New Zealand Customs and Immigration is really strict! Even more so than Australia! Before I could be issued a boarding pass for my flight to Auckland I had to produce a paper copy of my return itinerary and show it to the check-in agent. I didn’t have one (I had all the relevant numbers in my head and it was visible on the check-in computer, but The Rules said it had to be paper!) because I’m not returning until March, and I’d probably only lose it anyway, which meant I was in for a quick run around the terminal with my 20kg bag looking for the Emirates office to get a print-out. Luckily the airport bus was early, and even after my morning jog I made the flight with about 20 minutes to spare. Once in New Zealand, everything that came off the plane was x-rayed, sniffed and poked just to make sure it wasn’t food, soil or drugs. The Australians simply asked me if I had any fruit or vegetables then let me go!
Seeing New Zealand from the air, I was surprised by how much it looks like Scotland. Since it was evening when I arrived, I was too tired to go explore Auckland. On my way into the city from the airport the main thing I noticed was how quiet Auckland is when compared with Sydney (or even Melbourne). Auckland is much smaller, but still the largest city in New Zealand. Even around lunchtime there never seems to be the same crush of people that I’d just about become used to in Sydney. It’s quite nice really.
I’m leaving Auckland tomorrow morning and heading North to the Bay of Islands for a few days, before turning back South and eventually getting to Christchurch sometime before the start of March.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to get around New Zealand. Meg suggested I go on a Contiki tour, as she did the same thing a few years ago, but it was quite expensive, and to be honest, I didn’t really like the idea of sitting on a bus for 2 weeks with a load of drunk 18 year-olds!
I’m traveling with Kiwi Experience (the same group as Oz Experience), which has a pretty similar reputation, but in my (Oz) experience wasn’t anywhere nearly as bad as that! I’d also been considering the Stray backpacker bus, as it seems to aimed more toward people who actually want to see the country rather than those who just want to get drunk, but after asking around friends who have been over here already, Kiwi Experience got far more recommendations. I suppose I’ll find out if I made the right choice in a few weeks!
I’ve been back in Sydney for a couple of weeks now, mostly trying to sort out what I’m going to do for the next few months. I was pretty much set until a few days ago when I tried to confirm new dates for my flights back to Aberdeen (via Tokyo).
It seems that my travel agent has sold me an open ticket that isn’t all that open. I can make changes to my flights, but not the changes I actually want to make! For example, Qantas tell me that the Sydney to Tokyo flight on the date I requested is full, but their website tells me that there are plenty of economy seats still available. Aparently these seats are part of a sale, and not available to customers who have already booked, the end result being that I had to cancel the remaining portion of my ticket, and book new flights myself. To say I’m not very happy about that is an understatement.
I’m thinking my travel agent is mostly at fault here, but I can’t help think that Qantas are being a little unreasonable too.
Anyway, I’m now flying to Tokyo from Cairns, which isn’t so bad as I’d planned to head up that way again to do some diving. Hopefully the weather will have cooled a little by the end of March! As a result of all these changes, I’m planning on heading over to New Zealand next week until the beginning of March.
New Zealand was always a bit of an after-thought on this trip. It was somewhere I really wanted to visit, but dependent on whether I had the time and money to do it. I’ve got a rough idea of what I’d like to see, but no real idea about how long it will take to get around. I travelled from Cairns to Sydney in around seven weeks, so hopefully five will be enough for New Zealand.
As I was boarding my flight down to Hobart today I had an odd thought.
I realised that this was the fifth time I’d flown inter-state in Australia and that I’d never been asked for any form of ID at the airport. Flying internationally is different of course, but in the UK I usually have to at least show my drivers licence before getting on an internal flight (Say, Aberdeen to London).
I suppose the airline could check the passenger name against the credit card details used to book the tickets, but that would only work for (at most) one passenger per booking.
I also noticed that my airline’s self-service check-in machine would print a boarding pass with just a name and flight number (No need to know the booking reference or credit card details). I wonder what would happen if someone printed my boarding pass before I got there?
I guess they’d check IDs at the boarding gate if somebody reported it happening. Or maybe have some way to invalidate the bar code on the pass, but it all seems much more trusting than at home.
I’m well aware that I’ve been neglecting this a bit since I got over here, but I haven’t had much time to sit and write near a usable wireless network.
I made it over to Melbourne with a fairly small amount of hassle. A delay in Aberdeen turned a leisurely stroll across Heathrow into a mad dash to get clear of Terminal 5! I made the Sydney flight with about 10 minutes to spare, worried that like the last time I travelled to Australia, my checked bag would be left on the ground in London. Thankfully, when I arrived in Sydney my big red holdall was already waiting on the luggage belt. Immigration and Quarantine wasn’t so easy though. It seemed like five flights had arrived at once, and taking into account the 2 -hour delay in Bangkok, my connection to Melbourne took off before I even cleared passport control! A few frantic phone calls later, and after another run through an airport I boarded my final flight and met Meg in Melbourne airport just about an hour behind schedule.
So much has changed since I was last in Geelong, but so much still seems the same. It was good to arrive to something vaguely familiar before heading off to Sydney to start something completely unknown.
My bag is packed. I’ve got my tickets and passport. I’m off to the airport to begin a 31 hour journey passing though Heathrow, Bangkok and Sydney, arriving in Melbourne on Saturday morning. I think I’m losing a day somewhere along the route!
