Liam Howes has found some fine weather – 'finally”.

The 12-year-old from Waimea Intermediate School in Richmond has had a wet – and bumpy – road to the Zespri AIMS Games.

A little over two weeks ago, during the devastating Nelson-Tasman flooding, Liam and his family were woken up in the early hours of the morning by the fire brigade and told to be on standby.

Their street was under water – 'it was like a river” – and neighbours were getting ready to evacuate.
It rained non-stop for what felt like weeks and Liam, who was gearing up for tennis nationals as well as AIMS, was stuck inside and unable to train.

It was far from the preparation the Year 7 student had hoped for, but instead he worked on his fitness at home and waited for the weather to clear. He waited and waited.

Soon it was time for nationals and Liam still performed well, making a couple of finals.

Up next was Tauranga, where more than 10,000 athletes from 320 schools around the country were converging.

Liam is the only student from his school taking part at AIMS and he and his mum Maria flew to Auckland and started the drive to Tauranga.

But, believe it or not, there was another setback.

'A tyre on our car blew,” Maria says with a laugh.

'We were probably about 60km away from Auckland and we heard this horrible noise and we stopped, but we were on the highway and it was not a safe place to stop.”

She says they had no idea where they were and the tyre was in shreds. It was stressful, but did eventually lead to some laughs.

The journey to Tauranga ended up taking five hours and Liam missed the AIMS Games opening ceremony.

Maria says, like everything else, he took it in his stride.

'He tries to focus on the positive and it's just a good learning experience, I think – if things are not working, just to look at the positive side,” she said.

They arrived to a nice home-cooked meal and Monday would be a new day.

When Liam woke up and opened the curtains, however, all he could see was torrential rain. The first day of tennis was postponed. Meanwhile, back home in Nelson, the sun was shining.
How did that feel?

'Horrifying,” Liam says with a wry smile. They had checked the forecast and knew rain was a possibility.

'It was still horrifying,” he says.

So, when the sun finally came out on Tuesday morning, it came as a great relief.

Liam won his first two matches of the tournament and is well on his way.

"It's great to see the sun,” he says.

"It's really inspiring being around so many talented athletes, the atmosphere is great and I can't wait to be back next year.”