Happy here: Brothers Craig and Andrew Peebles, Peter Purcell-Gillpin and Micheen Thornycroft give thumbs-up to a great trip. Picture: Gary Warrick
ZIMBABWE are here for the World Cup rowing and aim for the Olympics and Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
So what? So is every other team.
Well it is a big deal because it's an achievement for Zimbabwe just to get to the starting line.
Consider these handicaps.
The men's senior pair, one men's senior single and the one women's senior single who comprise Zimbabwe all work full-time and are paying most of their own freight.
Their coach is a volunteer who couldn't leave her job to come.
At home, it takes 45 minutes to get to a training dam that has a dogleg, and they can only row two kilometres before turning around.
They love the Nepean, rowing 16 kilometres straight.
At home, they're up at 4.30am to train before work, then back to the dam before cycling for more work at 7pm.
They've never slept as well as they have here, either because of the long rows or the clean air.
They always travel with the Zimbabwe flag and their team suits only arrived at the airport as they were departing.
It's been worth the trip, and not only because there's no bend in the river.
They've got regular electricity, whereas at home they often go eight hours without it.
So nice to wake up and know the power is on.
So nice to take longer to do the food shopping here than it takes to do a training row, because of the choice.
In Zimbabwe, it doesn't take long when there is only one type of milk and one type of bread.
The highlight so far?
On a rest day, they trekked for 5½ hours to Mount Portal in the Glenbrook National Park to view the river and course.
They found it beautiful, the rock-climbing amazing and the sandstone cliffs stunning.
At home they have pictures of the likes of Drew Ginn and Kim Crow on their walls.
Now they're sitting in lanes next to their heroes and chatting to them.
They mightn't make opponents eat crow, mightn't go to Rio, but they're already winners.
— John Macdonald