By Michelle Pickles
Another early morning at the boat sheds for the Marian College Rowing Squad, as they prepare for their daily training session, ahead of the biggest regatta of the season, the Maadi Cup.
Everyone's so excited, like this is what you row for Maadi Cup, all the schools coming up just the atmosphere, just why you row for Maadi,” says Marian College Rower Molly Bell.
But on February 22nd, the girls thought that dream was over.
They were in the boat shed on the Avon River when the quake struck, it left them terrified, and their facilities unusable.
“Everyone was screaming and crying we tried to get out and the St Bedes boats fell in front of us, we were quite close to getting hit by a few boats, luckily none of ours came down, but we tried to get out and the floors started cracking and liquefaction came up and then it was flooding and we had to get our gear out and it was just really horrible,” she says.
But the disappointment turned to relief after a call from Tauranga Girls College.
Their Maadi Cup rivals were offering schooling, accommodation, boats, somewhere to row, and someone to coach them.
Their own school is set to be closed for up to a year and the girls have been receiving their lessons via the internet.
But for now, the focus is the Maadi Cup regatta, they're determined to succeed despite still struggling to come to terms with how the quake has changed their lives.
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