Kia Ora! Day 1-The team all made it to Auckland, dinner with daughter Jaime at the Heartland Hotel, a lot of yarns, laughter and it was good to be in the company of old mates. The friends coming on this part of the trip are Jeremy Matthews (barbershop chorus mate from way back), Seaton Read and his partner Anna. Seaton and I were both born in the Ashburton Maternity Home in the last week of November 1950. Its a good group and I’m very pleased to have their comp...

5 years of plotting and planning done! Two more sleeps and we’re rolling. The luggage is packed and we’re adhering to my mate Seaton’s mantra that, ‘There are only two kinds of luggage when it comes to flying - carryon luggage and lost luggage!’ So we ain’t got much to carry. Might mean a bit more washing clothes but who cares. Roll on Sunday 😎

Here she is going through "security" at El aeropuerto de Nelson. The Air NZ staff here are great. Note The "Premium Service" sign. Somehow Sal always gets up ontoThe top shelf and I'm Just happy to be there! Not looking forward to to the next bit -12hrs 30 to Shanghai, 2hr break then 12:20 to Zurich with 2hrs more to Barcelona. Then crash in the hotel for 24hrs before we comenzamos el camino Frances! Yes! Right now we are pinging up on cafeína and doing our taic...

Buenos dias amigos! La preparacion del Camino es completa! Here we are in Nelson -down to the last 24 hrs - and the waiting is muy dificile! Buddy is at his girlfriends for the next 3months and Jeff & Sal are packed. Las mochilas weigh 4.7kg (Sal) & 8.6kg (Jeff) - hooray! and the new boots are broken in - 402.4kms in the last 3mths. The bodies are OK (sort of) and the pack contains many performance enhancing drugs! We went to Cafe Max last night an...