23/05/19-12/06/19

Countries: Tanzania, Malaysia, Australia & New Zealand

Dan & Jacob
201 km / 125 mi
680 m / 2,231 ft

Jen
0 km / 0 mi
0 m / 0 ft

Plane: 23,343 km / 14,505 mi (4) (think of the air miles!)

I bet you think I’ve been lazy with the blog again, don’t you? Skipping weeks so I can lump them all together. Other times that’s been true. This time, as you’ll see, there was no natural pause in the ongoing story of the past few weeks. It really does have to be told together to experience the highs and lows as they happened. So I’m afraid this is a long one. Get comfy and grab a tissue, you may just cry.

Let’s rewind back to week fifty-nine for just a second. If you remember Dan and I had made it to Zanzibar (after being scammed at the ferry port) in time to meet his Mum and brother, Jacob, in the north of the island. We spent a lovely few days together and the sun even made an appearance, despite it being rainy season. On June 23, we bid the beach goodbye and headed to Zanzibar City, or more specifically, Stone Town, to meet Dan’s sister, Alice. Dan and Jacob cycled the Surlys, while their Mum and I taxied with the million bags.

We now had Alice.

I will say that Dan’s Dad was missed, who unfortunately couldn’t fly out due to work. A beer with the Burns lot isn’t complete without their Dad, whether that’s over a home-cooked curry at midnight, in a pub after a country walk, or in their local. And now, apparently, on a tropical beach – we wished he’d been there.

Once the team was fully assembled, it was an action-packed week. The boys rode another two rides. There was a touch of sunburn all around. We went snorkelling off a dhow. Visited Freddie Mercury’s house. We also visited Prison Island, which is home to giant tortoises – and used to the be where rebellious slaves were sent in the 1860s. Then we had a few days by the pool. There was a touch of sickness floating around camp. We ate copious amounts of seafood. We’re unsure if the previous two points are related. Once we accidentally orders fifteen samosas, when we wanted five. The poor guy had to call in his mate to help. We lost count of how many games of Wizard we played (thanks, Tom). And of course, there was plenty of beer drunk in the sun, jacuzzi and on the beach.

You’d think we had spent the best part of a month together, the amount we fit it. We had such a great time, it was heartbreaking when the time come to say goodbye.

After waving the three of them off in a taxi we went back to the room and cried. I was crying partly because it was sad to say goodbye to the gang, but partly because my Mam and Paul hadn’t jumped out and surprised me on Zanzibar… Why did I think they were going to jump our and surprise me on Zanzibar, you ask? Well, before Christmas, in India, I’d accidentally seen a text notification on Dan’s phone from my Mam saying “TOP SECRET… We want to surprise Jen…” I couldn’t see the rest of the text and stayed well clear of his phone after that, so not to spoil the surprise. It was hard keeping my trap shut for over six months – I was so excited. I was expecting them to jump out around every corner. But they didn’t. And I was gutted.

This is the second time I thought I was going to see them and didn’t. Once-upon-a-time during the trip, Mam and Paul had planned to meet us in India after Christmas. But the trouble in Russia derailed our plans and our timings didn’t work out anymore. We’d left India by the time their holidays had come around. I was gutted then, too.

Mood in camp was low when we said goodbye to family. We kind of moped about for a few days, running a few errands. To be honest, we pretty much spent two full days thoroughly cleaning all of our kit – including bikes and tent – in preparation for Australian and New Zealand biosecurity checks. They’re both super strict on anything coming into their countries that could upset local ecosystems.

Bikes cleaned, we packed them into the bike boxes Dan’s Mum had brought out for us. With Qatar’s generous 45 kg per person limit, we had nothing to worry about for the first leg from Zanzibar > Doha > Kuala Lumpur. The whole experience was easy-peasy. Which if there are any cycle tourers reading this, you know that flying with a bike is possibly the worst thing about touring.

