 valerie
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Posted: 17 April 2009, 2:09 PM
Well done everyone.....esp NBHS Junior Boys and "my baby". LOL
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jh
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Posted: 18 April 2009, 3:17 AM
All great stuff from everyone...you all deserve a great home-coming after such a wonderful effort in such terrible weather. Our breakfasts just won't be the same next week - we look up maptalk then the sso/spain site. And what a GOOD photo on the website Derek...well, some NZer needs to become famous from this event but what were the odds it was going to be a travelling Dad first up! Looking forward to hearing more of your stories on Friday. See you in Helensville. Cheers from NZ, Jane Herries.
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valerie
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Posted: 18 April 2009, 8:34 PM
Well done to everyone!!! Great way to spend a sat nite watching results come in....it took ages for the update!! Very nerve racking for this mum!! If any of you interested...mainly Tim, Louise and Derek, Rochelle Sceats won the Junior section of the NZ Moutain Running in Wellinton yesterday....a great feat. Well done to duncan.....very proud mum.xxxx
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Chris
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Posted: 19 April 2009, 2:15 AM
fantástico, fabuloso, quijotesco, quijotil, quimérico!
We are all impressed with your efforts. Enjoy the relays.
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tim in spain
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Posted: 20 April 2009, 1:16 PM
Hi there everyonewhat an action packed couple of days. The actual results are all online at the event website BUT I thought I would summarize them for you...but then all my results are locked in another room !!! So tomorrow morning I will get the summary of results for you. It´s party time here at Alcala de Henares - after a very busy freindship race today. The race was like this... 3 complete strangers who do not speak the same language, from 3 different countries, are given a map with 43 controls to find. Each person must collect at least 5 of them by themselves, 4 must be collected as a trio -together- and as a team they must cover all of the entire group. A bit like a score event but with serious attitude. It was great seeing the massed start - all the children in their teams all starting at the same time in this small valley just on the outskirts of Alcala de >Henares. About 600 kids all went with the start explosion ! The terrian was tough, the map was large and some of our kis teams did exceptiojally well. I´ll summarize tomorrow. Talking of results we have done well. While we have not got a top 2 placing, we have some 3rds - in two cases being beaten by only Sweden, Latvia and portugal - orienteering giants !!! We have taken on many of the countries and surprised them ! Today at the closing and prizegiving we were given the Fair Play trophy - EVERy one of our teams is coming home with a medal and we have a great trophy ! The fairplay award has been nominated by each country, commitee member and staff member. Since getting the award, many delegations have told me that they nominated NZ for the award because: our kids attitude in the field, the way the listened to their coaches and to the staff, the way they participated in all activities - the list goes on. I´ll try to collate the list because I will write to the school principals to tell them. My bus has been called so I must run..more tomorrow Tim
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tim in spain
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Posted: 20 April 2009, 1:19 PM
Hi there,
It´s Monday morning, the kids are all packed up and their gear is stacked in the Gym. We have lunch here at Natur Alcala and the bus will pick us up about 2pm local time to take us to the airport.
The kids are currently ´hanging´with the Scotland team who have been here with us at this venue. Most are playing soccer. It is a beautiful spanish day - expected high of 24 degrees. We are leaving and the good weather is arriving !!!
Derek´s checking all the results and has found a few errors that affect us - he is working on these to produce a summary of results for all.
The results I promised last night from the middle distance race on Saturday are following.
Junior Girls 6th place which placed them mid field
Senior Girls 3rd place, beaten by Sweden and Portugal
Junior Boys 6th place
Senior Boys 3rd place, beaten by Sweden and Finland
As you can see the seniors have done extremely well, and all four teams can be so proud of their efforts. There are many countries that we have performed better than.
The results I promised last night for the overall results from all races are following.
Junior Girls 9th place
Senior Girls 5th place, beaten by Sweden, Portugal, Estonia, England
Junior Boys 4th place, beaten by Estonia,Austria, Spain
Senior Boys 5th, beaten by Sweden, France, Finland, Austria
The individual results as I mentioned are being analysed now. The website also gives very good indiviual result coverage. The re are also some great photos there of the kiwis in action.
