New Zealand is a long way from anywhere

Any trip from New Zealand to anywhere else in the world is a big one, when you are situated on the edge of the globe it takes forever to get anywhere.

Departure day arrives I wake up to a severely stormy Sunday, it was so bad it was a little alarming. Flights were being cancelled, the wind was gusting to 120kmph and it was only 3 degrees!

It was with some relief I got on my local flight to Auckland and gritted my teeth for the international flight experience. The whole customs pre-flight checking process is now a right pain-in-the-arse, everyone is so terrified that they will be falsely accused as a bomber, so the experience is a tense one. As a result getting on the plane and flying is now such a relief that the flight is relatively pleasant.

Unfortunately we had to stop in LA. US airports have a unique smell, a combination of toilet disinfectant and stuffiness. The US customs process has always been unfriendly but they have now upped the ante to down right hostile, here we were as transit passengers and yet we had to endure retinal scans, finger printing and intense scrutiny from non-English speaking angry as hell passport control guys. We are transit passengers, it is not like we want to visit the States at all, oh well may be it’s just LA.

London.
The new terminal5 at Heathrow is fantastic; when the Brits do something well they do it brilliantly. Whenever I am in Britain I feel connected to the centre of the world, it’s vibrant, energetic and a totally cool place.

The Brits truly value design, god is in the details in Britain, the signage is designed beautifully, the packaging of products is beautiful, the newspapers are a joy to look at and read. Everything has an inspired quality – except for the food and coffee – I guess you can’t have everything. And hey and I am only in the airport!

Milan.
Italy, I hadn’t been to the place for 25 years, but it is exactly as I remember it, a combination of style, chintz, chaos and organization.

Linate airport and 38c! A little different from the 3c day that I had left back home.
When you travel half way round the world to ride a bike race what do you need most? Your bike, I waited and waited.

I was looking forward to seeing Andrew again and finally beginning the holiday.

But supposedly the bike was coming on the next flight, yeah right! It did, I couldn’t believe it!

Finally we had Andrews Mini loaded to the gunnels with a huge bikebox and were driving to Andrew’s new hometown of Crema on a beautiful 30C Italian summer evening.

I’m loving this holiday already!