München München München...

So, we are still in Münich trying to buy some bicycles. Everyday we inch a minoscopi forwards with our organisation. It´s nice here, we´ve been staying in a hostel in town and spending the day roaming the bike shops, searching on ebay and reading the local ´buy sell´. Ed departed yesterday heading for Austria with a somewhat reduced backpack and a plan to tramp in the alps for about 5 days, before coming back here and joining Abbie who will have arrived from NZ. It was sad to see him go, he has been a great traveling companion over the last month!

We have bought several large maps, and spend the evenings pouring over them in the hostel's crowded kitchen. Making the logistics of our adventure even more complicated is the fact we also have to prepare to depart from (most likely Rome) to Malasia for Chris to race there in mid October. So we plan to deposit all but the bare necesseties of our gear here, and then we will end up in Malasia with practically nothing but some cycle paniers! This is going to be very interesting. So we somehow need to get some adventure race gear there for him from NZ as well as find doctors for Malaria tablets, book flights, sort out what is happening with Chris´s PHD.... for Emily and Chris whose organisation is renowned this is rather a challenge!

So the plan at the moment is to head down through a somewhat detouring route through the Austrian Alps, then into the Dolomites, all on mountain bikes so we can make some detours over some maybe not existant passes and get to some cool places. So, we are rearing to go, if only the bikes would hurry up!................. Oh, and I thought I´d better add that photo in of Chris looking speedy, thought it might make the cycle gods hurry up and produce us some bikes (hehehe).

(By the way, I´m pleased to see the answer "Yes, and Chris is a silly billy" is currently winning the poll!)

Goodbye Ed! (Photo: Ed barely escapes a brutal crushing from a vicious BMW after arrival in Munich).

PHOTOS!

I have finally managed to download some photos for you. So here I will create a small album of photos from different parts of our trip in chronological order for you to see. How exciting!!


This photo is of John, Arnica and Emily at the beach in Wellington on our second to last day in NZ, in particularly windy conditions!!!

ROMANIA

This idyllic spot was the first refuge we arrived at in Romania, Cabana Voina at the start of the Fagaras mountains

I know Neroli will appreciate this shot...

The next image is Ed and I walking along in the hot sun on Day 1 of our tramp through the Fagaras mountains.

I reach the friendly signpost on Day 2

We reached a beautiful camp spot beside a tarn after the first days walk, and pitched the two purple tents.

On Day 2 it was another hot sunny day. Here Ed and I are standing on yet another of the multiple summits we climbed each day.

Another great big ridge traverse

The first Cabana we reached after three days of walking and we were very hungry. This is the Cabana with the lady who served us an omelette through a tine hole in the wall! Ed pats the donkey

Another tarn we passed at lunch time, Ed and me again. Chris took lots of the photos... he was always in front so he had time!

The big Cabanas on Day 4. A great sight for hungry stomachs!

A big ridge traverse on Day 4. We are heading towards the wee blue lake you can see. The mountain on the right is Niagere, the 2nd highest mountain in Romania we would climb the next day. On this ridge, just before the lake on the right, is where we were camped when the massive thunderstorm struck during the night, yikes!

And here comes the storm up the valley!!

Chris does a self portrait by our campsite before nightfall. Perhaps he knew something?

And here we are on Day 5 climbing up the Dracula's Chimney on Naigere. There was alot of mist... it was very atmospheric!

The fantastic shelter we found at the end of a very long Day 5. It was pouring with rain, but we were warm, dry, and safe from bears in this rooftop.

THE TRANSYLVANIAN OPEN

Here is me, being rather silly, there is a small gummy bear attacking me on this orienteering control, it is yellow. You may or may not be able to see it. I was a bit worried about bears, so....

Chris, after becoming the first ever kiwi winner of the Transylvanian Open in Cluj!

KIEV

WOW! Another photo of me looking mighty speedy during the sprint event at the WOC Tour sprint event, after which we bathed in the fountains.

Emily in the bustling metro station

Chris in the very modern independance square in central Kiev

The beautiful St Sophia monastry

Chris, all concentration right befoe the start of the sprint final.....

So that´s all for now. Hope you enjoyed the photos, feel free to answer my very informative poll on the top left of this page, Tschüss!

WOC 2007

So, I'm sure you've all been waiting with baited breath for my next entry! It was a bit harder to get some good interneting time in Kiev than I anticipated - often due to the fact that after the main event had been run for the day we then had to wait around several hours before running our 'WOC Tour' events, so some of the days were pretty long.

We spent a few more days in our nice wee apartment in Kiev just before the world champs started. The weather was rediculously hot, it was about 35 during the day, and went down to a mellow 30 degrees at night - which was a bad sign for the orienteering!

