Flight to Sydney was 15 hours. We watched The Hangover together then a few other things on the personal TV screens provided. Ate a dinner and breakfast, and were provided with snacks in between if necessary. Slept quite a bit, not exactly sure but on and off for about 6 hours we think. Arrived in Sydney at 6 am and missed an entire day. It felt great to be across the world; it was sunny and beautiful. My first overseas flight complete!
Then on through customs to pick up our luggage, or so we thought. They would not let us through because we did not obtain Australia visas. We kindly explained we were told to pick up our bags by the airline and transfer them to the next flight ourselves. The customs girl, who was very nice and helpful, explained that our bags should be transferred automatically and that we could not make it through to pick them up regardless. Roadbump. I was simply thinking we had no choice so no sense in worrying whether our bags were going to make it to New Zealand. We turned around and started walking where directed while thinking about many things: where are our bags going to end up? what gate are we headed to? how do we get our boarding passes? WHEN IS OUR FLIGHT? (that's right, we did not know anything about our flight). We started to be a tiny bit frantic as those are all very important questions. Why didn't we print out the information? Just forgot, ooops. Once we found our gate, we then had a few more snafus with regards to our visas and boarding pass. We showed our necessary paperwork to the agent and after about 10 minutes and a large line building up behind us we were told everything was ok, other than the bag situation which was still an unsolved mystery. Boarded the plant to NZ thinking it was a 4 hour flight and turned out it was only 2.5 hours over the Tasman Sea. Landed and it was beautiful. We were nervous to go through customs knowing we did not have 2 items we needed: my bank statement showing current earnings and our return ticket. As the line became shorter and shorter, more and more nervous. Finally we were next and a gentleman was pre-checking our passports and arrival cards with declaration information. He calmed our nerves saying that if we had working visas we were fine and dandy. Made it through! Victory! Now onto the luggage situation...
Waiting, waiting and waiting. Andreas large bag came through and I pumped my fist in the air. If one had arrived then the rest should be behind. The bike showed up immediately after, 2/5. Well 2/5 is the best the airlines could do for us apparently. We waited until there was only one lonely black bag circling the baggage carousel before we headed to the counter for file our claim. The gal there was very helpful during the process. We gave all the necessary information about the missing bags and headed through NZ customs where they proceeded to check a few of our items for possible unwanted travelers to the country. It was a process that Andrea and I had never experienced but were impressed with the precision as the two gentlemen began removing every single bit and piece of dirt or plant matter from the bike and then vacuuming it up with a dust buster. It was quite the scene, and the two gentlemen were to chat with as we patiently waited.
Finally, everything was cleaned (well everything we had in our possession) and we proceeded through the doors to wonder if our friends were still there as we were making our way through customs for nearly an hour. Tried and true, our friends were patiently waiting.
The New Zealand Chapter begins.
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