Then we landed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It’s not the first time we’ve been to Malaysia – it was actually my fourth time – although we’ve never been together. We dumped the bikes in airport storage for a very reasonable £18 and bussed into the city. A quick shower and we headed out to meet Dan’s cousin, Tom – for the fourth time of the trip. The lucky duck managed to switch a flight he was working from Stockholm to KL in order to see us.

Now we had sensible intentions for Kuala Lumpur: a few beers and dinner with Tom on the Wednesday night, then a full day of eating our way around all of our favourites restaurants from previous trips on the Thursday. We’d planned at least five meals. And plus Tom was working the flight back to Dubai. Naturally, things didn’t go quite to plan…

6am.

That’s when we got in. A disgusting amount of beer was consumed. Then we found some food in the small hours. Then stocked up on more beer from the convenience shop. We barely remember getting back to the hotel really. We were so hungover the next day we had to pay for a super late check out at the hotel, before having to taxi straight to the airport to collect the bikes, which you could only store for 24-hours at a time.

We were that kind of hungover when you want to eat everything, but can’t really stomach it. Laksa? Too fishy, couldn’t eat it. Ramen? Too salty. Fried chicken curry. We even ordered two KFCs during our waiting for check-in.

Totally unplanned. But those are the best kind of nights.

As if our drunkenness wasn’t enough drama to deal with. When we tried to check in for our KL > Sydney flight, the Air Asia guy told us that we couldn’t because we didn’t have an Australian visa…

Sorry, we don’t have-a-who-in-the-what-now?

We were dead sure we’d looked into it and that we could get one on arrival. Most countries give Brits visas on arrival. Surely Australia was one of them? Nope. He said we had three hours before check-in closed to get an e-visa.

Hungover we crawled into the corner of the check-in hall and started filling in online visa forms, which you should not be allowed access to in the state we were in. We both texted our family and had a bit of a giggle. Only we could have screwed up yet another visa. And what was the worst that could happen? Our six days in Sydney had already become four. Yes, I’d be super sad not to see my friends, Beth and Brett, for my 30th birthday, but they are planning on visiting us in New Zealand anyway. If the visa was a no-show, we’d simply skip Sydney and fly straight to Auckland. Just gotta’ take the cash hit if we miss the flight.

We both pressed submit and were greeted with ‘Thanks. 90% of applications are processed within 24-hours”.

Great.

So we waited.

And waited.

Not gonna’ lie, it was the longest seventeen-minutes of our lives. But we had our visas and the guy let us check in – we were going to Sydney after all! We boarded the flight, no problem, and slept for the full eight-hour flight. Good job Air Asia don’t offer free in-flight food or booze, as we would have missed it all. Not that we could have stomached any more alcohol…

Body-clocks now officially all over the shop, we landed in Sydney at 10am. After collecting our bikes from the over-sized baggage conveyor belt, we joined the rest of our flight and waited for our two checked panniers. The little one arrived. The big one didn’t. Balls. And it had the tent in. Bigger balls.

Our friends Beth and Brett were playing taxi and had been waiting patiently for updates, as we went through the whole process of reporting a lost bag. Nightmare. The airport was obviously very apologetic. We just wanted to fill in the form and go. Lost bags always turn up – or they have when it’s happened to me twice before. Plus, our Qantas flight to Auckland wanted to charge $20 per kilo we were over, and we were 16 kg over their limit. It would be handy if they didn’t find the bag until we were in New Zealand… Anyway, we finally got out into the arrivals halls – no biosecurity checks – to big hugs off Beth and Brett.

The guys put the bikes, still boxed, in their car, while Beth and I jumped in a taxi to their place. FYI: The boxes fit in their car width ways – their car is a monster. Then we rushed home to spend our precious four days together.

