Day 98 - We made it 🎉🎉🎉

We landed on time which was nice and got through immigration very easily - ePassport gates kind of easily in fact (which was more of a surprise for me than Emma of course). The real trouble of this border was always going to be the New Zealand biosecurity and their on the spot 200 euro fine for anything you've forgotten or failed to declare. It makes sense to protect the native species, but given how much food we've squirreled around and how mucky the bikes had been it was stressful!

In the end though it was very easy - we queued up for a while and then they had a cursory look inside the boxes. The main whoopsie was we'd forgotten to clean the tent (mostly because we hadn't used it in so long that we totally forgot about it), but I guess because we'd declared it, he calmly emptied the bits of grass into a bin (initially I did think he was straight going to put the whole tent in the bin without saying a word!) and handed it back. He hand searched the rest of that pannier and the others went through the scanner and we were done! Pro tip though - don't ask to borrow his knife to open your bike box, "I'll do that for you." Ohhhhh yeh - they probably don't want to be handing out weapons at airports...

Somewhat unbelieving that I'd finally made it into the country (the lack of sleep and jetlag adding to the fun) we stopped for a coffee to gather energy for the bike build and cycle. Happily the building was very painless thanks to the big boxes - most of the time was spent rearranging all of the fragile stuff in our panniers into something resembling a safe ride order. After the many repacks and unpacks at various security points throughout the travel, there were fragile cups mixed next to bike locks next to tent poles next to everything else flying about. I actually still haven't found my toothbrush! To add to the ease Auckland airport has free, clean and hot showers available landside, so I had a much appreciated freshen up before we hit the road.

We were immediately welcomed back to non-Asian drivers as the very first car to overtake us, the very first, took the time to honk, flip us off and shout abuse while overtaking us because we were side-by-side on the hard shoulder on an empty road. By the time this had happened a third time (ON A COMPLETELY EMPTY STRAIGHT ROAD) we were suitably once again terrified of drivers and feeling like we were back in France.

Hey ho - the scenery was nice and the air as fresh and cool as a homely British summer, while the sporadic rain and sunshine really served to drive home the impression. In fact certain streets gave me an uncanny impression of parts of the UK - I swear we turned onto a street in Portsmouth at some point! It actually ended up being a much nicer day than the spray thrown up by the plane landing had implied and we only got wet in short 10min bursts. Although we do have to add a 5th "rain day" to the tally unfortunately, right at the end!

The hills were steep and we were both feeling very spacey from the lack of sleep and jetlag, but soon enough we were arriving at an old haunt of Emma's where they serve enormous ice creams. I had a modest four baller (you could get up to 10)!

About 20km from our final destination we met our welcome party! We'd come a long way but we had an escort for the final leg!

That extended to a little welcome party with friends who are also back visiting home after we rolled into Emma's folks place following a quick tour of her town (school, playing fields, old house and grandparents) as the heavens opened. What a way to mark the end of the journey. We'd made it! Somehow we'd actually made it. Feels wild to actually be standing in New Zealand after such a long period of anticipation, even if it hasn't sunk in yet. Now if you’ll excuse me, I've got a beer to crack open.

(I'm just saying that for the looks, in reality I was chain-drinking tea all evening 😉😁☕️, but Emma had a beer!)

Food spend today: 38.33 euros

Tea consumption: 6

P.S. This may be the last official day of the tour (Day 98 I know I know it hurts me as much as it hurts you) but I've got a few summary posts and I'll put up some pictures from the Kiwi holiday, so see you again soon!