LIAM'S JOURNEY

We loaded up the bikes and kids and headed off to attempt to conquer the Wattyl Taupo Cycle Challenge on Friday.  We registered amongst the other thousands late in the afternnon, and out of 9 of us the only one to win a spot prize was Ashleigh.  Unfortunately for her it was a bottle of wine, which obviously was quickly claimed by her mother!

We struck our first we hiccup in the morning when we arrived at the start line and attempted to get Olivia onto the bus to take her to the first relay changeover.  I misunderstood something someone had said and nearly got her onto the wrong bus.  Thankfully a vigilant Mr Quine noticed and after a little bit of stress from me we got her on the right bus.

Fiona and I lined up for our start, and we soon off for our ride.  I was cruising up and down the hills for the first 40k and was feeling pretty good when we got to the changeover point and Olivia took over from Fiona.  About 20k later I was dreading the fact that I hadn’t done more training when my thighs turned into two great big lead weights.  The following 20k was very very long, but Olivia and I conquered the Waihaha hill (which I can tell you I was not laughing on!), and I nearly cried with relief when I got to the 80k mark where Rose took over for the second 80.  We were then bused back to Taupo (alot quicker than biking I can tell you!) and our bikes followed on the trucks.  We then had to wait for our bikes to be unloaded before we could head off to meet the kids to ride the last 5k with them over the finish line.  I must admit my bottom was not too happy about getting on the bike again to ride up to where the kids were waiting.  Not long after we got there Matt and Rose arrived and the 2 teams and 4 children headed off for our heart ride.  The kids had a marvellous time and it was really exciting coming across the finish line and hearing their names on the loudspeaker and everyone cheering them in.  All in all it was a spectacular day, the temperature got up in the mid to late 20’s and we had a lot of fun, but were pretty exhausted at the end!

Unfortunately we didn’t win any of the spot prizes, even though I was sure we were going to win the car – oh well, we will have to do it again next year!

Liam and Ashleigh ready to ride

Funny story for you – There were about 10,700 participants so of course there were a fair few portaloos around the place, and Ashleigh decided she needed to go.  Now I don’t think she has ever used a portaloo before, and was quite disgusted when she opened the door and looked in.  She was horrified that the toilet hadn’t been flushed (did a bit of explaining about portaloos about then) and she exclaimed that there was a sausage in there, to which I informed her, “no darling that will be a poo”.  She did her business and came out, and I then took my turn, much to my amusement as I looked down there actually was a whole sausage in the toilet – yuck!