Just before we leave Vancouver, Roseanne (Roland's sister) gave us a present. It was a beautiful hand made wooden box that she had poured hours into for our wedding present. Roland's Granddad was a master at this kind of veneer work and she wanted to carry on the tradition. It's gonna be a great box to put settlers in! So at the airport we met our first bear - I hope they are all as friendly as this guy! Unpacking the bike was reasonably successful, however when we first tried to move it with trailor on it fell over hitting my leg. We have stayed the last two nights at the 'Big Pink', a couch surfing find which has been great. People just come and go! There's even a rat living in the fridge! We did a cycle around Anchorage, it's really spread out and so we ended cycling 50kms yesterday. We have just stocked up on food and about to hit the road to head to Wasilla - our first stop on the way to Fairbanks. Eek!
As I sit here writing this at the kitchen table, Roland, Roseanne (Ro's sister) and Derek are playing a game of Crib. It's 11pm at night and we're waiting for our last load of washing to go through. We have everything packed up (thanks to Roland's great handy work). It took a bit of work to get the bike packed down and securely into a box.. a really really big box! So Roland has been pretty much the best husband ever today. Unfortunately, I woke up this morning with a migraine and turned into lame-o girl while Roland transformed into Super Duper Man. After popping several pills and having a sleep in a darkened room, I'm coming right.....I can actually see clearly again! We gave our bike it's first test ride yesterday. You can see it in the background of the picture above. It went very smoothly except when Roland's handle bars became loose...... crash carefully averted..... good first ride story! We are flying to Anchorage in the morning and are so glad we are finally actually starting for real! We would like to thank HighGear for donating us his and her watches. We have only had them two days but we couldn't imagine life without them now. If you would like to check out our watches, click here for Belinda's watch or click here for Roland's one. We had a really great meeting with Amelia in the PR department yesterday for the Salvation Army B.C. headquarters. We are super amped now and hope to get some volunteer work at a few stops along our route in B.C including Vancouver. Thanks to Amelia and Johnny for being so supportive and enthusiastic! They have begun a new campaign, bringing attention to the issue of human trafficking. If you'd like to send us snail mail while we are cycling we have started to update our 'contact us' page. Click here if you'd like to view this page. Belinda's special birthday present to her husband was skunking him at Crib! Tee hee! We had a nice cycle together around Stanley Park and surrounding areas (on single bikes). Then we had perogies for tea and oatmeal cookies with a handful of friends and family. Roland had Haagen Das Vanilla Swiss Almond Ice cream (his favourite) with candles in it! A low key day but a pleasant one. If you live in Manukau City, we may of had breakfast with you yesterday morning as we featured in the Manukau Courier. It's an article about our trip, which is super exciting albeit a bit embarrassing! If you want to check it out go to: http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/manukau-courier/2589437/In-tandem-with-Sallies Roland's dad took us out to Chilliwack (Pedal Sports) to look at tandem bikes. We decided on a Co-Motion bike called a Mocha. Check out this link http://www.co-motion.com/tandem_bikes/mocha.html. It's gonna be yellow and super cool! Love the technical stuff (Belinda is writing this!)? It currently feels like we are back in Auckland as the weather in Vancouver is rainy and a tad cool. Apparently its been awesome weather for the last two weeks up until we arrived! What's with that? We had a great send off at Auckland airport, with family and friends to buffer the long wait due to the delayed flight. It was hard leaving such amazing people in New Zealand but also exciting to be starting our adventure at long last. We got picked up from the airport from Roland's mum and dad and we are now staying at Roland's sister's (Roseanne) place while we're here in Vancouver. We have booked our flight to Anchorage for the 24th July so we have a good couple of weeks to get prepared and reacquainted with family and friends. Although we are not sleeping the best and feeling rather jet-lagged, we have already done some bike clothing and equipment shopping. We will be putting up our first lot of photos in the next few days. Belinda has a new look! She spent the day at Knotty Boy with Adrianna, Becca and the rest of the crew. The great news is that there is more than five dreads (that was a big concern). It will be interesting to see the progress over the next few days, weeks and months. We'll be getting the link of the DVD Knotty Boy is making too. Oooooo.....anticipation! |
Roland and Belinda
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