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Published: March 4th 2006
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Welcome from Aukland! We had a stay in Vancouver of a couple nights at the Westin Grand courtesy of a deal Vicki picked up in Whistler. Quite a nice hotel but it seems the more expensive the room the more they nickle and dime you over the little things. We had a great little visit with Tony and got to see the Olympic closing ceremony festivities downtown. We got delayed for a couple hours leaving Vancouver when they discovered a window malfunction that couldn't be fixed, but after that everything was brilliant. Surprising how well our 13 hr flight from LAX to AUK went, our hats off to NZ Air! We arrived in Aukland at 7:30 am picked up our gear and spent the next 3 hrs setting up our bikes. In that time we had the pleasure of meeting an old traveler from Austria who had just finished a bike tour of the south island himself. Not sure if his story was encouraging or intimidating but he was about 70 yrs old on a $130 bike. We also met a man from New Mexico who just arrived for the NZ Ironman at Lake Taupo, so we had two well wishers
with some friendly advice right from the start. Once our bikes were assembled we debated as to the wisdom of us trying to cycle in the city to the nearest camping area. Seeing as neither of us had been on our bikes fully loaded and the fact that traffic is on the left here with different rules and those bloody traffic circles. None the less we made it safely to our camping area, which turned out to be in the corner of a "paddock" full of sheep. Camp was set up and we had a wonderfull first night in NZ. I'll leave you with some advice, don't underestimate the strength of the NZ sun! After our half-hour bike ride my arms looked like crab legs. Till later
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Ryan and Kristelle
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Hello
Looks like things are going well. Nice to see you guys are doing fine. Well maybe not Brett. Dude don't they sell sunscreen or you to macho for a little a lotion?