Jeannine & Roger's French Cheese Odyssey

Lyon to Auckland - 30th June to 2nd July

We made the epic journey home, leaving on the 30th of June and finally arriving on the 2nd of July. This did however include 10 hours in Dubai where the airline provided a free hotel room and breakfast as part of their customer service for the inconvenience of a long stopover.

On our last leg of the journey we went from 37°C high humidity heat in Dubai to a low of 3°C in Nelson. On the bright side we didn’t get Covid, Tina looked after our house and wildlife exceptionally well and Frances had made us dinner and stocked the fridge. Although freezing cold, it was nice to wake up in the morning and see the sea and not the neighbouring brick wall or the inside of a shutter.

We had an uneventful trip home, except for the drug-swabbing of my bag, palms, shoes and jacket; pretty sure the marmite and toothpaste authorities in Europe had tipped off Emirates that I was likely to be smuggling something. The answer was chilli flakes and a pet rock which I duly declared in New Zealand with no problem.

It's lucky the French Military Police were on a croissant-buying mission and weren’t interested in my contraband.

Statistics time – with photos

• Kilometres driven: 6998. Would we get a Peugeot 3008 again? No, according to the driver. The car’s lane assist function and GPS had a mind of their own, the sensor gauges are forever screaming that you are about to hit a blade of grass and it’s not practical for Roman roads and small car parks.
  Our travel mode could have been worse…

• Money Spent: $29,024 for 2½ months compared to 2018 where we spent $19,000 for 3 months. The difference was in insurance, air tickets, accommodation and car hire. The accommodation was explainable by the fact we did private rentals in 2018 and this time AIRBNB. The increase in costs could also be put down to Covid, UK exiting the EU and general inflation. The French took advantage of Brexit to remove nearly half a million British from France.
• Boring Practical Items Purchased The pan was to get around induction stove stops for the coffee pot.

More exciting purchases
• Geocaching Adventures: 168 attempted, 142 successes, and 4 travel bugs brought home to place in Nelson, even though their owner wanted them to go to Sweden.

• Countries Visited: 5 - UAE, France, Andorra, Spain, and Portugal. Sadly Roger’s only souvenir from Andorra was a paper bag, which he paid 10 cents for.

• Books Read: 2 for Roger, 3 for me, including French subject matter; Carcassonne WWII resistance, and the Camino. Below are Roger’s freebies that he brought back to NZ.

• Brilliant Packing: We took the AirNZ maximum allowance of 23kg stowed luggage and 7kg hand luggage. Half of that we didn’t use, but we did utilise the following free items; the tokens are essential in France to get a trolley whether it is at a supermarket or airport.

• Cheese experiences: 69, as promised
• Essence of France Photos: 31, we should have done more but Napoleon wasn’t always available for a photo shoot.
• Things not counted: Baguettes eaten, Catholic churches visited, protests attended, dog shit stepped over, altercations with arrogant French drivers, steps climbed, and cats found that don’t speak English.