Hopping on the 7am bus from Canberra and waving goodbye to Dee and Gigi I had no idea what this friday the 10th of November had planned.

Canada here we come…

My guide Daniel Van Der Ploeg was flying in to Sydney from Albury and started his day delayed by 2 hours.  Matthew Brumby, sit skier, running late also was on his way from Adelaide and team manager Melinda “Min” Middleton was in a car coming from the central coast.  Although we definitely did not plan on cutting it fine by checking in to our international flight at -90 mins to departure being late really set us up well for the longest friday of all of our lives.

Fortunate for us flying with Air New Zealand we were on island time.  Nothing was too hard or frustrating for the staff or crew.  Met with smiles and a chilled “kia ora” we boarded our delayed flight to Auckland 2 hours later than expected.  An apparent engineering delay had thrown a literal spanner in the works for the aircraft we were on.  With comfy seats and friendly staff it would all be well.

Maybe it was us and the excitement of our classification adventure or I could be honest and say it was the beautiful Integra trained Willow (Matts service dog) travelling with us that was getting all the smiles but either way we were nearly wheels up and raring to go.

Being delayed into Auckland had us nervous however being informed that we were actually sitting on the aircraft which would take us to Vancouver we laughed and said well I guess we won’t miss the connection.

Our stopover in Vancouver left me feeling like I was there long enough to say I have actually ‘visited’.
Our late arrival left us with a 7 hour chill out in the terminal.

Checking in for our WestJet flight to Calgary (a 1 hour flight) we had the most wonderful experience.  Such a friendly and accomodating bunch organising for Min to get the last seat on the 6.30pm departure to sort the rental car in Calgary before the Avis office closed.
Again, Willow turned on her charm and had the staff all googly about a dog travelling on their flight.
After some WestJet pics and selfies we headed off though security to wait for our last flight.

When we finally made destination Calgary we met up with the second last member of our support team, Gunny.  A mate of Matty’s from way back and with the banter beginning at the handshake we are all going to get on well.

With the 90min drive to Canmore left we enjoyed the usual Aussie experience of getting used to the other side of the road and Min getting super excited about her heated seat and steering wheel in our Dodge Caravan.

Our 4am arrival at the Canmore Inn and Suites gave us a grand total of
42 hours to get here.

Tired
Excited
Keen
Australian Para Nordic Team.