Stephanie McKenzie: A Caribbean Experience!

Wow, where do I start?! Let's be honest here...

Njisane 3 Day Cycling Festival #N3DCF, Wining, Paint party I Love Jamishness, Tobago, Nylon Pool, Boat Party, fresh fruit, Soca, Bus trips, The Hyatt Regency Hotel, Car Park Party, Coconut Water, Flat car battery and so many more memories that I will never forget, I could write a novel, but will keep it brief! So it all begins here:

We arrived in Trinidad and Tobago Saturday 13th note at 5am going from Christchurch - Sydney - Vancouver - Toronto - Trinidad. So the journey was rather long but we can all agree it was well worth it! We got to the Hyatt Regency Hotel went to our rooms 'Showfield' and I shared a room and then found ourselves poolside very quickly to overcome our 'jet-lag'. We were given a brown paper bag with a few things inside it and we were told we are going to a paint party at 3am and instructed to wear the singlet.

Small - Large the aftermath

Ompa loompa... party is about to get real!

So it hadn't been 24 hours and were already experiencing a little bit of Trinidad and Tobago's culture. This is where we were introduced to wining - note i haven't spelt winning wrong,wining it is a way of dancing? Is that correct? I think it is, we were a little surprised of how it works - let's just say it is a whole lot of hip action with a lot of people! I think by the end of the trip after getting experts teaching us we found some rhythm.......They were explaining to us this was only tiny compared to 'Carnival' so this has given us more reason to come back to the Caribbean to experience Carnival!!

Postcard material

We're on a boat

Nylon Pool

A couple of days later, we were mean't to take the boat to Tobago which took 2 hours at 630am, but we sadly missed out as the boat was full. So, we jumped on a plane at 930am and went to Tobago for the day. Once we arrived in Tobago we went straight onto a Glass Bottom boat, bonus was we had speakers to crank up whilst on the journey. Went on jet skies, ate some sort of crab meal, snorkeling and saw dolphins whilst jet skiing . But, my highlight of Tobago was when we went to Nylon Pool - a shallow coral reef, which is located in the middle of the ocean just off Pigeon Point. It was amazing!

43 #RaceNumber

Raffle sprint

Wining - Getting amongst it

So this trip was cycling related. We were invited to race at the Njisane 3 day cycling festival. Njisane Phillip went to the 2012 Olympics as an unknown or a non favourite, he ended up 4th in the Sprints and 7th in the Keirin. He put this event on to promote cycling in Trinidad and Tobago and encourage young cyclists to take up cycling and also to promote his country which we were part of. The event was well thought out and was delivered well. There were 3 women's teams made up of 5-6 ladies from different countries, I was in Team 2 along with Olga Streltsova (Russia), Hannah Walker (Great Britain), Kianna Lester (Trinidad and Tobago), Graciela 'Chely' Arreola (Mexico) and Shelby Renolds (USA) and we were all managed by Stuart MacDonald.

Raffle Sprint 3rd/4th - Tarsh

Raffle Sprint Round 1 - Juliana (Columbia )

Raffle Sprint Round 2 - Katie

Our goal was to set out a plan and make sure we executed it in each race, personally I think we all did very well I certainly learn't a lot about endurance races!! (taking a lap and rejoining..haha eek). I am glad we were able to work as a team and also teach Kianna (only 15) what to do and what not to do during races - watch out for her in the near future!

At the beginning I had no expectations of Trinidad and Tobago, I was very open minded. Whilst we were there we ran on 'Trini Time' so we had to take it day by day and moment by moment, most things just fell into place and no one worried once! We didn't want to leave, after experiencing a taste of what Trinidad and Tobago was all about, they like to party - that's an understatement! Nothing is going to get close to what we experienced, I'm definitely going to go back that's for sure.

I hope everyone knows where Trinidad and Tobago is now and understands their culture - I am sure that we have provided everyone with a taste of what to expect I can say that it is a place to visit and 'Carnival' should go onto your bucket list right now!! Thank you so much to Phillip, Marie, Lershaun, Varun and of course Njisane for giving us the opportunity to experience Trinidad and Tobago!

Take Care,

Steph :) xx