A story by Kimberley McLean

My trip to the 2010 National Boccia Championships in Camberra at the Australian Institiue of Sport 3 - 6 May.

Tickets were booked and paid for after a huge amount of effort getting the funding to attend this tournament.

The only flight I could get was with Qantas and this posed a huge problem. This was due to the height restrictions on Wheelchairs. For my flight over to Sydney the height restriction was 84cm, my power chair is 89cm. However for my flight from Sydney to Canberra the restriction was up to 130cm.  Due to this mum and I decided to take just my manual chair.

We (Aunty Michelle and I) arrived in Sydney after an enjoyable flight and a breakfast of cereal, a muffin and juice. We were met by airline staff to assist us to the bus to take us over to the Domestic airport. We then boarded our flight to Canberra.

We were met at Canberra airport by a member of the New South Wales Boccia Team and taken by taxi to the Institute of Sport. What an amazing place. There were a number of statues in and around the building and the rooms were like a two bedroom motel room which we shared with another Northland player (Alex Dickson and his Aunty Annette)

The tournament started behind time and we went straight into pool play. My first game was against a player that had beaten me at our Nationals, Darren Jones. I won this game after it went to a tiebreak.
The rest of my games I won except for one which I went down real bad (14-0).  This put me into the Semi finals which were going to be played the next day.

That night I got really sick, due to a blocked up catheter, plus I also had a real bad night’s sleep.

The games started but due to me feeling so yucky I lost all my games putting me into 4th place for the tournament. I was a little disappointed with myself but that is how it goes with sports.  I will try again next year if I get the opportunity to go.

The next day was a free day for me and my aunty and we tried to go shopping in town. The first bus to come along was not a wheelchair friendly bus so we had to wait for 15minutes for another one to come along. This bus was wheelchair friendly so off Aunty and I went.

When it was time to come home three buses went past us and none of them were wheelchair friendly. I then rang one of the players at the tournament to see if they could come and pick us up as we had to be back at the venue by 4pm which they did thankfully. 

We then had to be at the airport by 5am the next day to fly home.  I would really like to thank everybody who helped and supported me go to this tournament. I hope I get the opportunity to go again.