Well, I´ll send this now and head over to check lunch prep. We have arranged it for 12.00 - to start getting our meals back into kiwi time !
Take care and we might not be able to respond to emails or calls until we are in NZ. Please bear with us. Our plan is to ´hide out´in auckland upon our return so the kids are resting and sleeping - the North Island event is very important to both schools. We will encourage all the kids to be in contact with you once they are reaquainted with their phones, but after sleep etc... We are keen for the family catch ups as soon as we can arrange. We´ll also have email access from my laptop once in auckland for family contact as well.
Gulp...here´s the next big leg starting ! See you in NZ !
Tim
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tim in spain
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Posted: 22 April 2009, 11:44 PM
Hi there everyone,
we are just about to get brekky organised for the kids and so we thought we'd get this out quickly.
We arrived back safely just after midday yesterday. We had left Madrid at 6ish on Monday evening madrid time, which was 6ish in the morning on Tuesday. So the kids travelled for about 30hrs to get home. Our flights we great, dircet to London, an hout wait there, on to Bangkok with a 3 hr wait that turned into about 2 hrs and a 40min quick connection in Sydney. It did mean that the kids did get a compulsary walk at these airports to keep the blood moving. The flights weere smooth all the way and the kids settled into the meals on board routine well as well.
After arriving in NZ we had lunch at the airport and waited to collect the girls transport. The rental company kindly lent us an other van and trailer so we could transport the boys as well in one go. They pick up their van this morning. We had a run in the late afternoon and headed to manakau for dinner, again using the one van for both groups as a shuttle. By just after 8pm the whole contingent was tucked up in bed
The girl's NI champs bags arrived as we arrived yesterday, so phones came out and many of them made contact with home and that was very exciting.
Well, the kids are up - they have slept so well but I have to help with brekky now.
The girls are having a quiet morning, a swim at a local pool, lunch out and about and then off to our camp where we meet the others from HB.
The boys will meet us there at some stage - I am not sure of their plans yet.
The girls have a quiet morning
many changed money yesterday and we did remind the girls that they have no more expenses - they should be bringing money home !
bags arrived safely, apart from Jenny Hawkins bag that went on it's own little holiday, it'll arrive in HB in the next day or so.
Pauline Faiers and Jenny Hawkins left the group yesterday - heading home to HB - thanks so much for all you both have done !
The kids we very surprised/annoyed/bemused by their fat ankles after the flights - a bit of fluid retention !
Catch you on the next update later...
Tim
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tim in spain
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Posted: 24 April 2009, 1:09 PM
this is a bit later than i had hoped for. I'm up the road parked on the side of the road in better 3g access for my Tcard.
What a busy day. We have done well today, but a mixed day fro results.
It was great to see the other boys and girls arrive last night at the camp and today we worked hard making sure that we had everyobne mixed up a little. Every room has spain trip and non spain trip people in it for example.
The spain kids found it a bit tough today - lack of energy was the most common complaint. Thed junior girls course was good, but had an incorrect control on it, that they corrected half way thru' the competitors. We were coming 1st and 2nd, but we had to put in a protest because it did affect half the girls. We are still waitng to see how it has effected the results.
It was so goo catching up with other bay folk - havelock north High parked alongside, karamu was there, woodford, lindisfarne. The other HB parents did warmly greet our spanish arrivals and asked them good questions.
With all the tiredness etc... I do think more than half of them would go back tomorrow if they could.
After the race we all went up to Parakai hot spa by helensville (interesting that our PM lives in a town bearing the name of his old arch rival ! He was in his office as we drove past kumeu this morning, complete with his single police escort. Quite different to 10 Downing St was one of the girl's remarks.)
Tomorrow is the relay - we have to be on site about 9:15, so it'll be an early start to finish packing, clean up, have brekky and depart.
I do hope it all runs to time tomorrow because we do want to be there for the prizegiving. If it all runs late, we'll have to leave to catch the plane. Some of the girls may well get a medal tomorrow at the prizegiving.
We are looking forward to seeing you at the airport tomorrow, I for one am thrilled we are not driving back.
