Ka Pai Kiwis

This journey doesn’t seem to want to end. Firstly we had to wait in the plane in Bali for 20 minutes so we wouldn’t arrive in Sydney before the 6am opening time.  We were expecting to land in Sydney in a few minutes when the captain informs us there has been a major malfunction with air traffic control and the landing time scheduled for us is outside the window of fuel remaining on board. So we diverted to Canberra for more fuel and a new flight plan to return to Sydney.  We arrived in Sydney 3 hours late and someone had parked their plane in our space!  Of course we missed our connection to Auckland.  We are booked on an afternoon flight, it could have been worse.  We had a lovely day with Paddy and Jules in Auckland with a nice brunch followed by a walk on a local walkway. Very relaxing in the warm sunshine. On Monday we collected the bike with no fuss, it was great to be reunited.   We then had a miserable  ride to Cambridge in torrential rain....

It felt very strange joining the orderly queues at the airport for check in and security.  It is quite a contrast from the chaos at many land borders.  We are having a few days of “normal” holiday with our friends Reijo and Barbra.  We have split our time between sightseeing and relaxing, with relaxing winning the time battle.  We have visited art galleries and local beaches but our immediate environs have won the day.  We are away from the main tourist hotspots and that is ok with us.  The food and the service here is seriously good. We have had to abandon the nightly special dinner, we simply cannot eat 5-7 courses even if we haven’t eaten since breakfast.  I have been in regular contact with out NZ agent 360 logistics who are helping us with bike clearance issues in NZ. They are really onto it so hopefully we can collect it on Monday. So at this stage we will collect the bike on Monday and travel down to Clive in Cambridge. We will then head home on...

We packed up the bike with the gear that will accompany it.  The first mission was to drive 50kms to our airport home stay.  Robyn went by Grab taxi and was there in an hour. I took almost 2 hours. I got tangled up in the spaghetti junctions and then Tomtom and maps.me started to disagree but we got there in the end.  The weather gods have been particularly unkind with constant rain overnight and this morning. By the time I got there it was just spitting but the damage was done the bike was dirty again so out with the hose and washed it down.  We dropped our clothes and bits and pieces at the guesthouse and then headed for the airport to send the bike on its journey home.  The first obstacle was the day ticket office. When I booked the bike they gave me a booking number and this was all I would need apparently. Apparently not actually, the guy said I needed to ring Maskargo and have them send through the documentation. This proved tricky as our local sim cards a...

We packed up the bike and with the addition of our purchases it was a tight squeeze We have moved into the central city to meet up with Reijo and Barbra The bike cannot go to the airport until 48 hours before it flies so we still have it. It had better not rain and make it dirty! We continued our shopping, and if you can’t get it here it doesn’t exist. We need to buy suitcases to bring out clothes home.  What a fabulous city to spend a few days in. Modern and clean. The traffic system seems to work. The roads are great, they have trains, light rail, taxis and GRAB cabs. In the centre there are covered, air conditioned  walkways connecting major buildings.  The architecture of the Petronas towers is amazing.  We had pre dinner drinks at the Traders Hotel with views looking directly at the towers, it was cool to see it changing from glinting in the sunlight to being fully illuminated with a black background.  Today we hopped on and off the bus and visited some sig...

The guys at the carwash have been super helpful. I have stripped  it down quite a bit and they’ve done the hard yards. Funny watching the different layers of dirt come off, I remember  riding through that colour..,, Even Kiwi got a scrub.    It has taken nearly two days to complete, we have all done our bit with Robyn getting stuck in. The men were a bit concerned, so they got her a chair. So a big thanks to George and Sally and the team at White Bear Car Wash and Spa.  Robyn has also made use of the laundromat and all our kit is now clean and tidy.  I rang the air freight people and the bike needs to be delivered on the 8th and it flies on the 10th. Too easy.  So another big thanks to the Maskargo team It is great to have all the logistics in place now, we can relax a bit.  We have both been shopping for some new clothes, 6 months with a couple of t shirts and a pair of travel pants gets a wee bit tedious. Robyn has found it more difficult t...

I agonised for months about which bike to bring on this trip and then spent more months preparing it for the journey.  It hasn’t missed a beat.  3 oil changes 3 tyre changes 1 set of front brake pads.  The 14T front sprocket is badly worn and will end its days on display in my workshop.  Punctures 0 😄 It has been used and abused, dropped, and ridden on many many roads and trails it was never designed to be on.  This kind of trip is all about compromise, sometimes I wished for a bigger bike, sometimes I was glad it wasn’t bigger.  It has handled everything we have dished out to it and not once let us down.  It is a miracle it hasn’t shaken itself to bits.  It has been a great servant and we couldn’t have asked for more. 

It was funny packing the bike today knowing that it was for the last time.  The descent from the Cameron Highlands was a delight, narrow winding roads with beautiful bush scenery in cool mountain air.  Before we knew it we were on the motorway and heading for the megatropolis of Kuala Lumpur.  What a massive city.  We entered from the north and are staying in the south closer to the airport.  We navigated the labyrinth of the motorways and found our hotel ok Our hotel is quite large with apartments as well as hotel rooms.  There is a large shopping complex nearby so we should be ok here for a few days. Also the carpark has a carwash with very obliging man so things are falling into place.  The next few days we will be busy organising the shipping for the bike and cleaning it thoroughly for NZ customs.  Suddenly  our journey comes to an end.  It hasn’t sunk in yet.  So this is the last daily post. Thank you all for reading it.  ...