Aloha from Hawaii everybody.

Wow, am I stoked! My ticket on the Dream Tour is now official.

Sorry this blog has been slow in being posted but things have just been a blur since the Association of Surfing Professionals confirmed I had qualified for the 2009 tour.
There’s been heaps of media interest, for which I am really grateful. Plus I’ve been overwhelmed with calls, texts and emails from people back in New Zealand.

It’s a pretty amazing feeling to know that your achievement can impact on people back home and make them proud.

Thanks so much to all the people who have already left posts of congratulations on my previous blog.

There was a little bit of relief mixed up with all the elation when I learned on Tuesday that I had made it.

People who follow pro surfing know the qualification system can be a bit complicated but basically it works like this…

The top six-ranked girls at the end of the World Qualifying Series circuit qualify for the following year’s World Championship Tour, aka Dream Tour. They replace the bottom six-ranked girls on the WCT standings.

But you can “double qualify”. If you’re a Dream Tour surfer who has finished in the top 6 on the WQS as well, you’ve effectively got “insurance”. It means you can afford to finish 12th or lower on the Dream Tour and still re-qualify through your WQS points.

I’ve just finished one of my longest stints all year back here at home. But while my three weeks home have been great, it’s also been critical training time in getting ready for my big end-of-year adventure in Hawaii.

When somebody says Hawaii, I automatically think of the word “big!” Everything is big in Hawaii…..from the massive ute-type trucks they drive (they just regard them like we see normal cars!) to the huge meals they put in front of you every time you eat (a one-person meal there would feed a family of five elsewhere!).

But most of all “big” in Hawaii means massive waves. You can end up dealing with swells the size of small buildings! So that means preparing yourself for the mecca of performance surfing.

So I had three weeks to get back into a routine and train hard ahead of my trip.

The weather or surf in Taranaki really didn’t help my motivation. Coming back from Brazil, where I’d been surfing in bikinis in bright sunshine, the freezing and wet conditions definitely tested my resolve!

But I pushed through it as I knew I had to train hard for Hawaii.

There’s a lot for me to train for.

Oi!

After a week in Florianopilas, getting third in the comp and missing out on improving my overall ratings points by one heat, I was pretty gutted. This had me fired up for the next one. To improve my points I had to make the final so I put a little bit of pressure on myself to do well. But at the same time I still felt pretty relaxed.

Brazil is often a place that comes up in conversation when you ask people where they want to travel. Now I can see why. I spent a whole week in Rio baby!

Yes, Rio de Janeiro.

What an experience!

It only took 30 minutes to drive from the airport to the beach but I couldn’t believe how many “favelas” we passed in that time.

“Favelas” are what they call the poor people’s houses in Brazil.
Only you can’t really call these “houses”.

Four separate flights, over 30 hours straight in planes and – finally! – I arrived back in Brazil.

What am I doing here?

To be honest, it was an impromptu trip that I was indecisive over making or not. One of the reasons was that it’s such as mission to get here from New Zealand.

I’d already been to Brazil once this year, getting a 5th in an important round of the World Qualifying Series (WQS) there.

I like the country but wasn’t necessarily in a rush to get back!

But after a few weeks of training in Australia and back at home in New Zealand, I decided to bite the bullet and head there for two back-to-back WQS competitions.

The reason is that I am currently ranked 5th on the WQS ratings and the top six girls qualify for the WCT (World Championship Tour – aka “The Dream Tour” with only the top 17 girls in the world).

With only three WQS events left for the year, I was in a pretty good spot on the ratings but because the two Brazilian events were only “4- star” rated, I had to get first or second in one of the two to improve my overall position.

Relaxation + Fun = Win!

There’s something in that equation as I’ve learnt in the last couple of weeks.

After a slew of travelling I finally got to spend a couple of weeks at home. I have never appreciated it more. Even though the weather or the surf wasn’t the warmest or the best I still really enjoyed my short stay at home. While I still surfed and trained every day, my mind was pretty much off the whole surfing ordeal.

I guess just having my family and friends around helps me with this.

I loved spending time with most of my family, just letting myself go and playing with my little cousins, who are five and three.

I watched my five-year-old cousin play soccer for my old local Oakura primary school. It definitely brought back memories from when I played. My feet were twitching on the sideline!

I also caught up with most of my friends whom I hadn’t seen for up to a year. A long time indeed but when friends are friends, you click like you saw them yesterday!

Talk about one extreme to the other! I’ve gone from scorching summer sun to bitter, cold winter. Surf to snow.

After being away from New Zealand and living out of a suitcase for about four months, I thought I deserved a break away from all the surfing action. So I’ve been skiing with my family in Wanaka.

I’ve been skiing since I was a toddler so the chance for a ski holiday seemed almost too good to be true!

Driving into the Wanaka township felt like being in a winter movie. Big dry snowflakes falling slowly to the ground. White everywhere.

We woke up the next day to fresh powder at Treble Cone. Can’t get a much better start than that!

Going up the chairlift after only a few hours of knee-high powder skiing at only 11am, we were all having a little whinge about being tired, hungry and sore. The man sharing the chair with us commented “you’re all a bunch of fun”. He was so right.

Hi everyone, I’m back!

Home at last and it’s brilliant.

I have just got back to New Zealand from Europe, complete with five-day stopover in Bali (it’s a tough life!) for a five-day camp with my main sponsor Billabong and the Kiwi girls surf mag Curl.

After months of serious competitions it was great to finally relax with eight other sponsored girls. Epic warm weather and great – just just what the doctor ordered!

This is my second time to Portugal in about a year and I came here reasonably confident, given that I knew a little bit about the conditions there and that I had placed fourth here last year in the under-18 world junior titles.

I was looking for Portugal to treat me right again!

The venue for the 6-star WQS event I was competing in was Cascais, which is a pretty city set on a rough, desert-like coast. The people are all very helpful and friendly and the weather is nice and hot.

But that doesn’t mean the water is.

No way, in fact! It was full wetsuits all the way (just like NZ right now)!

Getting around the city was interesting. A lot of the roads are just made out of cobblestones and the streets are extremely narrow with too many only one lane, and one-way! I must say Mum got us out of some pretty tricky parking situations. I’d definitely advise car insurance if you’re going to drive in Cascais.

I’ve been luck to go been Stateside quite a few times now and I always enjoy going to America. There’s really only one word that explains it. HUGE!

It doesn’t matter if it’s the meals, the drinks, the freeways or the vehicles on them. Everything is BIG! It’s the land of SuperSize Me.

I stayed in Newport, which is a five-minute drive south of Huntington Beach, better known as California’s Surf City and also the venue for the US Open. Mum and I had been to Huntington before but not for a US Open.

The difference was noticeable from the moment we arrived for the comp. I was amazed. There was like a little city built on the actual beach, it had been made especially for the festival.

Hi Everyone

Wow, what a couple of weeks I’ve had!

Sorry for being late with my blog but I’ve got a couple of excuses because it’s all been happening the past fortnight.

Firstly, I had a good morale-boosting win in a major junior event in Australia and that pumped me for a reasonable result at the US Open in California which has helped my Dream Tour aspirations for next year.

And right now I’m on my way to Portugal!

The roller-coaster ride began when Mum and I flew to Australia from South Africa. I wasn’t happy with my performance in Africa and I really wanted to use the time in Australia to get back on track ahead of the Californian and Portuguese WQS events.For a while when we first got back, it felt like the nightmare was continuing. I have never had jet-lag as bad as I did coming back from Africa.