countdown to takeoff

Mission control…… this is London to Helsinki……we are in countdown.

Six hours and counting.

Began the day taking care of final preparations and getting last minute details out of the way.

Caught up with a few clients who wished us well and loaded up the van with the bikes and panniers (saddlebags for all you horsey folk) then headed to the airport for our flight.

Friends and family out there to see us off which was nice, although it was pretty hard to see our daughter Georgina getting upset saying goodbye.

Arrived Auckland and checked our bikes in early and picked up our boarding passes. Great to have such an early check in as we were then able to hitch a ride into Kohimarama with our friends son, who is off to Spain next week to work on yachts for the next six months.

And I thought we were on a good wicket.

He dropped us in St. Helliers where Julia and I enjoyed a lovely lunch overlooking Rangitoto at Kahve whilst he went to the gym.  Back to Kohi to meet up with Roger and Sharon before deciding where to eat out for dinner. Weather in Auckland today was spectacular, hopefully an omen of things to come.

Got a call from a mate in England asking if we wanted to go on a four day holiday to the Isle of Wight, all paid for. Very tempting, so we just need to rearrange our journey a little to be able to fit it in.

One hour and ten minutes and counting…..we are now through passport control sitting having a coffee (just for a change!) looking out over the tarmac which is a hive of activity and due to board shortly.  Managed to get our overweight cabin bags through (one kilo over each). They thought Pete had a weapon in his pannier but he said he was just pleased to see them!  (It was actually the bike pump they were querying).  Whereas I had a spectacular blonde moment as we were putting everything on the conveyor belt to be xrayed and completely forgot I was holding my panniers.  The security officer said ‘where are you going with those bags’ and I innocently replied ‘we’re cycling round scandinavia’ before realising she meant to put them on the conveyor.  Anyway it got them all laughing and that’s never a bad thing.