Sometimes it's the destination...

Tour Aotearoa - getting to the start line

If you're reading this blog, it means I made it to Wellington. This is the story of that journey.



First leg - YVR to BNE

Loading up my bike and getting to YVR was actually the first challenge and soime of that is docuemnted in my first post. The stress of getting your bike into smaller bits to fit into a cardboard box was not insignificant. More importantly, it's making sure the bike is still rideable once it's back together. I ended up loading the bike into the box more than once. First time just didn't feel solid enough and things rattled around a bit too much for my liking. 

The bike, ready for it's box.

Take two is captured in the photo above. Zip ties and plastic wrap were my friend.

We loaded up the bike into the Subaru and off to YVR for the first leg.  I genuinely like YVR - the art is sometimes stunning, the wayfinding easy and I've never found people to be obscenely rude. 

YVR Art


Since I'm doing a bike trip, I had the added fun of checking the bike and - lesson for the kids here - you have to take everything out of your bike box to be analysed by the fine folks at the CTSB, I was pretty well organized (thanks to my multiple packing attemps) and the process was pretty smooth. Take the bags out, get them swabbed and prodded, then put it all back together. By comparison, a fellow rider had packed his bike at home with an efficiency that could not be replciated on the smooth tiled floor of YVR. Much cursing and bad-vibe energy exuded the poor fellow.  

With the bike checked I could relax in the lounge and wait for my flight.

The Flight

There's not too much to say about a 14.5 hour flight that you can't imagine for youself. Picture a small seat, with the minimum leg room that the market will bare, some tolerable if unexceptional food and you've pretty much got the experience. Now consider sleeping in that setup and you've nailed it. 

Modern flight is truly a champagne problem. With sufficent money you can get almost anywhere in the world in a remarkabley short time (at least by a standard set throughout human history). That's not to say we don't grumble and gripe about it. So since I'm stuck in this journey for almost 20 hours of flying, with another few hours of waiting in between, I'm going to take a zen approach to this and just appreciate the miracle that is modern aviation.

mmm delicious

Brisbane to Auckland

My flight arrived on time to Brisbane which gave me a good safety buffer to catch my next flight (did he leave enough time on all his flights? Dear reader, please start clutching your pearls). I was always a bit worried about the whole bike thing and if it would arrive in one piece, would it arrive at all, would they make me take it out of the box again? In the end they just opened it up, had a glance at the tires to make sure they weren't caked in seeds and mud and then let me through. 

I could write a whole review / post just on the lounges but that sounds like a boring read. Suffice to say that the Air New Zealand lounge > Maple Leaf Lounge. It is hard to compare NZ sauvignon blanc in the former, to a meager selection of food in the latter.

The flight itself was mostly uneventful. We left on time, my fellow passengers were friendly and spoke with a very kiwi accent which reinforced just where I was going, and the food was on par with airline food the world over. 

Given my lack of sleep and that I was pretty much at 24 hours of travel by this point I was hoping for a bit of shut eye. Sadly, my body said nah bro. 

Auckland to Wellington

Here's where things take a turn. I landed in Auckland with about 2 hours between flights. As in, from touchdown to takeoff. As you might deduce, that does not leave you with 2 hours of standing around doing nothing. There's the taxiing to the gate, waiting to disembark, walking to customs, going through customs, finding your next terminal, checking in the bike again, and then getting to your next gate. 

Spirits were high at the start. I was marveling at the efficiency of NZ border and customs agents and how quick it was all going. So much so that I sent Tony an optimistic text to say "it's all looking good". Then I ran into the final big boss of NZ border and csutoms. This was my final battle and I was emotionally running a little thin. Standing in a long line of people all waiting for a meagre number of customs agents to process our declrations of all the contraband we were trying to sneak into NZ was getting me a tad worried. As the line stagnated my low key freak-out started to gain some traction. My texts to Tony became a bit less optimistic and plans b and c started to form in my mind. Can I get another flight? Can I bypass the line somehow?

As the clock made it to 30 minutes to take off I was processed through customs with not even a set of eyes on the inside of the bike box. I then proceded to "run like I stole something" to get from the international terminal to the domestic terminal. The signage told me this was a 15 minute walk. I made it 5. My bike box took a beating as it bounced and jostled it's way along the rough sidewalk, the airport trolley wheels wobbling like mad.  With 25 minutes to take off my bike was safely stowed. My legs were cramping, I'm sweating. But oh the sweet relief.

After this little bit of excitment the flight to Wellington was uneventful and calm. I was able to relax. Take a deep breath. Be calm.

My bike. Safely in Wellington.


Wellington

The last challenge for this leg was getting from the airport with my bike. While I toyed with the excitement of putting the bike together at the airport and riding to our apartment directly, saner heads prevailed and we grabbed a shuttle. It was about 9:30pm and I had been travelling for almost 30 hours. The night was not done though. With an early start the next day to catch a ferry, I still had to put the bike back together. Thankfully, this was just a chore to do and not a drama to unfold. Some packing of the bike bags, a nice warm shower, and I was comfortably asleep by midnight.

Tomorrow, the trip truly begins. Stay tuned for day 1 of riding The South Island of Aotearoa.

PS thanks for the comments on my first post and I have fixed the settings so everyone can see them now!


Comments

Steve said…
Woo!! Glad you made it!!
10:56 AM

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