Friday 27th January 2012
It was a long day today which actually just seemed like an extension of yesterday rather than a new day (if that makes sense!!) as we were flying throughout the night.
We arrived on schedule at Nairobi international airport at 9am local time (6am UK time!) and all of us were feeling ok as we’d managed to get some sleep on the flight apart from Dawn who didn’t manage to get a wink! We all got our Visas and then made our way down to pick up our bags. After the problems in Burundi in November I was glad to see everyone’s bags arrive and we were soon out of the airport and in our pre-arranged taxis to the Nairobi Club. Dawn, Jack, Tom and Mia were all in one taxi and I was in the other with everyone’s bags – gave me a chance to get a bit of extra sleep though!
By 11.30am we arrived at the hotel and checked in, unfortunately we only had rooms in the “old wing” which weren’t great but everyone was quite happy just to get rid of the bags and have a bit of time to relax. I then gave everyone a tour of the local area which included the bank to change some money and the small supermarket up the road where we got food and water. It was then back to the hotel for lunch – Jack and I made the solid choice of Spaghetti Bolognaise while Mia and Tom made the huge unforced error of going for the Spaghetti Carbonara (neither of them finished it!!).
To try and get used to the altitude and also to try and get the long journey out of our systems I decided we’d do a long warm up followed by an hour on court from 4.30 – 5.30pm this afternoon. I think it did everyone good to hit some balls but it was very different from hitting at normal sea level and it took a little while for everyone to get used to the ball flying through the air so quickly. The courts here are exactly the same as last year so I knew that they get very slippery the longer you play on it and also the lines are marked out in chalk so when you slide across them they get erased!! That was just something everyone had to get used to and accept before they go into their matches on Sunday / Monday.
Pre-tennis movement work (spot the poser looking at the camera!)
After the session we all cooled down and had a very thorough stretch out before walking the short distance across the cricket pitch to the hotel. We then showered and changed and headed down to the hotel restaurant for their traditional Friday night BBQ which was superb – not that we would have that if they had been competing the next day!
Everyone then had an early night ready for a full training day tomorrow.
