Touchdown ~ Oct 23-27, #1
Next Level Airline Logistics
Full circle in 357 days.
We had arrived back where we started 357 days ago in a studio cabin at the Airport Tourist Park on a mission to find out whether or not we could fly all of our gear to New Zealand.
Well accustomed to navigating the public transit system, we went directly to the Jet Star customer service desk in Melbourne Airport hoping for answers we wanted to hear. It was somewhat of a relief to learn from the agent that we could check all of our gear, including our oversize bike boxes. However, anything over the stated weight limit of 40kg per person (our bikes boxes were already up to the max per box of 32kg, including smaller items) would be charged at airport rates and because we were traveling to New Zealand the airport rate was an additional $10 AUD. Not exactly what we wanted to hear, but paying the airport rates was still cheaper than the alternative of flying home on United, only to then fly to New Zealand from the States. So over the next two days we carefully weighed and considered each $30 AUD kilogram. Items that didn’t make the cut were sent home.
To add to our stress, the carry-on limit of 7kg per person was also impossible, if not unreasonable. Considering all of our technical gear - laptops, cameras, batteries and chargers, we were forced to get creative. My plan of deception/desperation was, just before boarding, to fill our pockets with as much as we could, without looking obvious, and hope there wasn’t some surprise weigh-in at the gate, or worse the check-in counter.
Travel Day
The morning of departure day, our next challenge was how to get our two bike boxes, two gear boxes, plus us and two backpacks into the complimentary shuttle van, equipped with immovable seats and seat backs. Nivaun quickly figured out if we took off all the headrests, we could sideways maneuver one bike box across the seats. It would take a second trip for the other bike box. Our gracious shuttle driver took it all in stride, calling in to let dispatch know he was making two trips at no charge.
By the time Nivaun arrived at the curb with the second bike box, I had snatched up two luggage carts to precariously transport our house through the maze of foot traffic. After finding the Jet Star check-in counter in the international terminal to confirm when and where we needed to check-in hours later, the agent made it clear there was no exception to the weight limit of 32kg per box. Of course, each of our boxes according to the airport luggage scales were 32.4 kg each.
Hours later, I had scavenged a box from the gift shop, Nivaun had taken the bus to get stronger packing tape, and we were finally wheeling our now 5 boxes up to the check-in counter. The gate agent weighed our boxes and calculated the cost, apologetically asking, “are you sure you don’t want to ship some boxes? It would be much cheaper.” After explaining our “whys” he then checked our visa and said, “your visa indicates you need to have a flight leaving New Zealand.” Nivaun responded in disbelief, “we haven’t even arrived in New Zealand yet!”. In my already stressed out state of mind, I immediately thought he was trying to tell us we somehow didn’t have the right visa. As Nivaun sought clarification, I frantically tried to turn off my Garmin watch alarm - alerting me to an “abnormally high heart rate”. Thanks, Garmin…
If we had not put off doing the online customs form until our bags were checked, we would of discovered that New Zealand customs requires tourists to have a departure flight. So standing at the check-in counter, I booked a return flight home on United in 9 months.
After Airport Security confiscated a pocket knife, Nivaun forgot was in his first aid kit, and I left my reading glasses in the tray at the scanner, we stood at the final threshold hoping to pass through the gate with our extra carry-on weight, now minus two items, undetected.
At just after midnight, with barely any room to move between us, we ascended over the Tasman Sea into the darkness and landed less than 4 hours later in the land of the Kiwis.
Aotearoa Threshold
Once again we stood nervously at the baggage carrousel, collecting each box while keeping an eye on the oversize baggage door. First one bike box was pushed through, then a few anxious moments later, the other one appeared. Our home in tact, we pushed on to see what awaited us in Customs.
Worth every travel dollar!
Nivaun had taken special care to clean our bikes and our tent. And I had left all remnants of our food behind, including our spices. The bikes in their shiny state passed through with barely a glance, but our tent somehow had taken on leaf debris beneath the inner tent and the floor while it was staked out to dry. After our tent was cleared, we were more than ready to leave the airport vortex to embrace New Zealand ~ Aotearoa.
From the moment the sliding doors opened and we took our first breaths of light morning air, felt the coolness touch our skin, we knew we were somewhere truly special.
How incredible it would be if travelers around the world kept this promise…..