Bit of a who, why, what… Beth and I met back in 2011 when we both spent a year teaching English in South Korea. We still agree that it was one of the best years of our lives – it’s such a great country. We’ve since been on many more adventures together, working as pearl farmers on the Abrolhos Islands, trekking in Borneo and walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain. We’re currently planning a ten-year reunion in South Korea with the rest of the Busan gang, but, before that, Beth and her husband, Brett, are driving a big lap of Australia in their monster truck (not really a truck). They literally started the day we left Sydney (a perfectly timed get-together). Follow their 4x4 adventure @twobestmates.

Pearl farming on the Abrolhos Islands in 2012. Just getting some petrol for the boat.

Okay. So we get to Beth and Brett’s and the guys are waiting outside to carry out bags, even though they took all the luggage in the car. Forgetful fools. We all go inside and Brett is being all polite getting me to go up the stairs first. Fourth floor, first door on our right. Surely he should go first? Never mind. I go in and take my shoes off, repaying the politeness. Then I walk into the living room… I see the 30th birthday banners and balloons first… Then hear our Mam’s voice––––WHAT THE?

My Mam and Paul are stood in Beth and Brett’s living room wising me a Happy Birthday.

I ran back down the hallway. No joke. Watch the video. I was gobsmacked. I had quizzed Dan about that India text after I realised Mam wasn’t coming to Zanzibar and he said he couldn’t even remember getting it. Now I found out that everyone was in one it and her plan was always Sydney, not Zanzibar.

Beth and Brett had an illustrator create the most thoughtful card, as a congrats on us getting this far.

Shock over and it was just like I’d seen them yesterday. Sadly when they booked up, they too thought we had six days. Now we just needed to make the most of the four days we did have together – and Beth certainly made sure of that.

That Friday night we went to their leaving party and got to meet all their Sydney friends, then, on Saturday, I turned thirty. The BIG 3-0. Beth planned the perfect birthday, full of my favourites things: good food, good ales and live music. It went a little something like this: breakfast at the flat (an Air BNB as it turned out, not Beth’s flat); Korean BBQ for lunch; a walk around the Botanical Gardens, Opera House and Harbour Bridge, where we spotted the plaque that says it’s built with Middlesbrough steel. We then went to a brewery, before pub grub complete with birthday cake, and a gig with three local Aussie bands. Probably the best birthday ever.

Pork belly is my favourite meat and noodle soup is a top three meal, making this the pretty perfect birthday dinner.

Sunday was the last full day with our Mam and Paul. I can’t believe they flew to Sydney for my birthday weekend – granted they originally thought it was for longer. What a weekend! Luckily Dan managed to squeeze in seeing his Australian family that afternoon as well, who gave him a lovely tour of Manly, where they live, as well as treating him to beers and pizza. We’re hoping to see them again soon, as there’s talk of an NZ holiday…

And then before we knew it, we were saying goodbye to people we didn’t want to say goodbye to again. Like pulling a plaster, we made it quick and painless to avoid any tears. A quick see you later and we were packed in our Uber and off to the airport for our final flight of this epic four country aerial tour. Now we had the excess baggage to contend with…

The whole taxi ride we were praying that Qantas weren’t going to charge us $20 per kilo we were over. We’d managed to squeeze the 5 kg bag into our overloaded carry ons, but we still had an 11 kg pannier to check in. Plus my Mam had brought me out a load of toiletries, which of course I shoved in, too.

Our Sydney to Auckland flight was the fifth flight for the boxes (once without bikes). Despite looking like patchwork quilts, they held up pretty well.

Wow. We have no idea what happened, but luck was most definitely on our side. The nicest Qantas woman altered the weight of our 31 kg bike boxes to 25 kg and listed our 11 kg pannier as 10 kg. We were now bang-on our 60 kg limited. What. A. Diamond. It made it the smoothest airport / bike experience ever. New Zealand here we come!

I just let out a big, unintentional sigh. Told you it was a long one. Truth be told this blog post is dated until 12 June, and even though we landed in Auckland on the 10 June, I just haven’t got it in me to write anymore. I’ll leave the New Zealand catch up for next week, week sixty-three. Now pass us a stiff drink.