Cycling NZ26 - the 6 Million Dollar Bolt!

It’s 3.36 am Zulu. Local Time. 

My name is Jake Sully.  I’ve just awoken from a very deep dreamless sleep. So unlike me except for the very very early rise. There’s a mixture of apprehension and even more apprehension coursing through my body as I lay in bed typing this codswallop into my phoney friend. 

The flight to New Zealand was uneventful. Long, yes. Boring, yes. Uneventful. Unlike in the film AVATAR, Kathy Pathetic’s wannabe Boing Dreamliner completely failed to put me into deep hibernation. Desperate to be away with the fairies was I but no, not yet, Wayne. Eventually perhaps when Kathy has had her way with me and at a time yet to be given to me by the Lord of the Rings.  I will eventually lose my thrust on this long long flight amongst the stars and come back down to Earth.

Yesterday morning I was born again into this distant Pandorian world. Fed by a satiated Kathy a plate of malformed scrambled eggs, cardboard bacon and a brown coloured liquid which might have been tea but was most likely coffee.  The new world’s sun rose over Pandora’s distant horizon shining brightly through Kathy’s curtain less windows. I commenced my descent one last time past  milky white clouds into the verdant forest below.  The pep talk by Kathy’s pimpy dad during my descent, welcoming me to his daughters garden of eden, didn’t fill me with confidence when he then proceeded to warn me that every living thing she suffers with will want to eat my eyes like juju beads if I wasn't a very good boy.  Damn, I knew I should have brought some antibiotics with me.  

After being disemboweled from the non-Dreamliner by Kathy’s pretty Malaysian au pair I’m caught by the cows and ushered along in the stampede to passport control and the obligatory BIO SECURITY control.  On the way there I peel off and wait for my bag n bits at carousel number 1.  I grab my bag and wait by the oversize baggage doors for my bike box to appear.  BANG!  The doors are smashed open and there’s my bike, on her side, buried under a ton of pushchairs, shrink wrapped food boxes and padded children's car seats.

The Maori baggage handler was pleasant enough.  My bike was the last item on the trolley. He gesticulated to it then me then said something. Now my ears are not the best nowadays and all the flight did was to push the hard wax plugs deeper in. All I hear him say is a distant mm - mm - mmmmm- m - m - mm…  I deferentially nod my head and start to wrestle the bike off of his trolley and onto mine.

He comes closer and says ‘Ey sid that yi cud tak the trolli met’ at which I let out a huge AHHHH!, point at my ears, apologise in a way only a New Zealander would ever understand, smile a big grin and wander off to the nixt, sorry next control step in this game of NO snakes allowed mit [mate], only lidders [ladders]  Being that I am the most un-racing-snake like critter anyone here will have ever seen then - I think they will let me in. 

I’m in a big queue. It strikes me they're less concerned by the type of parasitic person they may let in but have gone to great lengths to make sure at least your feet are clean lest you bring the wrong type of bug into this country.

Wots in the box mit?  A bike I reply.  A road bik or a mountain bik says the Marshall.  Its a mountain bike says I  but before I can explain that I only ever use it on road and gravel tracks and that it rarely goes across Farmer Palmers laaand I’m directed into channel 3 with the rest of his herd to have my bits inspicted  (yer gitting it now aint ya? 🤔😊👍)  

It’s a long and winding queue.  Some of the cattle have learnt how to speak english. Whats in the box?  A bik says I.  An electric one says the older moo with the baggy udders.  No it-is-not-an-electric-one I firmly reply. They stare at the misshapen box then at misshapen me. - let out a moo - ha - MOO -HA! kinda failing rather badly to suppress the giggle and move on by. 

I finally get to the front and am beckoned by the young, one might guess not quite so heterosexual lass, who politely says wots in the box mit?  

She proceeds to disembowel the cardboard box as efficiently as a hungry Thanator ever might.  To watch a young woman take such a huge interest in something black and rubbery and knobbly tells me that there is a fair shortage on min [men - gitting it?] here.   She inspects it closely  picking at the fine flecks of sand and motes of dust with her disembowelling pick and after some self debate proclaims I am safe to proceed to the nixt step in the process.  Yer ok mit yev git no mud on yer tyres so all is good.  😊👍

So where are the other two?  For sure 2 other racing snakes were just ahead of me with their pristene boxes at the start of the process?  Ah yes I git it now.  They were racing snakes with shiny in the box razors that have never ever been anywhere dirty.  I know exactly what their answer was when asked the question - road or mountain - and so were whisked through the clean as fook lane avoiding the deep inspections.

Well perhaps not that deep.  I’ve said before that New Zealanders are lovely people.  They are the antithesis to the American Border police, a critter so nasty, and from which even a voracious Thanator would run away. 

The next step was to xray my bag.  I pick it up off the end of the conveyor and start to walk away.  A distant call of do you have a tint in yer bag mit rang out ti which I replied yis.  Did you declare it she asks.  Yis I did.  Ive also wished it and hoovered it and so it is all cleen .  A distant OK, no worries mit was left hanging in my sorry ears as I  exited into the arrivals hall.  Bless them, they are trying you know.  So am I. This is nit a difficilt language to lirn 😊🙏👍

I finally open the box one last time in the shade of an airpirt overhang at the start of a warm sunny day.  I disembowel the box aygin and luckily first I grasp the bike seat post to fix it to the frame  Dammit the clamp bolt has dropped out.  I rake around inside the very dead box’s guts, find the nut, bit no bolt [stoppit now].  Feck it, it’s gone.  No choice Wayne you will have to get a taxi to the digs then find s bike shop for a replacement clamp.

The video in the link below is my first real attempt to produce a vid on my phoney.  A practice thing which also explains why my replacement seat clamp bolt is possibly the most expensive thing that I’ve ever bought, all things considered.

https://youtu.be/PPqiuxvw7oo?si=yNcXLjGFbUIIyHiI

Its now 6am and it is still dark out.  I recall walking outside at about 0330 and looking up into the clear moonlit sky.  I note it is upside down - the moon that is - an effect caused by being in the southern hemisphere.  An amateur astronomer I am but looking up at the stars here, well I truly might be on the planet of Pandora going by the number of constellations that I just do not recognise  

But importantly the collywobbles have passed.  Kathy has gone - for now - and I am alone again.  Remember Wayne those scary feelings you had on day one when you first ever attempted to cycle from Lands End to John O Groats?  Its just the same here.  The difference being you are now retired with all the time in the world.  So just take care.  Rash decisions are not needed.  Tik your time to get with it again.  You are after all a well seasoned tour cyclist and you know just what you need to do.

Tomorrow I may chat a bit about the people I’ve so far met.

Ciao fir now  😊