It’s a special day today….Pete turns 55.
After emerging fresh and clean from the nearest Finnish
lake, I anointed myself with his favourite scent, Off insect repellent, and
slid into my skintight lycra cycling shorts with extra padding in the bits that
count and his favourite coloured t-shirt.
Well it used to be at the start of the trip when it was still vibrant
pink. Now with murky shades of grey
affecting everything we brought on this trip, it’s more of a mauve colour, to
put it kindly. I arranged my hair using
every tool I brought with me (that’s all ten of my fingers and thumbs) applied fresh lip balm and lathered my skin
with SPF 30 sunscreen and presented him with his favourite muesli, fruit yoghurt,
a nectarine, four slices of bread and jam, a Danish and a cup of coffee.
He looked at me with an expression that could have been “You
went to all this effort for me?” But was more likely “Is that all we’ve got for
breakfast?”
August 8th 2014……Happy Birthday Pete……55 years
old…….
Unfortunately….not the kind of day I would have wished for
and it may well get worse over the next few days. Firstly….our noisy friggin
doggie people were that bad that Julia even Sssshhhed one loudmouthed cow and
her extremely loud daughter as they wandered past the tent at close to
midnight….as though no one else was around and it was midday.
One woman had a child that she had no control over
whatsoever and let the little mongrel scream at the top of her voice continuously
for ages. Last time we heard from her it was 10.45pm.Throughout the night
people who were using the facilities block were letting doors bang loudly,
instead of closing them quietly. But they really don’t give a toss.
Upon waking today the plan was a simple one. Cycle to the
airport….buy two bike boxes in which to transport the trustee steeds homeward.
Ate a quick brekky and packed up a sodden tent and headed into Espoo to use the
internet at the Bibliotek. Did all we needed to do…..all was going well….and
decided to grab something extra as breakfast hadn’t filled us up.
Checked out a cycle shop for a bike box…..don’t have
any…..break them down at delivery.
No problem….we’ll get ours at the airport.!
Decided to head for the airport…25km away….make it easy for
ourselves….purchase bike boxes and then pick them up on Monday…pack bikes on
Tuesday and all's well with the world.
 |
| The only photo we took today - we had other things on our mind |
Wasn’t too difficult to find the airport, as for most of the
way we rode alongside the ring road. Stopped part way along for lunch under a
shady tree and dried out the fly sheet…..tent….and ground sheet…Continued on
and when we thought we were close [ because there were no signs on the cycle
track ] we asked a group of guys walking back to work. They gave us great
directions, but warned us that there were road works and some deviations. Sure
enough, not too far on and we were baffled as to how to reach the terminals. A
couple of guys told us to take the extremely busy main road….but to go very
fast…as they never see cyclists riding to the airport….so no cycle path was
built that far…?
Ride fast we did for the next few km’s…up to terminal
1…where we parked the bikes and went in search of someone in the know…?
At the info counter….he sent us to the services counter.
‘Can we please have two bike boxes to ship our bikes back to N.Z.’
‘What KLM flight are you on…?’
‘Not KLM….British Airways…..’
‘Sorry… we only sell to KLM customers’
‘You’ve got to be kidding….. we’ve been to bike shops who
can’t give us boxes because they break them down, once they arrive’
‘If we aren’t able to access boxes…..we’ll have to leave our
bikes in Finland. Couldn’t you please
let us pay the Euro 25 and take two
boxes.’
The long and short of it was……we pedalled back to the town
of Vantaa [where we are staying in a Hotel on Monday and Tuesday] staring down
the possibility of having to leave the bikes behind.
Decided that drastic action was required… so we booked an
extra night at our Hotel……Cumulus….at Euro
167…..parked the bikes and went to the big shopping mall. Tried
different shops…..with no luck. At a K Supermarket….a girl called Tina couldn’t
give us boxes….but a lot of cardboard. Said we’d take it ..hey beggars can’t be
choosers..and though not ideal at all…..it was the only break we’d had all day.
Carried on our search into a Prisma supermarket [ like K
Supermarket ] they are massive and sell everything. Here we found our angel….in
the form of Alisa. We told her our story and where others had not even been
slightly interested…..she said….’Sure…I’ll go and get a couple of bikes out of
their boxes and you can take them…
We were ecstatic and couldn’t thank her enough. You know…when you’ve ridden your bikes that
far…under all kinds of conditions….how could you leave them behind…?
Grabbed some dinner from a café and back to tell Tina we had
a better offer…but thank you…
Got the boxes and then walked the couple of km’s with these
two very large boxes back to the hotel. We will still have some work to do..as
we need to cut them down to size….but we have boxes……it’s a bit like winning
the lottery…Whilst I typed the blog, Julia did some washing and then fell
asleep on the bed.
It has been one hell of a day…!
No comments:
Post a Comment