Trans-Canada

We drove out to LA airport & found Finn & Foxy straight away. The first people to come thru the arrival gates however were Ricky & Raewyn Drehuis from Alex, just to prove that kiwis are everywhere!
A whirlwind trip thru 8 lanes of LA traffic to give Foxy his first sniff of real climate changing carbon, with a 30 minute stop at Chinatown (cos we couldnt find Hollywood in the maze of concrete).Then back thru the US Homeland Security apparatus & onto Air Canada & away. Stopped near airforce #1 at Toronto (Barak was in town) & connected onto flight to Ottawa the capital of Canada. Wilderness Tours picked us up & drove out thru the green forests of Ontario to their base & the beginning of the freestyle adventure.
Actually no kayaking untill next morning when all our guys were given their Jacksons. Max & Finn went out to Garbarator wave all day with their coach Joel Kowalski (5th at last worlds) while Foxy went to the pop up wave with his coach, world champion Nick Troutman. Otie

started with his Teen camp group & spent the day on flat water perfecting his roll & sorting his hand roll. Oties highlight however was catching & holding a water snake. The girls in his group all squealed loudly. On Monday evening all keeners gave an introductory speech about themselves And me, I hitched into Renfrew & got plane tickets to Nova Scotia & Newfoundland.

Exit winter & hello California

The Rayners bailed out of winter on 16 June leaving Alexandra via Queenstown with a big cargo of 5 bikes & kayaks. Mixed feelings as we farewelled our Ruby dog & all our buddies and drove past snow covered ranges under a cold blue sky. Wonderful Air New Zealand shipped all of our stuff across the Pacific as our baggage & we got strange looks as we wheeled 4 full trollies of boats & boxes out of LAX into the summer streets of Los Angeles. We discovered the convenience of a U Haul truck to Orange County down a teeming freeway.

First stop was a visit to Grandma in hospital, nothing like the visit of happy grandkids to speed up recuperation.

The next few days saw Mary's VW start first time after a 12 month break

and home schooling get underway.

A test run of the VW loaded with all our gear on the roof in the style of an Indian bus saw us

drive north to stay with Mary's longtime friend

Karen & her Italian husband & their kids.

We got up early to watch the big game with another Italian guy who came over to watch the kiwi shoot. But as we all know it was pasta for brekky and not kiwifriut, and boy did it taste good.

Then over the mountains for a bit of mountainbiking near Bakersfield & then up to Kernsville in the Sierra Nevada mountains. High water for kayaking and warm sunny skies.

Max & Gordie & 3 locals went up & did Brush Creek a short 2 mile run dropping 300 feet per mile in some parts over granite slides. Awesome fun but very daunting first time down. Right near the end after 2 runs Gordie ran a portage drop, whacked his elbow & walked out with a dislocated shoulder. The evening socializing plans were altered to accomodate a trip to hospital with the emergency team putting his shoulder back in. They did a great job and the highlight there was the scream of a nurse when she found a small gopher snake in the emergency room, with the doctor stopping what he was

doing to scoop up and release the reptile outside.

Over the next couple of days Mary & the kids did kayaking runs on the Kern & we went for a short hike up in one the Sequoia groves high up in the mountains being rewarded with sightings of woodpeckers, squirrels & fighting skinks among these magnificent & huge trees. We caught up with some old friends, barbequed & drank Kern River Brewing black stout.

A night drive back to OC stopping only to look at a belligerent & hissing bull snake on the side of the road and an on road burger. Now we are back in urban USA getting ready for the boys to head to Ottawa.