Cambridge Velodrome & Crazy Kayaking

Oh my goodness. What an afternoon we had!

It all started when we decided to visit the Cambridge Velodrome, the Avantidrome. We saw it from the highway and decided to see what it was like inside. The receptionist told us that we could go into the viewing area and in half an hour, the women’s national team would be practicing team pursuit races before heading to the world games in Poland, so we could see what was involved in a race. Afterwards, we could watch as men and women practiced sprints with a motorcycle chasing them! Lucky us!

The velodrome itself is a fully enclosed, wooden, 250m indoor cycling track. Surrounding the velodrome there are 1,500 seats for spectators, but that could be expanded to 4,000 for major events. The centre space is capable of hosting up to 1,000 people seated at tables so it can be used for conferences, dinners, exhibitions, award functions, meetings, presentations. The area is large enough to host equestrian, tennis, basketball, netball, badminton and other athletic events.
It is huge.

I found a few interesting facts about the velodrome:
The Avantidrome design allows for unimpeded views within the main arena. There are no internal supporting columns.
The building is 77 meters across and 120 meters long, bigger than a rugby field.
The highest point is equivalent to a six story building.
The metal roofing/cladding covers an area of 6,800m² which is enough to roof 34 standard New Zealand homes.
The wood used for the track in the velodrome is Siberian Spruce. A slow growing timber, the grain of the wood is very close which means it won’t splinter.

Watching the practices for the races was so exciting. There are no words to describe what we saw or felt. It was just exciting.

At 4:30, we had arranged to meet the McQueens and two other home-schooling families boat ramp in Cambridge. A Maori mother and her 7 kids would be meeting us there with kayaks and inner tubes for a float down the mighty Waikato River. It turned it to be quite the adventure!

The Waikato River is the lifeblood of the region. It is the longest river in New Zealand,running 425 km (264 mi) through the North Island. In Cambridge, the river has quite a current and we wondered what the boat ride would be like.

We drove on to the dam where the trip would start.

The lady had a trailer full of life jackets, 2 kayaks and a bunch of floats. The idea was to put adults in the two kayaks and tie the inner tubes with the kids on them to the kayaks so they don’t float away.

There were more adults than space or life jackets, so I stayed behind with a few others. Chris, Billy, Donna and another lady got into the kayaks and started out. As I mentioned the current was strong and the tubes were heavy to pull. Chris and his group got caught in a whirlpool that took quite the effort to get out of.

One of the floats started leaking air and couldn’t be used. It was good that all the kids had life jackets on.

The trip down the river to the boat ramp took about an hour. Monica and I drove to the ramp and waited for the group to arrive. They had had quite the ride and everyone was pretty tired, sore and cold, but they did it. No kids were lost.

That night, with a little help from some Vitamin I (ibuprofin) , everyone had a very good sleep. The next day was a day of rest...

There are no photos of the boat trip as we didn’t want to take the phone on the kayaks. Good thing that Chris didn’t take it as everyone got pretty wet.Read more