Coxing Continued

There was another regatta at the weekend in Cambridge, which is just outside Hamilton and that meant a 7 hour drive! It was just me and Brad for the road trip but it was good fun driving up there, he gave me all the info of all the places we went through so the drive was also a learning as well as a cultural experience. The scenery seemed to change every hour or so as we drove through forests, plains, towns, mountains and a town called Bulls. After a stop or two on the way, we got into Hamilton at about 11 where we met up with Rob, Jack and Lou-Li (still not sure how to spell it) at Jack’s aunty’s house where we were to be staying  – Hamilton’s only about 15km from Cambridge so it’s close enough.

It was another early start, we were down at the boat club at 7 and I think the first race was sometime around 8 and that’s where I made my competitive coxing debut, coxing for the girls four (2nd team) in their novice race. It wasn’t the best start to my career, I’d never even trained with the girls before so obviously I don’t know them as well as the guys but we did ok, my steering wasn’t great and we ended up in 5th out of 6 but it was a good learning experience anyway! The guys had a novice race later but Erin was coxing for that but I coxed for them in the club four (an open race that can have senior teams in it) and that’s where the sparks began to fly. At the start, we couldn’t really get too straight because there was a bit of a current and side wind (those are the excuses I’ll forever use) and once we’d powered ahead at the start, we began to cut off the West End team but I couldn’t see any of this happening because I was sat in the front  of the boat (apparently it’s faster if the cox is at the front). Anyway, there was a bit of a collision and some colourful language from those West End schoolboys, the marshalls got us apart again and we got underway once more. All that seemed to put me off just a bit but I gathered myself somewhere around the 500m mark and we made really good progress trying to catch up with the other crews but because of the angle I was looking at, it seemed like we were much closer than we actually were so I was constantly screaming at the guys because “we were getting real close”! In the end we came 4th out of 7 and only 4 seconds of third which would have taken us into the C Final but considering there were some senior crews in the race and our collision, I think we did really well and we could have probably made the top 2 otherwise.

We watched the well-hyped Mahe Drysdale – Rob Waddell singles race, the result certainly caused more than a ripple within the New Zealand sporting community, and then drove back to Hamilton. Jack’s uncle owns a bar there called the Riv so he took us all there for a couple of drinks and a meal, it’s so cheap even compared to Wellington prices and the beers went down a little too easy! It turned out we were served by Colin Meads’ granddaughter! I guess that shows the kind of circles I’m mixing in these days, Olympic/World Champions,  Rugby legends (family of) and all.

The guys had their C Final for the Novice Four on Sunday morning, with the much much more experienced Erin as cox and I think they came third or fourth. After that we packed up the gear and loaded the vans before making our way home. Brad suggested we stop off in Taupo because he knew of a natual spa that flows into the Waikato river so we met up there with Rob, Lou-Li and Jack. The spa was probably one of my favourite things that I’ve done so far in New Zealand, there were a few pools carved/eroded into the bank where the water flowed into and then out into the river. It got pretty hot in the spa so we alternated with swimming in the cooler river water and then back into the spa, it wasn’t that busy either, just another four or five people along with us five. The views upstream were amazing, towards the forest and the way the river was bending away into the distance. It was a strange sensation feeling the hot and cold waters mixing into each other, I could have one leg in hot water and the other in cold, it kind of all just randomly flowed together. I think we were there for about 45 minutes or so before we dried off, got some food and then drove back. I couldn’t believe I was swimming in a river in December, even though it’s spring here I still have to remind myself that it’s December and probably dark, cold and miserable back in Britain. Ah well.

Yesterday was one of the Christmas events at work and we all went over to the croquet club for some croquet action, there were some fine displays of skill and determination, as well as outright competitive rivalry between Intranet/Internet/Online Channel, with the Intranet claiming many victories. It really is the glue that binds us all together (at least that’s what we tell ourselves whilst in the shadow of our more glamourous Internet colleagues). It was really good fun though, we played Golf Croquet (as if I knew there were varieties) and it probably got even better as the drinks were consumed. Excellent views of the city and harbour too from the top of old Mount Vic. There’s another night out tomorrow with the Dev guys but I doubt that’ll be as sophisticated as croquet!