More intros and we're off!

I’m John, a physician from Durham. Duke has kindly promised that I’ll still have a job upon my return in a year. I’ll be working at the student health clinics at Victoria University of Wellington. During my spare time lately, I’ve been riding my bike with the local randonneurs. This summer I rode two 1200K randonnees—the Shenandoah 1200K and the Granite Anvil 1200K in Canada. I’ve been looking for new adventures since, and may have found more than I bargained for in the inaugural Kiwi Brevet starting in February on the South Island NZ.

Laura is in charge of commercial lending at Self-Help, a non-profit community development lender, in Durham, and has been awarded an Ian Axford Public Policy Fellowship for 7 months this year in Wellington. She’ll be based at New Zealand’s Ministry of Social Development and also Philanthropy NZ to explore social lending in NZ.

Claire will be 9 years old on her first day of school (Feb 5) in New Zealand. She likes to read, dance, draw, and eat pizza.

Eleanor is 5, and will also be in school starting in Feb in Wellington. She loves to make up songs, dress up, and watch movies.

Our plan is to fly to NZ, spend a few weeks on vacation on the South Island, and then settle in for a year of school, work and adventure.

Jan 1 Friday: Frantic packing in the morning—thanks to our neighbor Sue for the ride the airport in the red truck—we filled up the truck bed with 12 pieces of luggage.
 
Bike packed in one suitcase, 2 extra wheels, tires, tubes, tools in another bag. 48 pounds each on the home scale—not a 2nd glance from the AA desk agent at RDU. First to Dallas, then LAX Los Angeles. 3 hours in LAX, last minute gate change, and then aboard the Quantas 747 to Auckland NZ. 14 hours in the air from LAX to Auckland. Plane with some empty seats, so both girls got at least 2 seats to lie down across. Claire slept at least 10 hours, Eleanor 6 or 8, Laura 4-6, and I slept maybe a couple. ‘Inglorious Bastards’ movie, and ‘Julie and Julia’—both pretty good flicks. Landed at Auckland, claimed bags, and cleared Customs and Immigration and biohazard screening. The agents seemed reassured that my bike was a road bike with skinny tires, and was clean. (The mountain bike tires were pretty clean too. . .) They inspected our shoe bottoms for foreign soil. As we entered the terminal/shops, we realized that we were missing a bag—11 out of 12 ain’t bad, no? 60 minutes later, we had all 12, and thanked a friendly baggage agent. Then a mad dash to recheck the luggage and catch the one hour flight to Wellington.


Wellington has the nickname “windy welly”, and so far seems well-deserved. It was a low-cloud bumpy windy approach into Wellington airport, and on the approach, at the required altitude and position the pilot did not have the runway in sight, so we did a ‘missed approach’, and tried again. This time the visibility was a bit better, and we made it onto the ground. I’m a pilot with instrument rating, and in most of the USA, low-cloud approaches typically are not windy, and visa-versa. So, I was impressed with the pilot’s calm voice and landing, despite having to use a lot of power and aileron controls on the final approaches.

We took a taxi with trailer for luggage to our new flat in Wellington, and moved right in. We met Hillery and family who had moved in a few hours before. Hillery will also be an Axford Fellow with Laura this year. We took a walk to the cable car, and rode down to the city center at the bottom of the hill, and then wandered around the water--It’s Sunday afternoon, 30 hours after leaving RDU, (And 48 hours including time/date difference. So, no Jan 2nd for us this year.)

Dinner frozen pizza and peas in the new flat. Watched the cricket match out our new dining window. Assembled bike after dinner, girls to bed. Bike seems no worse for the trip.