We had an interesting night out before the world champs began, we headed out for dinner with Iryna (our Ukrainian 'guide'). When we were in the central square there was a large peel of thunder, and then it bucketed down. Thousands of people ran for the metro, including us, and we were packed on like sardines. We headed a couple of stops along, then got off and out of the metro into the streets which had turned to small rivers by now. Chris and I managed to lose the others in the chaos, and as we didn't know which restaurant we were going to this was a small problem!

By now we were completly soaked, and it was only thanks to my beady eyes that I noticed Rob Jessop's head in the window of a large barge moored beside the river in a Chinese restaurant. Once inside we had a very interesting meal...we ordered a 'banquet' which consisted of vast quantities of prawn crackers and not much else. Dave Melrose decided it was worthwhile to buy some very expensive and delicious red wine, so before long the whole thing seemed highly amusing. We didn't finish our meal till 12.30, and we never really got much to eat, despite the fact the meal was very expensive! Lucky for us Dave generously shouted the meal, so the whole thing seemed rather amusing.

The next day we got on the metro with all our gear and crossed the river to 'Hotel Tourist' where we were staying throughout WOC. For a 3 star hotel it was quite a let down, but that seems a bit typical of Ukraine really, where tourism as we know it is only just beginning to be important or occur. Our room was on the 17th floor and terribly hot. We went out to dinner at another buffet style restaurant that there seemed to be lots of, but the food was pretty average.

The first event was the sprint qualification in Golosivoo park. We meet a South African girl called Jenny who was also competing in the WOC Tour events, and she spent most of the week with us, her sense of humour and open personality seemed to fit in well with the kiwi crowd. Chris had a great run in the sprint and qualified pretty well, Ross snuck in also, but Tania was really unlucky to miss out because of a 1.5 minute mistake.

Nearby our hotel was a fancy mall called 'Komod' which with its nice airconditioning and food court upstars proved our friend. We had pizza for dinner and prepared for the first day of the WOC Tour (a long distance) and the long qualification the next day.

It was interesting for us 'WOC Tour' competitors (by now a good wee crowd of Andrew Jonstone who was photographing for the kiwi team, John Marshall form NZ on an orienteering holiday, Ed, myself and Jenny our adopted friend) to reach most of the events - the organised buses were sometimes good and sometimes non-existant, and public transport worked but was always an adventure.

Chris ran well in the long qualification, but sprained his ankle moderatly badly, so we were a bit worried it might not last the distance. He jumped on the bus and headed home to find some ice while we headed out on our long. The terrain was hilly, with pine forests and some clear patches of terrain too, but we were running in about 36 degree heat so it was hard work!

Day 3 of WOC was the middle qualification, and Chris didn't have a good run. The terrain was very green, lots of nettles and hard to see anything. Both Chris and Rob missed out, while Ross and Tania both had really good runs and qualified well. I had a terrible run in the WOC tour and managed in my state of heat exhaustion to completly miss a control without even realizing, so I was a bit annoyed. We got the bus back to the hotel all feeling a bit hot and grumpy.

Day 4 a rest day and the 'Opening Ceremony'. Chris was to be the flag bearer, so on another (by now normal sweltering day) we headed to the large arch in the nice botanic gardens for thel cermony. There were some good Ukrainian folkdancers wearing those big baggy pants and doing the splits. Chris recieved a loaf of bread (mmm).

After the ceremony we ate in a different part of town before jumping on the metro back to the hotel.

Day 5 was the middle final (a rest day for Chris, whose ankle needed it!) and they had a good arena set up with a bridge that the competitors ran over and a spectator control. The commentator (a Swedish guy) was really good, so that made the events more entertaining. We cheered the kiwis on, but Ross was a bit disapointed with his run, and Tanya wasn't particularly happy with hers either.

We headed out for our runs later, and with my concerted effort to not make mistakes I actually had a good run in the difficult terrain and managed to come 16 out of 37 elite girls so I was pleased (0: This place had no easy public transport, and they stuffed up the buses, so we didn't get back until about 9 oclock for a late dinner.

The next day was the long final, and it was about 38 degrees, which was sad for Chris who was going to have to run 18km! The event was in an historic park with all these windmills and old fashioned cottages so that was cool. We watched Chris run through the spectator control, and cheered him on through the finish. He had struggled in the heat, and made not quite such a good route choice so he was a wee bit disapointed, but we thought he did pretty well considering the conditions, and he ran for 2 hours, so I hate to think how long that course would take us mortals!

That night was the banquet which proved a very interesting affair. We were all bused there, and lots of the teams were very dressed up. Once we got there they informed us that there actually were not enough seats for everyone! We crowded around a table in the middle of the room next to the Australians, but with no air conditioning it was like a sauna and everyone was dripping! Chris proudly showed us his drenched shirt. All the food contained meat, and it all looked pretty dodgy having sat out for some time, so no-one ate much and most people left early which was a bit sad. There was a good band and some entertaining dancing going on, but we retreated early too seeing as Chris had the relay to run in two days time.

