Advertisement
Published: October 12th 2007
Here's my run-down of Nationals. The best stories are in the pictures, though, so be sure to look through those...
Tuesday - The Departure I woke up bright and early Tuesday morning for my flight to exciting Newcastle, New South Wales on the east coast for the AUSTRALIAN FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIPS!! Almost the entire team was on my same flight, which had a stop-over in Sydney. The highlights of the trip included the AMAZING views of Sydney from above and the wonderful plane for the 20-minute flight from Sydney to Newcastle. Danae and I had been joking in Perth that it would be one of those tiny planes with propellors and stuff - and we were actually RIGHT!! I was in row 9 and it was the LAST ROW!! Fun stuff!
Anyways, that night we basically checked into our stylish Caravan Park (Australian-Canadian translation: TRAILOR PARK) and went out for dinner at one of Newcastle's fine dining establishments (aka a casino with a buffet.)
Wednesday - Charlestown Shopping Centre Nationals didn't officially start until Wednesday night, so in the day on Wednesday a group of us went to the local shopping centre and saw what Newcastle had to
offer. It was...exciting...
Thursday - Official Practice Thursday was our first official practice, which is basically a regular practice only shorter, more intense, and at Nationals. Sometimes judges show up, sometimes other teams come to "spy", sometimes teams from Queensland decide to be arrogant and have "closed sessions" and don't let you come in, even to use the toilet, while they're on the ice. It's good fun.
Friday - Official Practice and Draw We had another, slightly shorter, official practice on Friday. We also had the draw which is where the teams draw for order. We drew first. I'm not a big fan of skating first, but at least it means clean ice and that you can watch other teams without being too nervous.
We were all feeling pretty tired by the end of the day, but we still had an off-ice practice scheduled for after dinner. In order to get us all in a better mood, one of the girls on the team decided we should have an 80s theme for off-ice and we all put on the most RIDICULOUS outfits. Definitely was the mood-booster we all needed.
Saturday - SHORT PROGRAMME!! So this morning
SYDNEY HARBOUR
How awesome is that view??we were up at the wonderful hour of 5AM for OFFICIAL official practice. This one is very short and much more structured, and always has judges in attendance. Fortunately, we had some nap time after our early start.
In the afternoon we headed back to the rink for the COMPETITION!! The mood was positive but calm which is always good. We stepped out, first on the ice of the whole competition - and had an AWESOME skate!! Our best of the season, and our best result of the season! After the whole event, we were sitting in 4th and veeery close to the podium...
That evening was also the free programme for our wonderful little Novice Team, The Jitterbugs. We all got out our pompoms and screamed our heads off as WA took home the silver medal in Novice Synchronized Skating for a PHENOMENAL skate!! AHH I was screaming SOO hard they were AMAZING it was like a totally new team!!
The Jitterbugs had to party silently as all us Infusion girls had another early morning ahead...
Sunday - Free Programme So apparently Saturday wasn't early enough, and we were forced to wake up at 4AM
Sydney from above
It's a big, but awesome (stories to come) place!! for official official practice on this wonderful Sunday. Fortunately, we had nap time again so we were all refreshed for our final day of competition! When we boarded the bus, we were greated by some balloons with friendly messages which had been made by Kelley, one of the girls on the team.
So we were the second team to hit the ice, and we didn't have bad skate, but it certainly wasn't the best it could be. We still go our highest score of the season, which is excellent, and finished in 5th in the free. What matters most, really, is that Adelaide was 6th. Cause no one likes Adelaide...
That night was the banquet, which was not nearly as exciting as I was hoping. The food was tasty, though.
Monday - Travelling around Newcastle So the synchronized skating ended, and the singles began on Monday. There were a few of us who weren't leaving Newcastle until Tuesday so we decided to hire a car and visit the sites of Newcastle. It's actually a very pretty city. It was an old convict colony so it has some cool history. It's also got some great ocean views, which
THE PLANE
No joke, this is what we rode to Newcastle. were even more spectacular on this INSANELY windy day!! We were all being blown over...We also got to visit Nobby's beach, which is where that giant coal tanker, the Pasha Bulker, was stranded mere meters from the shore for a month.
We had a nice night in with champagne and some good TV.
For any big WA skating fans out there, we took home a few more medals in singles, including the Gold and Bronze in Junior Men's and the Gold in Novice Ladies!! GO WA!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.102s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 12; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0432s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
