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).


Water sports play a big part in summer activity. Today temperatures reached 35 degrees Celsius, with humidity levels above 80%. Last week was the first chance that I've had to get on the water in a surfski on Lake Leman. The many yacht malls along the lakes edge offer great convenience for both storing and launching a boat.

Kayaking is relatively unknown amongst the locals and it certainly grabs their attention when they see you launching a 6.5 meter vessel on the water. Hopefully, with time, this sense of curiosity will result in a number of new paddlers.

Moving to Switzerland hasn't been an easy process. With 3 official national languages viz: Swiss German, French and Italian, the language barrier is just one of the hurdles to overcome. Some of the challenges faced so far:

Navigating a 20ft surfski through the small European roads on the roof of the car.

Trying to explain in French what a surfski is

Driving on the other side of the road

Croissants' and espresso for breakfast

Dubbed movies

Football matches with no vuvuzela's