On the flight over Chris managed to leave her kindle all alone somewhere. We had thought it had wanted to stay in the UK and had camped out in Heathrow, but thanks to the Sherlock Holmes-type endeavours of the Flight Service Manager it was tracked down in Los Angeles. After travelling the globe a few times with her, she kindly couriered it during one of her Auckland stops and it has finally been reunited with Chris. Hurray for very helpful Air NZ staff :o)
Yesterday Chris went out for a cycle around the city to try out some different cycle ways. At pretty much the furthest away point of the ride (naturally) she got a puncture. Her puncture repair kit was in a bag attached to her mountain bike but of course she was riding the other bike. So she calls Andy, who is out running at that point, leaves him a message and starts walking. After a while she is getting close to one of the main routes in the city where she knows there are some bike shops, so decides to take a detour there to try to repair the puncture rather than continue plodding home. She goes into one and asks, if she buys a puncture repair kit could she borrow some tyre levers and a pump? That was fine and she is left to help herself by the service area. Typically, it was the rear tyre (why is it always the rear tyre??) and on this bike it isn't a quick release wheel, so she also had to borrow some spanners. On the plus side she now felt better about not having the puncture repair kit with her as she wouldn't have been able to get the wheel off anyway. She eventually gets the wheel off (and is now covered in grease and oil) and sets about looking for the puncture. Checks the tyre first to see if anything is stuck in it - and discovers a fairly large screw! A nail or piece of glass would have been expected, but a screw? So now knowing where abouts to look on the tube for the puncture, she finds that the screw had made an extremely good job of damaging the tube and as well as at least 3 holes it had obviously dragged along the tube and caused a split. Safe to say it was beyond the help of a puncture repair kit! Still not having heard back from Andy yet she calls again to find out he had finished his run a wee while ago and just not checked his phone!! Ho hum. Anyway, he then comes out to rescue her and once home again one of our spare inner tubes was found, the old one put in the bin, and the bike is now ready to go again. Why is it always the rear tyre??
During his mad run in the mountains last week, Andy met someone from a local running club which he has now joined. We are realising that the Kiwis tend to get up early and go to bed early, and this definitely extends to the running crowd. He joined them for the first time this morning, getting up at 6am for a 7am start! It's Sunday!! Even the builders haven't woken us up that early yet. This afternoon Chris is off to a forest just north of the city with the group she went mountain biking with to play around in the trees on courses with rope bridges, zip wires etc. Andy is going to the pub ;o)
