Sydney to Auckland

Today was a travel day, and an unnecessarily stressful one at that.

Last night after going to bed incredibly late trying to organize our first few days in New Zealand, we woke up to emails about expensive charges on our car rental due to undisclosed out of hours fees. When we went to try and sort it all out, we had no internet. For some reason, neither of Allan’s phones were working despite both suggesting he had data. The other issue with that is we didn't remember which buses and bus stops to get to the airport (it was nearly a month since the outward journey).

In the midst of trying to work all of that out, Allan had to pack and I had some last minute things to finish putting in my bag.

We also needed to get some breakfast and planned go to the post office (that definitely wasn't happening now).

Luckily, Allan still had phone signal. He called Rosemary to ask if she could look up the bus route for us, and instead she kindly offered to take us to the airport. I think he secretly knew that’s what would happen. They've been so helpful during our time in Sydney.

It was still a mad scramble to get everything organized and cleaned up before they came to pick us up, but we got there in the end and made it to the airport.

There was no line to check in and drop our bags which was great, and no line at security so we breezed through. We checked some duty free shops for opal on our way to a lounge, but saw nothing in our price range.

At the lounge we got some pretty decent food and some wine. Later on the bar opened and we got beer and prosecco. It was a pretty good lounge in the end. We quickly sent some emails now that we had internet to try and organize the car rental fiasco before we had to head to our gate.

Allan sent off some emails and we managed to get it cancelled without any cancellation or no-show fees. While we walked onto the plane and found our seats, I managed to book a new car with a different company that would be open for a few hours after we arrived.

Our flight with China Eastern was uneventful. It took a while for the A/C to come on, so it got pretty hot at one point. They had some entertainment options, but they were severely limited and pretty shit to be honest (no offense to anyone who really loves Garfield and the Lego Movie). For such a short flight, we were still fed a meal which was nice. We had beef and potatoes with some vegetables, fruit cup, and potato salad. I couldn't eat it all after having nice food in the lounge!

Immigration in Auckland was a kerfuffle. Allan was half asleep, so didn’t read the text on the screen at the end-passport gate properly… twice. Due to being flagged as a dodgy guy, he was directed to the human. Not realising his error(s) at this point (I told him afterwards), he responded in the same manner as the questions from immigration:

NZ: “Do you have a visa?”
A: “No…”
NZ: “Do-“
A: “I have an eTA.”
NZ: “So you have a visa?”
A: “No, I have an ETA. That isn’t a visa. I don’t need a visa because I have an eTA”.
A shows passport and eTA on phone.

NZ: “How long are you planning to stay in New Zealand?”
A: “We leave on 14 May.”
NZ: “How many months/weeks/days are you here?”
A: “Until 14 May”.

NZ: “What are your plans while you are in New Zealand”.
A: “To travel round and visit tourist sites”.
NZ: “Ok. Can you be any more detailed with your plans?”
A: “No. We are on a big trip and plan as we go”.
NZ: “Where will you go?”
A: “We will go to different places”.
NZ: “Will you go to the South Island?”.
A: “Yes. And since we are in Auckland, we will also be visiting the North Island”.

According to Allan, if you ask cunty questions, you’ll get cunty answers.

Anyway, biosecurity was more straightforward. We declared our hiking boots, but he didn't seem too concerned when Allan said he'd cleaned them and not worn them in the mud. Then they went through the scanner and we were on our way to collect the car!

We got the short shuttle to Snap!. We managed to check in online which expedited the process. We got our little Toyota and got straight on the road to Waipu.Læs mere