Jan's Post-Holiday Reflections

After an extremely awesome time in New Zealand it was emotional saying good bye to the best “Roomy” and “Story Teller” (Katie) and Cycling Hubby (Phil).

I updated my ticket to business class using my air miles and as you can see lots of room and a chair that turned into a bed. Watched the end of “12 Years a Slave” and Philomena (both of which made me cry), then had a much needed kip!!

The only word to sum up the trip is AWESOME (which stands for Amazing, Wonderful, Energetic, Spectacular, Outstanding, Magnificent, Everlasting Memories). I enjoyed every minute of New Zealand well almost that’s apart from the downhill with the strong and gusty wind on the way to Queens Town. I was so scared that I was going to come off the bike as it was so difficult to control under those conditions!!!

The scenery was just awesome , my favourite views were cycling to Westport to the seal colony and seeing the view of the beach, rocks and sea as we approached and the view of Matheson Lake.

I have to say my favourite Lamb shank was in Fox (2^nd night), favourite Pizza was in MataMata, favourite Salmon was in MossBurn and favourite Roast Beef was in Greymouth. Best Cuppa due to the size of the milk jug was on the way to Wanaka.

Of course Steve’s breakfasts were just the best and a great idea to bring everyone together before setting off for the days adventure. On the day s we had breakfast in the hotels they were not a patch on his.

Our rest days consisted of other activities. The Glacier walk was excellent followed by a walk around Lake Matheson.

I lost half a stone whilst away which is an added bonus!! Just need to keep it off now.

After the long flights home I was in bed by 9pm as I could no longer keep my eyes open but I did wake up 2 hours later and had to get up and read the “Blog”. Although I have to say it’s more exciting when Katie reads it. Katie do you think you could record the blog so that I can listen to your voice with my hot chocolate and two biscuits?!

The following morning I woke up with no sign of Katie or my Cuppa then realised it was time to go back to work. I am not sure anything can beat this adventure but Steve has sent through pictures of the Pacific Coast trip so who knows!!!

Tonight (Tuesday) I have been out for a 20 mile cycle and OMG how many pot holes are out there?! So different to the well kept roads in New Zealand. Even prefer the loose stones!!

Brisbane to Dubai to Heathrow to Le nid

I'd stealed myself for 20hours to Dubai but hadn't accounted for stoppage times so it was a mere 14! 

Which passed with no worries indeed, I had quite a few reasonable sleeps and the salmon we concluded was actually very tasty!

Watched Philomena and nearly cried, later watched Bill Nighy in About Time and definitely cried. Think there's some raging emotions at the flood gates/imminent Heathrow security gates!

So at Dubai, Phil and I said goodbye to my roomy, with the promise of an epi-blog next week and the usual discussions of further cycling plans for 2014 and well beyond. Jan had used her airmiles to upgrade herself for the last push to Manchester. One last (mile high!) southern comfort and lemonade perhaps?!

I then went off to make use of the showers here, impressive security to stop intruders to the ladies shower area! 

Perused the duty free. I turned down a trolley to push all my ever-increasing toot around in and the arabian man seemed so taken with my powers he bowed and put his fist to his chest!! Haha😄 I'm going to assume the majority of arabian women don't enjoy the exercise of lugging everything about! 

Adding the bike box to the mix in London is gonna be rather entertaining, 1 arm is already trailing notably lower than the other oo ooo ooo🍌🍌🍌

(Later)

Last push to Heathrow was smooth, moved my seat to front of row so lots of fidgeting room, although you do get the proximity of any weirdos who need to pace up and down for hours on end. Fortunately I love a bit of people watching. 7hours later I had major ants in my pants to whizz through passports and  get my bike back. After badgering the men in luminous jackets enough times they took pity and out came my box, bid farewell to Phil (who was well aware of my eagerness to see who was waiting through the nothing to declare) and sped as fast as I could into his arms.

He had to gently remind me after a period of time that even though we had Monday off, we probably didn't want to spend it on the concourse😍😍

Summary: The best bike holiday adventure I could have wished for. 

Auckland Hotel to Airport to City to Airport to Hotel to Airport to Brisbane

I think we might have had our latest night of February last night as it was gone 11pm by the time it was bedtime story and lights out chez Katie et Jan!! 

My sleep pattern seems to have regressed the last few days to that of a young child in December, who keeps waking up thinking is it today? Do I get to see him yet?! One more non-sleep to go😃

We all met for 7.30am breakfast and were off to Auckland on the first of many bus trips today. The hotel is unfortunately on an industrial park outside of Auck, near the airport. Great for airport access, not so great for a quick nip into the city, but undeterred the three of us were off. No point wasting the best part of a day in a motel, there's enough loafing about to come.

While on the bus on the way into Auckland vowel humour yet again raised it's head. 'e' (as in pen) is pronounced as 'i' (as in pin) and 'i' as 'e' in kiwi land, so I had a little smirk at "Coming up to the first of our six stops". 

On the Milford boat only our table seemed to keep chortling at all the deck-related warnings: "Slippery on deck"....you get the idea haha.

Jan and Phil trotted off to get the ferry to Devonport and I went off to The Tepid Baths!! May as well end the holiday as it started, in the pool. 

My shoulders certainly enjoyed a good unravelling after all that cycling and I bashed out 100 lengths quite comfortably.

Ulterior motive was also to try and wear myself out a bit to aid some snoozing later, it'll never work haha, all too exciting!!

Bought myself a couple of sports bra tops (well, they're light!) as plenty of activities on the cards the next six months and it'll be nice to be reminded of this energetic country in dark times😄

Pleased that I managed to get myself on the right buses back to the hotel, just in time for a last little bit of r&r with our workaholic leader:

We all made it through the airport weigh in, bike boxes now pleasingly lower in weight, much like my roomy I would wager!

On board we were kept entertained by a film and my hourly blog review, fun reminiscing about a really marvellous holiday! 

Mid flight our neighbours became ruffled by being in the 'service deadspot', having been served last and then missed by the drinks. Being adjacent I cheerily piped up we had also unfortunately been missed and 'suffered' the same hardship on the way out as well as today. 15minutes later along came some champagne for us all, cheers!