Travelling to the start

Airline tickets were booked to leave Hastings Monday evening 02^nd July to arrive in Nantes, France, Tuesday evening 03^rd July. Alas, it was not to be.

AirNZ phoned Monday afternoon to advise the Napier to Auckland flight was running late and as it was the last flight of the day, I should perhaps take an earlier one for security. Taking their advice, I took the earlier flight to arrive to heavy rain in Auckland and find the flight to Shanghai was delayed. This flight was further delayed and finally left Auckland after midnight. Once airborne, the captain advised due to a typhoon, we were taking a longer route and the ETA Shanghai was pushed out further.

The flight finally arrived in Shanghai just after 9am which was too late for the connecting flight to Paris. AirNZ booked me via Amsterdam to Paris which arrived about 8:30pm into Paris which missed the last train to Nantes. I managed to use the Amsterdam Airport wifi to send a message to the tour organiser that I was delayed.

Seeking a hotel room, the airport information staff advised me all the airport hotels they phoned were fully booked or did not answer. Even the Sheraton in the terminal was fully booked. With the airport suggesting that everybody had to be out by 11:30pm and the hotel shuttle buses only running until about 11pm, I took a random shuttle bus to a hotel district and walked to literally all of them seeking a room. At about 12:30pm, one place said Euro 252 for the night. I suggested they were joking given the night was half gone. They were not. After further fruitless wandering, I returned and was told there were no rooms left but then they looked again and offered one. Pricing was somewhat fluid and reduced from their first offer, again on checking in and to the lowest amount on checking out. Breakfast was a full cooked and continental buffet which was very nice.

Returning to the airport where the TGV train station is located, there was a queue to buy tickets. I was then given a somewhat random number to wait until it was called for service. Once called, it was cheaper to buy a first class ticket as opposed to a second class one. After the transaction was completed, I was told my seat was upstairs on the train and I would have to carry my luggage up with me. While waiting at the train station, I met up with Mike Conza, one of our cycling team.

We boarded the train on time at 12:48pm and left Paris for Nantes. The train had wi-fi which worked which allowed this blog post to be drafted.

Arriving in Nantes at 4pm on time, we were met by two of the cycling team support crew and taken to the hotel for the night.

The evening was rounded off with dinner at a French restaurant before retiring to the hotel for some overdue sleep.