Rowing: A beautiful way to see sunrise

Most mornings, Herald photographer NICOLA TOPPING is up before dawn, learning an exhilarating but exhausting new craft.

An hour or two before most people lift their heads from their pillows, a small group of rowers hoist a boat onto their shoulders and wade into mud at the edge of Lake Rotorua.

As the sun's rays start to spill over the hills, we check that our oars are locked in the gates, pull up our socks, grasp hold of our oars and glide out across the water.

After a steady warm-up we launch into the hard stuff - full pressure, short bursts of everything we've got.

With coach Peter Rae calling the shots from the coaching boat we get stuck in. Everyone in the crew has to be able to "pull their weight" as the saying goes.

If the lake is flat it helps balance the boat and keeps the crew relatively dry. But you can almost guarantee that one of your crew mates will "catch a crab" with a blade and send a blast of lake water up your back.

How did I get into this stuff? Well, as I watched Rob Waddell win gold at the Olympics I had this burning urge to slide into a row boat and give it a go. When a friend introduced me to rowing at my local club that's exactly what I did.

My first attempt was a very wobbly ride, to say the least. With an experienced sculler in the stroke seat in front of me we managed to stay afloat. For that reason alone I was hooked, and I guess you could say I am now a rower.

I am told the best way to stay in a boat is to hang on to your oars. I certainly didn't let go, in fact my grip may have been a little zealous and soon my hands began to blister and tear, an experience I'm sure all rowers have shared.

Old hands are full of advice. Some suggest rubbing methylated spirits into palms and fingers to harden them, others warn against using plasters - they come off not long into a row.

The best tip yet is to wrap hands in electrical tape which stays put and eases pressure on blisters.

But the most common tip is simply to toughen up. I've followed all of this advice but I still have blisters and callouses, and blisters under the callouses.

Anyone who knows anything about boats could be forgiven for being utterly confused when taking orders in a rowing boat. The bow, normally at the front of a vessel, is still the front of the boat, but is behind the crew.

It is also the word for the crew member sitting in the bow and the name for the oar on the starboard side of the boat, so the starboard becomes the bow.

Confused? It gets worse. The stroke is the person sitting in the stern who sets the stroke rate.

But it is also the term for the port side oar which is held in a rower's right hand, thus the port becomes stroke.

My learning curve took a steep climb in my first race at my first regatta. On discovering that I had never rowed with a sweep oar, Peter Rae sat me on the grass with an oar in my hands, showed me how to feather the blade by twisting it in my right hand then said "You'll be fine, have a good race."

I have been blessed with an experienced crew and he was right - we finished third.

The rowing season runs between October and April. Club or school regattas are held somewhere in New Zealand most weekends.

Regattas give rowers the chance to race other crews, and test if that early morning training is paying off.

About 4000 New Zealanders are active in about 50 rowing clubs the length and breadth of the country. Clubs cater for everyone from the age of 13 to "masters" which can be as old as seventy-plus.

A season rowing can cost a member anything from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. Rowing New Zealand's Mike Stanley said the biggest barrier to participation is the hard work it takes for the physically demanding sport.

"It is readily available, as long as there's a rowing club nearby, to anyone who wants to have a crack at it."

Rowing has changed me, my jeans fit a bit snugger around the thighs now, my arms and back are showing signs of muscle tone. I'm fitter than I used to be.

And I now know that spending seven or eight minutes gasping for breath in a race won't kill me, it will just make me better for the next one.

I've never been an early riser, but when my alarm goes at 5.30 am, and I have to haul myself out from under the covers, I know there's going to be a sunrise waiting for us.

As we set off, wiping sleep from our eyes, still dreaming a bit, no one says a word.

We'll just let the hypnotic sound of the oars slipping into the water set our rhythm.