Anna and I are back from Manly and now taking two weeks off sand trainings to refresh for the international season ahead.

Often at this time of year Anna or I, or both of us can have a "lull" feeling which comes after the last event of the tour. It is almost like the winter blues or end of season blues except we are far from the end of our season and we never have winter:) However the lull doesnt last long as we have an exciting time ahead of us after nearly consolidating our calendar for the season and we are also off to Manly to train for 10 days on Sunday.

Im just not feeling the Christmas vibe yet, but I have another week to get into it I guess. The lack of Christmas feeling could be due to my resistance to be part of the madness in the shops at this time of year. But to please my loved ones with pressies I have to get in there :) However there is one thing that lets me know Christmas is near each year.........the Pohutukawa trees and I love seeing these each day along Tamaki Drive. Thats a unique NZ Christmas sign just for us:)

Anna and I are currently in Sanya, China for our second to last World Tour event of the 09 seaon. We have been preparing well in Auckland through the cold snaps, the rain and the start of the summer sun.

We were thrown a slight curve ball prior to this event with the introduction of a new ball, but only for this event. We had not been sent this new ball to train with like the majority of the other teams here and it is certainly different!! Its floating capabilities and texture make for some crazy serve receptions!! Its all lined up one second and not there the next.

It has been a while since our last entry because we have been busy competing and have now passed half way of the 8 weeks of continuous competition.

So Id better go back a few weeks. Marseille was a strange event with a bye through to the main draw for us, wind delaying play and fire in the hills. Our first training in Marseille was not a good exhibition of our skills, but after moving to a more sheltered court for the next training I was feeling more positive.

 We have arrived back in Hamburg after completing 8 days training in Munster with another German pairing (we are making the most of the depth in the German players:). I now have my passport in my hot hands after being separated from it for 2 weeks while it got a Russian Tourist Visa back in NZ. It's bizarre that my passport has done more travelling that me? It was rather scary handing it over at the post office, entrusting it to the international postal system!!!

I was having a conversation yesterday with my kind Kiwi host about how people communicated before the internet. Many travellers rely on access to the internet and without it we are stranded, hence the beauty of wireless. This conversation came about as we watched the French Open final on the TV and at the same time the semi finals and finals of the Austrian Beach Volleyball Champs on the internet. Even though it was in Austria, all european teams can compete at these events. It's like a smaller version of an FIVB event really with such depth in the teams.

This win meant that we played against one of the Great Britain teams who we regularly train with. We won the first set and had our chance to win in 2 sets but lost the lead, and again the set stretched out to 26-28 to take it to a 3rd set. We took the 3rd set 15-12 and believe me, the high and relief of qualifying never ever gets old. In many ways when you play in the qualifier before the main draw it can feel like two separate tournaments. It was an extremely satisfying day to end with a qualification, but my goodness we can make hard work of it sometimes:)

As Anna mentioned last week we have an annoying gap between the china event of two weeks ago and the japan event next because of our budget we don't fly home in this gap so we are staying with friends who live in Japan in a city it is awesome to stay in places where we know people and can settle for a week or two and create some routine instead of constantly packing our bags and moving.  The weather was not kind to us last week but by the weekend it had kindly cleared so we drove to utsumi beach which is about an hour and mins from we went there with the intention of training but there

Its just after 5am here in Shanghai and for the second morning in a row I am wide awake before the birds. Its a frustrating part of travel and often something we cant control. But I dont feel as sleep deprived as I did yesterday morning when I woke after 4 hours sleep. Last night I achieved 8 hours, I just feel asleep a bit too early.

It was pretty much a week full of trainings and study last week.

After a delayed departure from New Zealand due to my broken finger and surgery we have now made a start on our six month journey and the first port of call is Adelaide, Australia. After no rain here for 90 straight days we have brought the rain and some cooler temperatures with us, much to our disappointment.
 
We are glad to be here and training with the Australian Institute of Sport teams who give us the quality competition and training we need before our first event in Shanghai, China at the end of April.

Hi Everyone...

We have now finished the New Zealand Beach Volleyball Tour. Overall we had a successful tour with some great wins against the German and American teams. We were disappointed to not make the final in Auckland after a close match with the Brazilian team and will have to wait till next year to take out the New Zealand Open. We were the over all series winners with 3 wins, 1 second and 1 third placing.