On Friday it was a rest day for the world champs, but a sprint event in Golosivo park again for us WOC Tourites. Chris came along to spectate, but in typical Chris fashion got excited and ended up running the sprint too. I messed up and lost about 5 minites (and got chased by another pesky dog, grrr) but consoled myself I would have done quite well if it hadn't been for those minor hiccups. Ed zipped around well too, and afterwards we all got into the fountain! That was great, we were in a park and it was national independance day in Kiev so there was a big concert going on. There were people sitting all round the fountain watching the concert and eating free icecreams and some kids in the fountain, but Ed, Chris and I outlasted them all lying in there! Eventually we dragged ourselves out and metroed home, after a much more relaxing day.

In the evening we went to Independance Square for a concert followed by some fireworks and a huge crowd. It was like a massive version of Classical Sparks in Christchurch, but the crowds seemed very orderly and it was a nice evening. The large thermometer attached to the top of one of the highrises read 31 degrees!

Saturday was the relay event, at the park with the windmills again. We had no girls team, so it was the mens relay we were excited about. Ross had a good run on the first leg, Rob was out for a bit longer on the second, then Chris had a good third leg, but said he made heaps of mistakes. The best bit however was his sprint finish, which got the comentator excited, and kept us highly entertained. As he punched the last control he pulled the silliest face, then took off like a rocket down the finish shoot, catching everyone's attention, even though the winners were long since in!

We had to wait till 5 oclock for our WOC Tour runs, so it was actually getting a bit dark in the forest by the end! It was a long distance event again. I had a good start and got the first 6 controls really well, but then I took a bad route choice and ended up bashing up a hill into a paddock full of headhigh stinging nettles. In the paddock was a Ukrainian lady who started shouting at me to get out of her paddock, so I bashed down the hill wildly into a marsh were it was getting deeper and deeper and smelled of poo! Not liking this at all I scrambled back up into the nettle paddock, where the Ukraiinian lady started shouting at me again! I tried to get out of the paddock, but the nettles were too thick and I really did feel like Peter Rabbit! Eventually the lady actually took pity on me, and allowed me to pass through the way I had been trying to go all akong, out to the road, across a bridge very fast because I could hear dogs, and finally on to my next control. Phew! But I was abit traumatised, and my next 20 controls were not done so well, so I finished tired, stung, covered in mud, but happy it was over!

Once we got back to the hotel we collapsed into bed, and I had my usual 2 cold showers before bed, then one when I woke up stinking hot at about 3am every night, then another one in the morning. Chris had a similar routine.

The final day of WOC was the sprint event in the Botanic Gardens. It was thankfully a little cooler, and I got some photos of Chris on the start shoot before he took off. He had a pretty good run, but would have done even better had he not made a 30 second mistake on the second to last control..poos. It's so easy to make a tiny mistake in the sprint and it's all over. But he was happy to have finished.

We spent the afternoon with Iryna, who took us to the flower show, the World War 2 memorial with lots of tanks, planes and bombs, yikes! Then we went through the 'Caves Monastry' with lots of coffins!

That night Johan, a Danish media person had organised a party. We got tickets, and everyone got to go on a boat for 1.5 hours to an island up river where they had a disco. It was heaps of fun, and we were enjoying the dancing on the island. Unfortunatly for us it was spoiled a bit because someone (presumably someone local) found our pack and stole my nice new cell phone )0:, our hotel keys and my nice top, so we had to get a bus back to the hotel asap. Chris went to the police with Iryna and wasn't back till 5am. The hotel keys thankfully turned up (they were in someone elses bag which had also had things stolen from it) but not my cell phone or top.

The next day we packed up from the hotel and left on a bit of a sour note because we had to pay extra mony for some towels we supposedly lost, but we never actually had any to begin with, which made us pretty annoyed. We cuaght a bus out to the airport and hung around for a few hours before the flight to Münich. I also stupidly left the nice swiss army knife we bought in Kiev in my pack, so we lost that too! All and all I feel I've lost a fair bit of stuff in the last few days.

Nevermind, on the 2 hour flight we got some yummy pasta, and on arriving in Münich we successfully caught a train, got a nice hostel to stay in and ate dinner in a really nice restaurant with the yummiest food and lots of women serving wearing traditional clothing and holding big jugs of beer. We were very appreciative of the nice food, in Ukraine it seemed pretty hard to get anything very nice or wholesome for dinner, and I think we will appreciate the next we while of wealthy westerness, even if isn't as much of an adventure (-: