Tribute to the Clayton Classic

January 2010
Fernhill, Hawkes Bay NZ

Competitors from Canada to Te Awamutu

... unite for the 3rd annual CLAYTON CLASSIC TENNIS TOURNAMENT

The weather was bluebird...

The food was great...

The outfits were pure class...

The Grandstand was pumping...

The competition was fierce...

Conditions were perfect!

Competitor Profiles:

'ManFox and LadyFox'

Tyler & Lou

'MussEnroe'

Corey & Josh'Pink As'

Emi & Laura'Perrybink'

Timmy & Hessie'Team Bayskins'

B & Soph

Kings of the Klayton Klassic... aka KKK

Jono & Dave

Thanks must go to:

Pete and Bron were hosting the event once again and letting us use the ThunderCat!

The official event photography team (everyone)

AND...

Huge congradulations must go to returning champs MussEnroe for taking the title once again!

Kayaking Kadavu

I always thought that Fiji and sea kayaking were 2 words synonymous with relaxing... so when Dave and I embarked on a 9 day sea kayaking circumnavigation of Kadavu Island in Fiji... we thought we were in for a holiday filled with warm weather, lots of swimming and snorkelling, calm seas and fresh fish and tropical fruit aplenty... we were not expecting a level 2 cyclone to violently smash over our heads, 40 km long days, really rough seas and the Kadavu mini mafia! But thats what we got... and what a great adventure it was!

Our spot behind the pilot on our way to Kadavu

Our journey started on this micro plane (6 seater including pilot and co pilot) that transported us to Kadavu Island - a rather large but sparsely populated remote Island south of Veti Levu (Fiji's main land). We were provided with chainsaw airmuffs to protect our ears from the engines directly beside us. And rocked back and forth for an hour in the little shoebox while 2 Fijian kids behind us giggled the whole way at the turbulance and noise.

Ratu's house/palm trees: the start and end of our journey!

We were greeted by a boatman who took us on a rough ride 25km to Ratu's place (the Fijian partner of Tamarillo Kayaks who we were hiring the kayak from). Where we were greeted by the whole family, feed gorgeous fresh seafood and most importantly... taught how to participate in a kava ceremony whilst drinking a lot of it at the same time. (Kava is a slighty narcotic muddy drink that is an important part of Fijian culture. Daily kava ceremony's occur in the villages and it is always used as a gift, and/or peace offering... during our time on Kadavu kava got us food, shelter, drug offers and lots of smiles).

A whole lot of Kava about to be transported to Veti Levu for Christmas Presents

To sum the trip up...

The circumnavigation was 200km long and took 8 days to complete. 2 of those days we were off the water due to the fact that a cyclone bowled over the top of us and therefore we couldn't move.

The aftermath of one resort after the cyclone came through!

We frequently paddled 30-40km days and occasionally stayed in remote villagers, other times camped and other times got put up in 5 star resorts (can actually thank the cyclone for that!)

Happy times paddling!

Two kayaking shots showing the best weather of the trip!

Kadavu Island is framed by the Astrolobe Reef which is the 3rd largest coral reef in the world!

The Kadavu Airport sometimes closes for weeks at a time without notice, leaving tourists and locals alike stranded on the Island (this also happened to us)

The local boat we luckily got a ride on since the Kadavu Airport was closed with no reopening time!

We had to portage the Mt Washington section due to crazy winds and huge surf so we offered kava to a local guy with a truck and before we knew it flew down the dusty track by truck (which looking back on that truck ride - was just as dangerous as the seas!)

Another type of portage... on Veti Levu when the bus driver thought he would portage the road!

We stayed with the nicest locals who put us up in their homes, and sometimes there our rooms while they slept in the lounge with the kids, feed us fresh local produce, forcefeed us Kava and even gave us take away lunches for the next day!

Our take away lunch of pumpkin tuna curry with rice... compliments of Lamma (our previous nights host!)

And washing down lunch with some fresh coconut!

The whole Island was outstandingly beautiful!

And here's some more pic's to show how the trip went...

Gangsta yaker!

Feeling refreshed after 2 days rest in Padageno Resort (after the cyclone subsided!)

The perfectly preserved shell of this little fella had us mesmerized for hours!

Our home... the night before the cyclone rolled in!

Day 1, picture perfect weather and scenary... blissfully unaware of the weather that was to come!

Argentina yoga camp

After finishing up our ski season in Chile, we headed to Argentina for a week of skiing there before going our seperate ways - Em and Joe headed back to Chile for abit more skiing then some adventures in Patagonia's National Parks, while I stayed on in Argentina to experience a random but unforgottable time in a Hari Krishna Community.

So it was time to leave behind the luxurys of the ski industry and head to a rural farm 2 hours south of B.A to volunteer my time, give up my coffee addiction, detox from Pisco, practice plenty of yoga and learn some Spanish.

The farm itself was hilariously odd. It had a massive vegie garden... and not really anything else agriculturally based on it. But it did house a massive stark white dome temple, at least 5 other miniture temples, a permanently closed art room and 2m high pizza oven!!!

There was a huge restaurant that was always empty and a few houses that the permanent residents lived in. The community was made up 4 families, many single Hari Krishna followers and 1/2 a dozen international volunteers.

Each person would volunteer 5-6 hours of service per day (the women were put on garden duty while the men had the task to build new houses for future tourists) in exchange for food and housing, plus daily yoga and or spirituality sessions.

This was a sweet gig!!!! Our days consisted of breakie at 7am, sleeping for another 1 hour, morning tea, working in the garden til lunch, lunch, working in the garden til 3pm, afternoon tea, sleeping for an hour, yoga, sleeping for another hour, dinner at 8pm then bed... oh man it was good!!!!!!

So many seista's/down time, copious amounts of delicious vegetarian organic food and amazing yoga sessions!!! I loved it!!

And the area was phenomenally beautiful. I have never seen temples like these before!!!! Huge mosiac's portraying different deity's covered the internal temple walls, 5m high stained glass windows, plus dozen's of 5L old wine bottles poked through the walls so that at night the light would beam out in every direction through the different coloured bottles.

One of the more bizarre things however was the worship of the 1 foot dolls behind the red curtain in the temple. The community believed that these dolls were the Gods themselves and therefore they would make food sacrifices 6 times a day, change the outfits on the gods every morning (they had 30 different costumes), pray to the gods and open the curtains only when people were present - the rest of the time the curtain would be closed. It was bizarre but they were the nicest people so we went along with it!!!

And then there was the yoga - the whole reason I went there!!! We had hour long sessions daily with one of many yoga teachers that lived onsite or locally. The entire session was in Spanish (so I learnt very quickly to observe first then do the moves).

It was amazing to do yoga everyday for 2 week, and the amount that everyone improved was crazy. There was a very different ability range as volunteers would come and go and therefore there was always someone new in the class.

But everyones flexibility and strength improved dramatically over the course of their stay.

However on one of our walks around the district, Anna (American volunteer) got a little friendly with one of the local dogs and found herself in a wee bit of a predicament when the dog got territorial and attacked her!!! It was pretty tame, but she was fine - just with a couple canine-shaped tooth scars on her legs to prove it!!!

While on the farm we led the simple life - no coffee, no meat, no dairy, no internet, no phones, no booze, no tv's or radios and no processed food either!!! So we just worked, ate the food provided, went on walks around the area, attempted to learn a second language... and slept. Fantastic I tell ya!!