Training in Pau, Orthez, and San Pau in France

We visited Monaco when we took Tania to Nice to fly home, this country has an open border with France and has some amazing views of the ocean.



The bottom wave at the course in Pau, France


18/6/06
After the race in Spain we were up early Monday morning for our trip to Nice to drop Tania off at the airport. The dramas started when we got held up on a 2 hour pile up on the autobahn due to a big tanker crashing. This caused Tania to miss her flight which took a lot of effort to sort out.

After another 8 hours driving we arrived in Pau, a city in southern France where the French slalom paddlers are based.
There are three courses in this area. Pau, a great natural course really good for loops training. Then san pau another natural course 30 minutes from Pau. This has to be one of my favourite courses in the world, with really nice surfing waves and a variety of water speeds and potential moves. And Ordthez, another great course a little smaller which acts as the tail race of a power station.
It have had some of the best slalom sessions here this week on these 3 courses. On Tuesday I was training with the World Champion from Australia. Then the next day we were at another course training with a French paddler who came 2nd at the World Champs and then the next day with European Champ. It’s so great to be training with some of the best paddlers here in the World on such great training facilities. I feel that my improvement in the last week has been greater than that in the last year. Everything is coming together.