massive double decker airbus. Boy are they a big plane. The trip was full of lots of movie watching along with lots of eating interesting airplane food! Upon arriving in Paris we collected a nice wee stamp in our passports and ventured out to get our luggage. Venturing out into a gloomy drizzly Paris day Nick was there to meet us. We were all a but disappointed to have finally arrived in Europe and be welcomed with weather that we had thought we had left in NZ! Next on the to do list was sorting out the van and roof racks. After a bit of a wait Nick, Alison, Freya and Liv headed off with the rental car people to get that sorted while the others stayed at the airport and had breakfast.

The roof racks turned out to be a bit of an adventure. Kindly loaned to us from Thule New Zealand, one of the screws that went into the roof hadn't been finished off at the factory properly and had no grooves! A little kiwi ingenuity was brought to the fore and we managed to, with the help the rental places limited toolbox, create a new screw by cutting off the head of a screw and adding some fillers in to it! The new screw worked a treat and on went the roof racks perfectly. Thanks Thule NZ for the racks, very much appreciated.

The roof rack team piled into the vehicle and headed back to the airport to pick up the rest of the crew. After loading all the boats and paddles on the roof and the bags in the back we all piled in and headed towards Belgium. It was about a 2 hour drive which for all of us suffering a little jet lag felt a lot longer than it was. We eventually arrived at Dikkebus Vivjer and made our selves at home. We are staying in big Belgium Army tents on stretches which felt amazing to sleep on after trying to sleep in an upright chair on a plane!

Thursday 19th
Today we woke up early and headed out for a team run and stretch session around the lake to get our bodies moving. The weather wasn't that flash today and we were starting to wonder where summer was. We did two water sessions which were very much a flushing out of the jet lag that everyone was still feeling. In the evening we headed into Ieper and attended the Last Post ceremony at Menin Gate. It is a tribute that they do to the fallen soldiers of World War 1 every night. It was very moving!

Friday 20th
Two more water sessions were of order today. We played against the Canadian women and a couple of their U21 men which was really good to have our first game time together as a team. In the afternoon we visited the Tyne Cot Cemetery where thousands of soldiers both known and unknown are buried. Amongst them are a number of NZ soldiers.

Tomorrow the DePaddel competition begins! Paris will debut with her first international which is exciting. The team is feeling really amped for getting some game time and looking forward to showing off what we can do.

Stay tuned for some photos of our trip and results from this weekends tournament.

NZ Paddle Ferns