While the team enjoyed a sleep in and late breakfast, Karen Blatchford and I headed up on the gondola to run/walk as far up Mt Musala (2925m) as we could go before lunch. The altitude made us quite breathless when we ran – well, that is what we told ourselves when we were wheezing and puffing away. There was a steady trail of walkers making their pilgrimage to the top, looking a little surprised as we jogged past. We didn’t make it to the top but enjoyed the expedition, looking at the views and mountain lakes.

The team filled their rest day watching the Bulgarian car rally (which has blocked the roads to our hotel) relaxing by the pool, short walks or jogs and catching up on some internet time.
As always, when there is time on their hands, they also plotted some mischief. In this case the girls taking advantage of discovering the boy’s room key, so began the process of room deconstruction….being discovered partway through, so not able to complete a total make over!

On Monday we woke to brilliant sunshine, the first really hot day since we have arrived. It was not a good day to discover no water in the hotel – the problem was local and took half the day to fix, so it was fortunate that we were off site for the morning and could use the swimming pool to refresh ourselves when we returned from the model map.

We headed to the Long Distance model map to check out control siting, examples of mapping and control descriptions. Rob took the 9 seater van back to Sofia, while the team stocked up on food supplies and the girls looked for a party uniform.

More relaxing in the sun, the boys arranged a photo shoot and the girls ‘chilled out’. A trip up to the event centre to check out the technical model rounded out the afternoon. With the start draw announced on the JWOC website and the first manager’s meeting there is a sense of the ‘calm before the storm’ beginning to descend on the hotel. An early night for us…and the NZ supporters back home, before JWOC 2014 gets underway!