Staging Camp - Lake Varese, Italy

Wow, it is to believe, but we are in Italy!

If you have ever wanted to be comfortable flying you must fly on an A380 Airbus. This is the plane we were lucky enough to get from Sydney to Singapore. What an amazing airraft, there is so much room it is unbelieveable. This eight hour flight was a "piece of cake", unfortunately we didn't have the A380 for the next 12 1/2 hour flight from Singapore to Milan. But all in all it wasn't too bad, we were all pretty lucky and got some sleep. Mind you some more than others! The only problem that I seem to have is the fact that sitting for so long seizes up my body. I was up a number of times to stretch but even that didn't help too much.

I must say that the airport in Singapore is the most amazing airport I have ever seen! Terminal 3 which we landed at had to be at least 5km long! The shops were amazing and we had to stop Alex from heading into the top of the line name brand places. It was a bit more difficult getting Matt not to look at the shoes shops. In fact there was one shoe shop named "Pedro". Needless to say we had to go in there. (For those that don't know Pedro is our coach)

Once we arrived in Milan, retrieved our luggage (at least most of us got our luggage - 10 pieces, oars, and other boat bits went to Barcelona!) we headed out into the fresh air and boarded a bus for Varese. I just assumed the trip would be via a highway, as that is what it started out as, but after 10 minutes we were on these narrow, twisting roads surrounded by thick forest. This led through small village type areas with some amazing old buildings, which had I been here travelling on my own I would have stopped at to explore. I was sitting beside Alex and unfortunatley this turning and twisting along the road was making her feel a bit queasy. I could understand why!

We arrived at our destination, the Continental Hotel, on the shores of Lake Varese, but it is also in the vicinity of two other lakes, Comabbio and Monate, and about 4km from the actual city of Varese. The hotel itself is comfortabel, with 2 of us each sharing a room. It certainly caters for sporting minded people with a large pool out the front, a football pitch and a covered tennis court at the side.

It was still fairly early in the morning (our flight had arrived at 6:30 a.m.), so we unpacked, then met in the dining room for some breakfast to discuss what the days plan would be. We decided that we needed to stretch the legs a bit more so as a group went for a short walk behind the hotel. There was a bike path that I am told goes around the entire lake, which would be well over 16km, but we walked for about 20 minutes and headed back so that we could go down to the boatshed.

The drive to the shed was interesting! Matt (our support staff member) was given the task of driving. This was his first time driving "on the wrong side of the road", on again, narrow, twisting roads and trying to follow Pedro (our coach), who being Swiss was used to driving on these roads! I sat beside Matt to remind him that the driver always stays in the middle of the road, just so he would remember which side to drive on. Matt was concentrating so hard I don't think he saw anything he drove past, which was amazing architecture, well over 100 years old and the views! The views were stunning, with the Swiss alps in the background! But we did make it to the rowing club in one piece.

The rowing club that we are situated at and who have kindly donated a boat for us to use is called Cannottieri Gravirate. We spent the next couple of hours setting the boat up, getting the rigging, foot stretchers and slides all in the right position for each of us. The weather was starting to get hot and humid, and by the time we decided to head back to the hotel for lunch it was 30 degrees.

After lunch, a bit of a swim and relax by the pool, we were once again back in the car and heading down to the shed. It was time to test the new boat. I was getting really tired as I am sure the rest of the crew was and thought it was going to be interesting to see how we actually rowed, but it wasn't too bad.

What was amazing was rowing and looking around at the mountainous area! I wanted to have a camera with me in the boat! Here we were supposed to be concentrating on rowing and all I wanted to do was look around me! What a beautiful area. The wind had picked up a bit during the afternoon so the lake wasn't the calm, pristine, water that we had seen in the morning, but that didn't really matter be ause it was so beautiful. We had to bring the boat back to the landing to again change a few things and then went back out to check that the changes had worked. Actually it was just another opportunity to look at the beauty surrounding us.

The boat is different than the one we have been training in for the last few months. We are using a Wintec boat here and the hull is a different shape, so the row was a bit rocky as we learn to get the balance in this boat, but it ran across the water really well. It feels much heavier to lift but lighter in the water and we are using the oars that the Junior women had at their championships and they are lighter than the ones we have trained with. They also won the World Junior Championships with these oars, so who knows...maybe they are an omen!

We also met some of our competition as well! The Italian team are training here as well, so it was interesting to have a look at how they row. The Italians did win Gold at the Beijing Paralympics in our class, but I am told that the crew has changed with 2 of their members retiring. Not sure if this is true or not, but we certainly didn't look any different than them rowing.

After we had washed our boat down and put it away, we headed back to the hotel for a shower and dinner. My body was so sore that I made a stop at Judi, the physio's room to see if she could fit me in; thank god she had no one there and was able to put my body back into working order. She said she was actually happy that I had stopped by as she was trying to stay awake, so it was good for both of us!

I have to say that the food here so far is fantastic! Served in a buffet style it is fresh, interesting and fulfilling. The staff here at the hotel have been really nice and eager to assist if you need anything. They have even put my ice vest in the ice cream/gelati freezer!

After dinner all I could think of was putting my head down on a pillow! We had been going for over 48 hours with a few hours of sleep on the plane and my body was certainly looking forward to sliding into lala land! I am looking forward to the rest of the week of training, with a few side trips around the area, to soak up the local culture, language and food!