Living abroad: Ally Wollaston

We’re kicking off a new series today with our 22-year-old Kiwi, the winner of this season’s Festival Elsy Jacobs.

“Being so far from home to pursue my passion for cycling is something that I found to be quite the challenge. At the same time, I’ve been lucky in the sense that I have been able to set up a home base in Girona and Andorra, where I have a good supporting network around me. I miss my family and friends a lot, and living in Europe is so different to living back in New Zealand. Everything is so different, even if we’re talking about the small things, from the time you eat dinner to the temperatures you have here.

Girona is a real hotspot for cyclists, particularly international ones, and I dig that. Just being in Girona alone I’ve met a huge amount of people. Another thing I love about living here is that you never feel alone, and a lot of my strongest friendships I’ve built in Girona, which has been an interesting cultural experience.

They have a rich culture in Spain and it was great to be around and to witness it. There’s a lot of festivals and public holidays, and embracing that in Spain has been really cool and awesome. This has helped me find my place here. It’s also true that at the age of 15 I moved to boarding school, which means I am used to being far from home.

At the same time, packing up and moving to the other side of the world isn’t a small thing to do. It has been a bit of a challenge, but it was important to adapt to the lifestyle of being a pro cyclist in Europe, which wasn’t quite easy, because you always need to navigate through the travelling and the ups and downs of the sport, which I did with the help of the team.

On and off the bike my routine and the way I am have remained consistent. I regularly call home to check in on my mom, dad and sisters, but the time zone can be a struggle sometimes, because when they are available to call it’s morning here and I have to go on my training ride. But I always take time to chat with them. Then, in the off-season, I go home and stay there for a couple of months, before returning to Europe around February or March to kick off my road campaign. And speaking of this, now that the season has finished, I’m already looking forward to going home.”