Long Beach, California

We touched down in Los Angeles yesterday around 1pm after a 12 hour flight from Auckland (the same day we left NZ due to the time zone change (30th June)). We are staying at the Best Western in downtown Long Beach. Dave, Mary, Brian & Sandy are with us for this stage of the journey - but we will separate on Tuesday 2nd July when we begin our tour. Tracee & I will head north through California and the others will head east through Arizona.

Today we shared a taxi to Mainfreight USA at Compton where we were reunited with our harleys. After un-crating the bikes at the depot and fueling up, we made our way back down the freeway system (after a couple of wrong turns & detours!) to Long Beach. It was good to have the opportunity to 're-wire' the brain again and get my head around riding on the wrong side of the road.

It is a nice 32 degrees celsius in Long Beach today -  a far cry from the frosts and cold days back home. It feels awesome to be wearing T shirts and shorts again!

We went for a walk to the waterfront and had some lunch at a nice Irish bar. We are generally 'chilling' for the rest of the day and preparing for the first motorcycle leg of our tour tomorrow.