Published 13 July 2023 6 min read
England Women's Senior Team
World Cup diary: Jess Carter on warm Aussie welcome and watching whales
The England defender keeps us abreast of the latest from camp in Australia as she becomes the latest to enter in our World Cup diary
JESS CARTER: ENGLAND PROFILE
Well, we’re almost a week into our journey now and I have to say everything has been great so far.
It feels like we’ve all been eased into everything here quite nicely, we’ve been fortunate to have some good weather and we’ve built in the training really well to help us find our feet a little bit and then the intensity has built up over the course of the week.
Of course, we’re still on the back of a long journey to get here, but I think we’ve all done our best to figure out a pattern that works best for us to acclimatise to the time difference.
We had some help, suggestions and guidance on how best to beat it before we came, and everyone listened to that and has done their best to figure out what works for them.
It seems to have worked, as the energy in camp is good, everyone is working hard in training and doing everything we need to be to get ready for the first game.
It feels like we’ve all been eased into everything here quite nicely, we’ve been fortunate to have some good weather and we’ve built in the training really well to help us find our feet a little bit and then the intensity has built up over the course of the week.
Of course, we’re still on the back of a long journey to get here, but I think we’ve all done our best to figure out a pattern that works best for us to acclimatise to the time difference.
We had some help, suggestions and guidance on how best to beat it before we came, and everyone listened to that and has done their best to figure out what works for them.
It seems to have worked, as the energy in camp is good, everyone is working hard in training and doing everything we need to be to get ready for the first game.
We had some down time on Wednesday and were lucky enough to be able to go whale-watching. I have to say, it was amazing and just an incredible thing to see the animals in their natural habitat like that. It was something very special which was organised for us by the staff and it was a great way to spend our day off.
I’d never been to Australia before this, so it’s not been a bad way to visit the country for the first time and get a feel for what Australia has to offer beside the football this summer.
Lovely day for it! ⛴ pic.twitter.com/bluWGKLi4E
— Lionesses (@Lionesses) July 12, 2023
I didn’t really know what to expect before I came, I think it was probably the animals and creatures here that sprung to mind more than anything, but we’re quickly getting used to seeing the local kangaroos casually walking around which is definitely something different to our usual England trips!
It's just been really nice to come out here and see how beautiful it is and how friendly and welcoming everyone has been.
Off the pitch, the facilities we have at the hotel are great and everyone’s able to do their own thing if they need to, whether it’s using their down-time to call home or just heading down to the beach for some fresh air. Everyone’s found different things to do, to try and get that balance between resting and being ready and enjoying those moments that we have.
The facilities we have, the training pitch and gym, are excellent and where we’re staying is great. We’ve had a really nice welcome to Australia so it’s been the perfect start to our World Cup journey and we feel really lucky with what we’ve had so far.
But the competition is getting closer and while it’s something we’re all looking forward to, there’s still plenty of time before that first game, so we have a lot of training sessions, gym work and meetings to come to make sure we’re ready for that first match.
So we’ll continue to take it day-by-day and we can’t wait for the tournament to start.
The facilities we have, the training pitch and gym, are excellent and where we’re staying is great. We’ve had a really nice welcome to Australia so it’s been the perfect start to our World Cup journey and we feel really lucky with what we’ve had so far.
But the competition is getting closer and while it’s something we’re all looking forward to, there’s still plenty of time before that first game, so we have a lot of training sessions, gym work and meetings to come to make sure we’re ready for that first match.
So we’ll continue to take it day-by-day and we can’t wait for the tournament to start.