Day 3 in Bali. Low tide this morning here at Balangan beach with a small 2-3 ft wave lapping the outer reef. Happy to kick back up here at the Seaview lodge around the swimming pool and enjoy a Balaian style breakfast while waiting on the forecast 5 star swell to arrive later today.


The first 2 days in Bali for me and Stevo were some crazy times in Kuta. A combination of the jet-lag, coupled with the local "jungle juice" punch that they served us at the Bounty made for serious looseness. Photo's tell the story. Heading off on the scooter in a minute to scout the surf up at Padang and Impossibles.

Watching Paris go by in the distance, I have a moment in Time to recline in the seat of the TGV train and nurse a long Heinekin while reflecting on the mountain adventure last weekend. Once again I was privileged to take part in the DEFI challenge. This year saw our Nestle eResearch team take on new challenges in the magnificent terrain of Leysin, Switzerland.

Day1 was all about the bike with the first two events kicking off with a BMX circuit and 1km indoor piste time trial to get the legs going. Our team this year was represented solely by a group of us from Orbe, including myself, Julien, Joan, Samuel a Julien F.


With the legs warmed after the morning sprint circuit, we were the 4th team at the time trial type start to head for the hills on our road bikes. The 70km, 1800m+ve ascent hit home pretty quickly in the upper 20's temperatures. Julien F was the first to feel the sting of the heat and gradient and managed to settle back in after summiting Glacier 3000. Approximately 30km of flattish meander separated the two climbs.

In the great weather conditions we were able to enjoy some high speed descents and sharp cornering at intersections in our slipstream positioning with the aid of traffic officials managing potentially hazardous traffic. Before we had past the 10km mark our team has comfortably passed the other 4 teams in front and were working hard to build a gap on the remaining 20 odd teams behind. On the approach to the second ascent, I knew already that my hydration levels were lacking and that at some point I was going to hit the wall.

The DEFI is a 3 Day multi-sport challenge that takes place annually in Switzerland. The 20 year old event sees teams of 5 athletes from various corporate organizations come together to battle it out in the various disciplines to gain as many points as possible to compete with the remainder of the field.

This years event was hosted in Evolene (Swiss Alps) and attracted over 50 teams from various organizations including: Nestle, Phillip Morris and Hydro Exploitation to name just a few. I was fortunate enough to be asked to join the Nestle Research team this year, along with Trent, Francois, Cedric (aka machine) and Julien to compete in the 3 day challenge.

Preparation for the event included: mountain bike, trail running, trekking, road cycling, swimming, canoeing, biathlon, archery, orienteering, stand-up paddleboard, golf, rollerblading and trottinette. These were the disciplines that we were communicated prior to the event, but were told that we could expect a few surprises to be thrown in too.

The competition follows a series a events staged over the 3 days, with some consecutive and others independent. Points are gained in the athletic disciplines by the time that is achieved as opposed to the technical disciplines (like archery) for the points gained based on accuracy. Scores are accumulated both for individually timed events as well as overall time for the day.

The Nestle Research team achieved 3rd position overall, a short shave behind Phillip Morris. A few of the technical events like archery saw us lose valuable points, but our teams strength in the physical events made up for our losses. The team will be certain to close these gaps for the come-back in 2011.

From traveling and competing at events on sun soaked beaches around the world, Switzerland has been quite a deviation to the paddling journey.

I arrived in April last year and am now based in Lausanne working for Nestle at their Global Product Technology Centre in a little town called Orbe. My job title is Packaging Engineer and I work on supporting the business developing new packaging innovations.



Lausanne is the second largest city to Geneva on the lake. It's a beautiful city, rising 300m above the lake and is home to the International Olympic Committee along with a number of sporting federations (Including the International Canoe Federation).