By Andy

5th February

As most of you will know by now we have been keeping a blog of our journey. Well, when I say we, I mean Liz has been doing a great job writing the days up. So this is my first blog post.

I’m going to start back at the very beginning so most of you will already have heard the story but I’ll put it in my own words.

As many of you who know me will know I am rather nostalgic about old kids tv programmes and can often be heard signing their theme tunes. Often directly in your face. These could range from; round the twist, bodger and badger, mashed potatoes!!!! and a popular one of choice is of course the chuckle brothers. Slapstick comedy is often seen as a rather low form of comedy but done well it will have you in stitches. It is for this reason that I’m a fan of the chuckle brothers and their awesome catch phrase and theme music. Anyway, I digress.

The journey from Leeds to London airport was always going to be a pain in the nethers with two bike boxes and all our luggage. That said it gave me plenty of opportunity to fit as many chuckle brother references in as physically possible, much to the annoyance of Cooper. The boxes weighed 15kg each and we had a bag with all our panniers which weighed 30kg. The only way to manoeuvre was with one of us at each end of the boxes and the bag on top, hence the constant ‘to me, to you’. This is why I feel I may have mastered the role of a chuckle brother now, and as I recall there is an opening in the chuckle brothers. Since Liz is female, the part is almost certainly mine. RIP Barry you legend!

My friend and work colleague Nick had given us a lift to Leeds coach station in the morning and I was glad that he had made such a practical car choice. He got the car so he could fit his bikes in with ease so it really was the perfect vehicle. As Nick had also done some cycle touring he had given us some essential advice which would definitely cone in handy later. “There WILL be bad days, you just have to push through them and keep going”.

After arriving at Heathrow and putting the boxes and bags on a trolley I did my best to manoeuvre the trolley in a fashion similar to Colin McRae, I even made the sounds at times. This wasn’t really advisable as the boxes took up the whole travellator and I came close to maiming a few stationary people. Who stands still on one of those at an airport anyway. Wait a minute… Colin’s dead too. All my references hmmm.

After getting to the desk we repacked our boxes with all the luggage to an exact 30kg each and checked ourselves and the bags in. We had to go in a back room with two shifty fellas to put our boxes through the scanner. Despite the box saying bicycle in big letters he thought he would ask if they were bikes. He seemed confused as to why we were taking bikes but to be fair to him one lady had thought we were taking mirrors so he is probably still up there in terms of IQ. Anyway through security and only a couple of hours to kill.

After ordering some food, despite Liz insisting we shouldn’t as we would be fed on the plane, we shared a tasty Mac and cheese. This turned out to be a rather good decision as an hour later when we were sat on the plane it was starting to seem every more likely that we weren’t going anywhere. Announcement after announcement declared something else wrong with the plane. Eventually after 4 hours we were told to get off the plane.

I was surprisingly chilled out about what followed as recently I have been struck with a travel curse. A trip to Belgium last year being a total shambles of all forms of transport. After queuing for about 4 hours and tucking into an ice cream in one of the queues, we finally got to a hotel at 4:30 am boxes in tow once more and my audition for the chuckle brothers getting it’s much deserved second reading.

I’ll pick the next part up on the next post but be forewarned. It will contain many swears, in fact it will mostly be swearing.

Until tomorrow.

By Liz

5th February – Off we Go!

All week we have been preparing and reducing the amount of stuff we are taking, sorting into piles and arranging where to leave these piles when we finally set off. I drove over to Buxton to drop off a car load with Andy’s parents, and then at the weekend we left even more stuff with them, but amazingly – we still have stuff! Poor Tom (Andy’s housemate) will just have to accept a couple of boxes may be left in the cellar..

Nick, Andy’s colleague, kindly gave us a lift to Leeds coach station in a Volkswagen Sharan. My mum had one of these when we were younger. Fond memories! Like this one, it was a cart horse. Could fit anything in. And happily we were on our way!

The coach trip from Leeds to London was ok, this is when I first discovered how heavy our bikes really were going to be. We put the bikes in the boxes, taped them shut and had a thin hold-all for the pannier bags. Separating them out meant we were under the 20kg allowance of the bus!

When we got to Heathrow we packed the pannier bags into the boxes and they both weighed 30kg on the dot. Got through security and met up with my friend Radi for dinner before the flight. We shared a crab mac and cheese. Boarded the flight and all was well!

Half an hour later the first problem occurred, something was up with the doors, then over the tannoy there was an issue with the flaps, and then the fuel jetison pumps weren’t venting. After 4 hrs on the runway we were informed that the flight was cancelled and we would be taken off the plane. Fantastic. We got our bikes back, and then it was just a continuous queue to a hotel room. Thankfully cafe Nero was open for a cheese toasty, otherwise we would have been very hungry!