See you tomorrow
Tim
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tim in spain
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Posted: 26 April 2009, 9:02 AM
Well,
It was great to see you all at the airport and I am sure the girls all enjoyed being back in their own beds last night. Hopefully the jetlag is wearing off. If they try not to sleep during the day, keep them going, then they will sleet better and through the night. (not that I am an expert).
The sleeping bags and extra bags are now back at our house so as people are in town or bringing kids back into school they can be collected. Give me a ring first so I can be at home. The sleeping bags aren't named so I don't really know who is whose.
They should all have passports and boarding passes that I held onto. Some didn't get their Qantas points all put onto the flights so you should check this at some stage and the boarding passes are the only proof that they took the flight so hold onto them.
For those still needing to change euros over of pounds if you find a TRavelex place (I think there is one in Palmy and apparently the Bay ( haven't looked yet though) you do get points from qantas for changing it over but they need the card... not just the number written on a piece of paper.
Hopefully the girls did get to bring some money home for you ???? there were no costs for them in Madrid... we paid for some rail travel and paid for the extra lunch on the leaving day, back in NZ they were given money for the times we had takeaway teas or brought lunch and had money left over from petrol to pay for 2 hot swims while in Auckland too so the Spain girls weren't using their own money.
In London the sight seeing was:-
Westminster Abbey £10
St pauls £2
London show - averaged £32
London Eye £8
Bath day trip £59
Tower of london was paid for in NZ
We will try and do something about sharing photos and perhaps putting them on a disc to combine a variety of photos. I know I stood at the start 2 days running taking inidividual ones of them beginning their races and of course crossing the river in the friendship run. so that will be a little job in the next 2-3 weeks.
They were an awesome group to take away and Tim and I were really impressed with their behaviour, the way they dug deep when they were weary and just got on with 'the job'. They were fantastic. You should all be very proud of your daughters. ,,,,, They managed to switch from the 'sightseeing' mode of London to the real business of orienteering and focus while in Spain even when they were tired ! Hey and we even got back without paying excess baggage which was one of our biggest worries.........
Enjoy having them home and catching up with all their news
regards
louise
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tim in spain
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Posted: 26 April 2009, 9:03 AM
Well,
It was great to see you all at the airport and I am sure the girls all enjoyed being back in their own beds last night. Hopefully the jetlag is wearing off. If they try not to sleep during the day, keep them going, then they will sleet better and through the night. (not that I am an expert).
The sleeping bags and extra bags are now back at our house so as people are in town or bringing kids back into school they can be collected. Give me a ring first so I can be at home. The sleeping bags aren't named so I don't really know who is whose.
They should all have passports and boarding passes that I held onto. Some didn't get their Qantas points all put onto the flights so you should check this at some stage and the boarding passes are the only proof that they took the flight so hold onto them.
For those still needing to change euros over of pounds if you find a TRavelex place (I think there is one in Palmy and apparently the Bay ( haven't looked yet though) you do get points from qantas for changing it over but they need the card... not just the number written on a piece of paper.
Hopefully the girls did get to bring some money home for you ???? there were no costs for them in Madrid... we paid for some rail travel and paid for the extra lunch on the leaving day, back in NZ they were given money for the times we had takeaway teas or brought lunch and had money left over from petrol to pay for 2 hot swims while in Auckland too so the Spain girls weren't using their own money.
In London the sight seeing was:-
Westminster Abbey £10
St pauls £2
London show - averaged £32
London Eye £8
Bath day trip £59
Tower of london was paid for in NZ
We will try and do something about sharing photos and perhaps putting them on a disc to combine a variety of photos. I know I stood at the start 2 days running taking inidividual ones of them beginning their races and of course crossing the river in the friendship run. so that will be a little job in the next 2-3 weeks.
They were an awesome group to take away and Tim and I were really impressed with their behaviour, the way they dug deep when they were weary and just got on with 'the job'. They were fantastic. You should all be very proud of your daughters. ,,,,, They managed to switch from the 'sightseeing' mode of London to the real business of orienteering and focus while in Spain even when they were tired ! Hey and we even got back without paying excess baggage which was one of our biggest worries.........
Enjoy having them home and catching up with all their news
regards
louise
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