Our Extra Camp

We have come to Penrith for another camp after our successful campaign to gain selection to the Australian Rowing Team for the World Championships. Lisa and I flew up to Sydney from Melbourne yesterday and met up with Matt Bialkowski (our support person for Europe) for a lift to the regatta course. Alex and Henry were meeting us there and Pete is flying in this morning.

Also at SIRC this week is the Australian Junior team who have their staging camp before they head off to France for the Junior World Championships. So it is with interest that we can see the next wave of rowers to come through the ranks, watch their training and be able to be a part of their send off.

Matt had a little surprise for Lisa upon our arrival in the form of a new cox box. Now most of us would not be too excited about a cox box, but for Lisa it was like a little bit of Christmas. What is a cox box some of you none rowers are asking...well it connects to the boat so that Lisa can speak to us...maybe yell at us at times...and we can hear her. There are also other components that tell her our stroke rate and if the boat is fitted with proper wiring actually tell her how fast we are going. The exciting thing for Lisa was that it was in Aussie colours and had a kangaroo on either side of it, so this made her day!


This will be the longest camp that we have had, at 6 days and I am certainly looking forward to seeing how we can "come together" even more. It certainly will be a tough slog this week with 3 sessions a day but we are ready for the challenge.

I know that for all of us this campaign is really exciting and we all have some incredible people behind us for support. For me, well I wouldn't be able to do all this without the support of my husband Russ. We haven't been home too much in the last 3 months, with selections, camps and now the upcoming travel overseas but without our family support systems in place this wouldn't be possible. So to Pete's partner, the parents of Alex, Lisa and Henry and to my own husband...thank you for your love and support.

Bring on the week!