Oarsome

It took a while but Brad (one of my flatmates) finally convinced me to cox for the Wellington Rowing Club Men’s Novice Four, which is his team and I really enjoyed it. Last Monday I went with him to one of the training sessions up at Petone (it was too windy at Wellington harbour, funnily enough) and coxed for a couple of hours, didn’t really have too much of an idea of what was happening but I understood the bare essentials of what I needed to do and got on with it. The other guys in the boat (Jack, Rob and Lou-Li [if that’s how to spell it?]) helped me out with what I needed to know, so that made it a lot easier.

At the weekend there was a regatta over at Wanganui, which is about a three hour drive from Wellington so we left for that on Friday night in Brad’s car, got there at about 11 or so and parked the trailer down by the river before heading to the Union Rowing club boat house. The other guys and the girls eight arrived earlier so they were already asleep, we had our sleeping bags so everyone just slept upstairs in one of the boat sheds.

We got up at 6 in the morning on Saturday for the regatta, I think the first race was at about 8, so we had breakfast in the club house and went over to the river. Even though it was a bit of a shock to the system to be up so early, it was such a nice day and the water was all calm and tranquil. When we got down to the river, the other Wellington teams were starting to arrive too (including the U16 boys, girls and seniors) and there must have been about 60 or so from the Wellington club in total. I think there were about a dozen clubs in total racing that day, including our neighbours and rivals Petone. Each club has it’s own vest colour and Wellington’s is maroon with a white hoop, I can’t remember what team it was, it might have been Hawkes Bay, but they had blue and white hooped vests and it made them look like pirates! Well, in my head it did anyway. I wasn’t involved in any of the races that day but it was good to talk with Erin about the art of coxing and I picked up some good advice there. Brad’s team, the Four, won their first race but stopped halfway through their second due to technical problems and they were due to compete in an Eight with four of the girls but the girls weren’t really up for it so they scratched that one.

Brad pointed out that a couple of the New Zealand Olympic teams were competing too so we watched those races with interest, they are pretty big guys! I was also shown who Mahe Drysdale was (a famous Olympic rower) and I thought it was so good that all the New Zealand teams were just wandering round the embankment and competing with everyone else without being hassled or bothered by anyone. I can’t think of any other sport where Olympic champions and national athletes would just be able to mix freely in and around people like that, certainly wouldn’t happen in Britain.

After the racing, we packed away most of the boats and the guys rowed back to the club house with me as cox. It was about 5km but we were there in good time and I managed to steer without too many problems. We got showered and had something to eat when we got back to Union and went to bed soon after.

Another early start on Sunday for training, got up at about 5:30 and we were on the water not long after 6. Again, the water was so calm and there was a little bit of mist, so it all looked good, definitely made getting up worthwhile. We trained for a couple of hours, I was coxing, and started to get a little bit better. The guys were great though, they have so much strength and power which made the boat go fast and the timing and everything is coming along too. When we got back, the girls went out for their row and we went out again when they got back. It was good hanging out with the guys during the times when we weren’t on the water, Jack had his rugby ball so we were throwing that around and doing general boat maintenance and things like that.

When we were getting ready to leave, an ambulance with all its lights on drove up to us and asked if any of us had phoned for an ambulance before moving on! We just started to laugh but felt quite sorry for whoever was waiting for the ambulance! The drive back to Wellington was a good one, a lot of the scenery kind of reminds me of home as it’s similar in many ways, just the heat that’s very very different.

So, yeah, that was the weekend. I never thought I’d get into rowing but I really like the close team aspect of it all and it gives me the chance to see other places at weekends.

In other news, the combined Intranet/Online Channel quiz team were victorious at the New Zealand Post Corporate Christmas Quiz last Wednesday! We beat the Chief Executives’ team in a tie-breaker, we were in two minds whether or not it would be a good idea to beat them but we just went straight for the glory. I think that’s the first quiz I’ve won for a while!