Got to the hotel at 4.30am. Not a great start but let’s hope for better tomorrow!

6th February – Take 2

Hotel rang at 7.30am to say the coaches were going to be arriving from 8.30am for our flight at 1pm. We heaved ourselves out of bed, tiredly put on yesterday’s clothing, and got a taxi back to the airport. The thought of putting the boxes onto the coach was enough to make us fork out £30. By this time the boxes were in need of more tape, they had been on and off the plane, so we taped up all the holes and got them back to the bag drop. This is when we found out our 1pm flight had been delayed to the evening. Both of us needed a half an hour sit down just to figure out what the heck we were gonna do next. Go through security and wait 8hrs? Or go into London. Luckily one of us was mentally agile enough to think of the hotel. We called, they still had our room.

Back to the hotel for a nap, food and a shower before the next taxi trip to the airport. Finally back on the plane. Finally up in the air. Hurrah we are on our way!

7th February – Travel Limbo

Arrived into Singapore. On the plane we were not given much information about our onward flight to Brisbane, but naturally assumed it would all be fine. We went to the transfer desk and we were told, oh you have a boarding pass, just get the next flight to Brisbane. Fine. It was about an hour to the flight so we went for a wander. Found an outdoor cactus garden and sat with an orangina (£10 a beer… hmm f that) and contemplated the last 36 hours. That was when we looked at our Qantas apps and saw it was suggesting we go to Sydney instead of Brisbane.. finished the drinks quickly, as that flight was definitely sooner, and ran back to the transfer desk. Made the flight, which was itself delayed, just in the nick of time. Stress city.

8th February – Australia to New Zealand

I slept a decent time on the Singapore to Sydney flight! felt like a new woman. We met a few people on the flight, after being shoved from plane to plane, you eventually recognise others in the same predicament – with a stink of B.O and looking dead on their feet like us! A lot of them had arrived at their final destination so we cheerfully said goodbye to our plane friends.

We eyed the Mac Donald’s in the airport lounge and unsuccessfully walked past without a mc muffin breakfast! We thought about getting tee shirts but decided we couldn’t arrive in NZ with Aus stamped all over us.. too tragic!

We went to the desk to see about our onward travel and the lady at the desk informs us that though we made it onto the flight, our bikes did not. Fan-bloody-tastic. We will be landing in NZ later today, the bikes will be 24hrs late on a direct flight from Singapore to Christchurch.

Plane to ChCh was lovely, Emirates are classy! Wood veneer finishes. Just lovely! I watched Venom and the RBG movies, very good, very different.

Arrive in New Zealand!!!!!

First thing we do after going through security (which is a joke cos we don’t have luggage, so have to sign and say, sure you may search our boxes, but please please be careful) is buy teeshirts! Mine is blue with a kiwi bird. Andy’s is a mod symbol with a kiwi in the middle. Yes these will be worn 🙂

Uber to the campsite with only our hand luggage in tact and our new purchases. We are staying in a cabin this first night which luckily the holiday park still had, cos without a tent that might have been interesting.

After settling in, and showering and washing what little we had on, the next issue was food. We could either go to the Burger King at the bottom of the road or venture further to a shop. According to Google it was a 30min walk. When we suggested this to the reception desk they warned of the highway, no your best bet is to go to Bishopdale. Much quieter. Only 15 mins.

Bullshit. 45 mins of walking in the heat, on an empty jet lagged tummy, and we finally make it! Taxi back, of course, with the lamb chops, broccoli and breakfast stuff too! Grilled on the campsite bbq and then fell straight to sleep when our heads touched the pillow. What a journey.

Hello Readers! Welcome to our blog.

We have decided to create a travel diary to share with friends and family our adventures. We are excited to spend some quality time together and we hope to share with you our highs and lows along the way. Liz is going to expand her photography skills, whilst Andy wants to write short stories. What a perfect combo for a blog, eh! At the end of each post, we will sign it off, so you know who is speaking.

You may be wondering, why Lizard Tracks? The word Lizard is the combination of the word ‘Liz’, and Andy’s initials ‘A.R.D.’ – genius huh. And Tracks, well – I won’t explain that one.

But we made this ingenious discovery when we were on the isle of Tenerife several summers ago. We were hiking up the mountain next to El Teide; you needed a permit for El Teide, of course we didn’t have one, you know us, right? So we climbed the next tallest and looked at El Teide from slightly higher up. It was great. And it was very dry, very hot, and there were loads of lizards scuttling across our path. We were a little dehydrated and a little delirious so of course we talked, and sang, utter rubbish all the way up and back down.

We hope you enjoy our blog and our utter rubbish, feel free to comment and say hello or email us on li3ardtracks@gmail.com. Lots of love and warm wishes to you all!

by Liz & Andy