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New Zealand 2: Taupo, Ironman checkin and opening ceremony

New Zealand 2: Taupo, Ironman checkin and opening ceremony

Hello my lovely readers, I hope you are all healthy sane in this new week in lockdown. This blog has been a busy space. Not only is the collaboration with Debaleena running, I have also decided to write the long due NZ series and publish it. The Introduction and the journey part1 is written already. Today I bring a little about the town of Taupo and our activities leading up to the Ironman day.

Day3 : Ironman Check-in / Swim in lake Taupo and view around

Lake Taupo

Lake Taupo
Wet Suit trial in lake Taupo

This day started pretty early. The Ironman-Check-in were scheduled to start at 10:00 in the morning. Before that we all gathered our swimming equipments and went to the swim start region. The water was so clean, you could see the bottom.

The water of the taupo lake is well maintained and no contamination is allowed there, as it is the source of drinking water and hosts a large water plant. The athletes had to take their wet-suit to the Ironman convention centre the day before to get the pass to wear wetsuit in water. If the wetsuit were not clean enough, they had to be cleaned before anyone could enter the water. Today, everyone were ready with their checked and clean wet suits and started to test it out. Athletes from around the world have arrived in Taupo for Ironman and their enthusiasm was infectious. There were athletes as old as eighty and as young as twenty competing in the big event.

I could not stay away from the allure of the clear water and the infectious enthusiasm; so I jumped in the water and swam for a while. I am not a good swimmer, having learnt swimming only a couple of years back,so I mostly stayed close to the shoreline. What I forgot in that moment is how cold the water could be and I ended up catching a cold after leaving the water.

Lake Taupo
Us on the shore of Lake Taupo,post swim

Once the swimming was done, we went to the check in counter to collect the competition material. This included the changing bags, registration numbers, stickers for the support crew and many more. After that we were left alone for the day, till the evening .

Btw, I do not want to jabber on much about Ironman but it was such a huge part of this trip, specially the first part, I keep on mentioning it. My husband has his own blog, and he told me, he is going to write more about his training and experience of the Ironman NZ2020 there. So far he has made one post on the training part and he has promised me, more is to come. If you are sports, specially Triathlon enthusiast, do check his Ironman journey out.

Exploring Taupo during the day

Exploring the city on second day in daylight, when all the shops and businesses were open was different kind of fun. Taupo is a tourist locaton and not that big. We could cover most of the downtown area till the beach on foot and we took full advantage of it.

Taupo city centre
A snippet of the city centre of Taupo

I also managed to go in a souvenir shop to buy a few presents. I have become quite addicted to coffee and the light water based instant coffee I could make in the hotel was doing nothing for me. The motel was a bit further away and there were not many cafe nearby to get some morning coffee. The shop owner of the souvenir shop directed me to a lovely cafe nearby and boy she was write. We had some lovely coffee and wonderful local tea there.

Taupo coffee & tea
My hasband serving tea from teapot in taupo

Tea in NZ is served in a small pretty teapot with matching cup. This I found to be so old school tea time that I started to enjoy it immensely. In Germany, usually, when you order tea, it comes in a big cup and at home also we do not always use a tea pot. I am going to start drinking tea from a teapot again. The process of pouring tea from the pot to the cup and drinking it has some calm charm in it. It was like being present in the moment. I spent the rest of the trip drinking a lot of tea and immensely enjoyed the pot and cup and saucer ritual.

In the evening we went to the inauguration ceremony of the 2020 Ironman NZ championship. Of all the handful of Ironmans I have attended, this one is one of the best and most well organised.

Day4 : Pre race Day

Taupo houses
A cottage in taupo: looks so serene and straight out of Agatha Christie Novel

There is not much to say about pre race day. I have not been my fittest in the last few months. The super hectic plane journey and the previous three days had taken its toll on me and I was quite tired. Add to it, me jumping in the cold water of lake Taupo I woke up with mild fever on early in the morning. I was really scared , being so far away from home and with all that was going on around us regarding COVID-19. I spent the day lying in bed, taking rest and not stressing myself. Christian, my husband, took out his bike for a spin in the bike route before checking the bike in. He also came back home early, did his pre-race day routine and we went to sleep. Today it was his turn to cook and he made some soup and sandwich.

Tomorrow would be Race Day. It also happened to be my birthday.

This blog has no specific direction so far. It was created by me to write about the rhythm in the chaos of the day to day life. I try to write about daily life, about work-life balance, the food I like to eat and cook and small one of a kind experiences. In a surprising but beautiful way, it has evolved into a space for creative collaboration with like minded people. With your encouragement, the blog will hopefully become a more engaging platform with each passing day. I am planning to write fiction stories in it soon. Please spread the word about this blog through your likes and shares about it.

5 comments

  1. Debaleena Poddar

    Beautifully described! love it so much.

  2. Gal you have got some trick on your finger tips to bring into life each and every episode of your life. This is so well written

    1. eRimdance

      You flatter me. If you can picture Taupo then my job is done

  3. Beautifully explained

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