Saturday, April 22, 2017

Tekapo Competiton

Lake Tekapo Stunning
After the Academy finished we all jumped in cars and headed to Tekapo for 2 days of guaranteed water releases and non stop freestyle. Stopping on route for a quick hike up Mount Cooke. I had heard that a lot of work had been put into the course and that the features were pretty good but I never for one minute expected it to be as good as it was.

The crew hit up Mount Cooke with Hank the Hedgehog
We arrived to perfect sunshine and a super fun course with two awesome freestyle features. The top a fun wave/hole a little shallow but with the rght technique all sorts of tricks would go. But the feature that excite me the most was the main hole half way down the course. Sarge (the developer and super man behind the course) had manged to create an incredible hole. Every hole trick went. It was bliss after several months of terrible features or awkward water levels. It was such a massive releases to tear up this feature and actually be able to properly throw down. I paddled so hard all day that for the first time in a long time when I finally got off, everything... absolutely everything hurt.

Kids sit ready and waiting for the water to turn on

Just loving paddling
Max and Lotte tear it up


All the kids put everything they had learnt all week at the camp into practice and threw down hard. It was so exciting. New Zealand has another amazing freestyle kayaking play ground.
Big kids
Little kids all having fun
The second day we held a competition and used the last of our energy. The kids loved every minute of it and showed so much development and potential. They were looping, cartwheeling, split wheeling, space godzillering, mcnastying and even phoneixing it was insane. Me, Den, Josh and Bruno all took our turn as the kids cheered on and judged us from the side.

Role reversal
As the day came to an end and Aussie the kids packed up to fly home we all sat and reflected on what an amazing two weeks it had been.

What an epic road trip