Swedish girls raking it in

We have had some fantasitc news from the Swedish girls. Malin works as an Architect for FISKARHEDENVILLAN, one of Swedens largest house companies. And FISKARHEDENVILLAN have donated $1300 USD. For more info check out www.fiskarhedenvilla.se. Lina another Swedish girl, has also had a donation of about $1040 USD from the company she works for called XLENT
"XLENT Strategy is a Nordic strategy consulting firm helping companies achieve market impact through pragmatic strategy development and excellence in realization. More info can be found at w
www.xlent.se/strategy."


So fantastic news and a huge huge help for the Himalayan river girls.

WE MADE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So i'm sitting in our room in kathmandu, hooked up to wireless, with a full belly of Dahlbart. Go back 24 hours and we'd just arrived, with everything we had planned on bringing. Auckland airport was exciting and we managed to get all our gear on the plane including our kayaks packed full of stuff that were super heavy weighing in around "10kgs" each. All the gear turned up at Kathmandu airport which was amazing as we had seven kayaks packed full of gear plus another 12 pieces of luggage, so couldn't believe it was all there.

It's great to catch up with Inka again and to introduce her to the rest of the Kiwi crew. She has done such and amazing job here, most of the girls couldn't even swim a week or two ago, now they are looking really confident in the water and in the kayaks.

Today we have been at the pool with 7 of the Nepali girls working on basic paddling and rolling, it was great to meet them all.They are a great bunch of girls and it's so exciting to see how far they have come already and how far they will go in the next few months.

We got back from the pool and Emi had just arrived at the backpackers, she had come overland from India so it was so awesome to catch up with her, and we all went out for a fantastic feed of dhalbart and some local wine.

Tomorrow we are off to Sukute beach so will be out of contact for a week or 3, the river sounds awesome, and i can't wait to meet the rest of the crew.

Also we heard some really exciting news, Inka has been awarded the Golden Paddle which is an award in Sweden for the Whitewater event of the year. This has been awarded to her for setting up the 'Himalayan River Girls', so that is really cool news, and just shows all the effort, time and energy Inka has put into making this happen. It's amazing to see her here in full swing, she doesn't stop, just working so hard and had been for the last 6 months.

Cheers Soph

AND WE"RE OFF

We'll its been a busy last few days packing and repacking and then packing some more and hoping for the best when we got to the airport check in- it was touch and go for a bit but Singapore airlines was fantastic and not too many items of gear were sacrificed. The amount of gear we have received and purchased is phenomenal.
At the moment Hayley and I are in Singapore eagerly awaiting to meet the rest of the crew who flew from Auckland early this morning with not just two heavy boats laden with gear but five, so hope all went well at their end.
On behalf of the Kiwi team we would like to say a huge thank you to all our sponsors, whether it was new or second hand gear, money, discounts, baggage allowance and even advice.This project would not have possible without the help and support of you all.
Onwards to Kathmandu!
Keep reading the blog as we will update as much as we can.
Hester