It’s not often that you get down on your knees to be pulled along by a wire for a thrilling ride, so why not do it in style?  TAP’s and ‘The Man’ do on the Sunshine Coast, Australia.

“Nadia I’m nervous and I don’t think I can do it” were French students, Nina and Iris’ words.  “Just think you can and you will!  Keep your eyes forward and you will!” was the encouraging reply from TAP Coordiantor Nadia. 

“Nadia we did it!” was the cry of excitement from both girls, after completing a lap.  “And it was all because of what you said.”  The girls were very pleased with themselves and their lack of confidence at the beginning had been defeated.

“Encouraging our TAP students gives us positive results at Global Village Noosa,” Nadia says.  “It was so nice to see the girls smiling at themselves and it was really their own inner strength and determination that helped them complete the cable circuit without falling off.  I knew they could do it if they just focused, and they did!”

When ‘The Man’ started to show off with big air and board tricks, the group of multicultural teens took a step back to marvel at his level of skill and daring stunts.  While Nadia was organising everyone to return home on the bus she began to wonder why it was taking longer than usual for the group to get a roll on.  Then to her surprise, ‘The Man’ had some of the group (mainly girls), lining up for an autograph.  Who was this man?  Was he famous or was he pretending to be famous?  His tricks were good, but was he ‘that’ good?  Where did this man come from?  Nadia’s mind started to boggle.  You know what they say, curiosity kills the cat, but Nadia had nothing to lose, Nadia was no cat, so she went straight up to Iris who just finished receiving her personalised autograph, and said,  “Who is this man Iris?  Is he famous?”  Iris said smiling in her frilly french accent, “I don’t know but he is very good.” “Huh?” Nadia thought to herself.  “Why are all of the TAP’s lining up for a signature from someone who they don’t even know is famous?”

Nadia looked over to Marine who was next in line gazing at ‘The Mans’ face like he was her dream pop idol or something.  Before ‘The Man’ had a chance to sign off on another teens heart Nadia jumped in and asked him “Who are you?  Where do you come from? and Are you famous?”  After calling him ‘The Man’  for so long he replied, “My name is Justin Abbott and I’m an Australasian World Champion in Wakeboarding.”  When Nadia asked him what year was he champion he replied, “2002.” 

Well Justin, you’re 8 years out of the game now but judging by the line up of TAP of students, you’ve still got it!

On the bus ride home, Nadia gave a prize to Artur for completing the most cable ski rounds without falling off in a row.  Artur cabled the cicuit a total of 7 times straight and not far behind with 4 laps was French student Malo and Seishiro from Japan.