Viña del Mar to Santiago To New Zealand.

Having got Maya sorted, done and knowing she was loaded was a huge thing off my mind.

We had a lot of help from locals and all of these dudes are worth a great mention as is their shop as they made life for us a lot easier.

The guys involved in our last days of the trip were:

Piero, Mercedes driver, BMW crasher and great riding buddy of Jaime, unfortunately Piero was hit head on by a taxi which crossed the centerline and he was very badly broken up, fortunately he is on the road to recovery although very slow, best for getting sorted mate, we wish you well and thank you for your help. Pallet deliverer supreme!!

- Vicente, BMW shop manager of BMW in Viña del Mar
Williamson Balfour Motors S.A.
Avda. Libertad 841, 2520072 Viña del Mar, Valparaíso, Chile

Now Vicente allowed us to use their shop as a communication base (via Jaime) which was bloody cool ….and we had a coffee(s) , a huge thanks for letting us borrow Jaime to assist with not so nice customs people….you know the sort and thank you for the lunch, remember if you need any help or advice that we can you with let us know.

The lads lunch

P1240944 by Ellen Delis, on Flickr

The FINAL adv salute from South America .....just for you guys

P1240946 by Ellen Delis, on Flickr

-Alexis Vega. He's at BMW Logistics and kindly sent the pallets, he gave us more than enough to get us sorted and more to the point and extremely important it has the safe timber markings acceptable to New Zealand Customs which should stop any grief on the timber.

And finally - Domingo, he is one of their car salesman and was heading back to Santiago the day we were needing to go back, it was organised for us to get a ride so we took in Viña del Mar for the day and waited till he finished work early in the evening and he drove us from Viña del Mar to Santiago in a the nice BMW 420 with all our shit door to door.

Thank you team, any and all of you are welcome in New Zealand … only 13 hours away on a tin bird.

Our last night in South America, kinda weird, kinda cool, kinda sad, mixed emotions and Ellen has butterflies in her tummy.

The following morning was clean up, pack down and box it all in, Jaimes apartment looking like a motorcyclist had exploded.

With a tonne of time to spare we cruzed to the finish line and and got a taxi to the airport.

Our last moments in Chile extended by LAN airlines with our plane taking another hour and ten minutes to show up, for us it shortened our waiting time back in New Zealand by an hour so no issue for us at all.

Our flight was ok but it was a “bring your screaming baby” flight so not much sleep was had….I did have a bloody good catch upon movies though.

Into New Zealand was painless, easy and welcoming, an hour and a half wait and were got our final flight to Queenstown.

Gorking out the window we were looking down on our country that we had not seen for 3 years and 2 weeks, the snow increasing as we got further south.

Arriving at Queenstown Airport we were welcomed home by Wanaka Motorcycle Club members Peter and Richard, Richard and Margaret as well as Dick and Diana Hubbard who did Alaska to Ushuaia on a 1200 GSA, thank you guys for the red carpet welcome home.

Photos by Diana Hubbard, Dicks better half!!

IMG_0892 by Ellen Delis, on Flickr

IMG_0905 by Ellen Delis, on Flickr

More to come of back in New Zealand

Massive thanks to everyone on our trip, love to all.

Andi & Ellen