Fully prepared with plenty time and really looking forward to our new adventure in New Zealand, or so we thought…

Arrrrrrr…

When we arrived at the check-in desk in Sydney Airport to catch our Pacific Blue flight to Auckland, the check-in assistant asked to see a hardcopy of our NZ outward bound tickets.  What?  She said, “you need to have an entry and outward bound ticket before you can enter the country”. Bollocks, shit!

I had checked (or glanced) the entry requirements via the web and had clearly missed or overlooked this requirement and had only booked a one-way ticket.  Explaining that we were on a world tour and had no definitive plans, as yet, of our next destination did not persuade her to let us through.

To cut a long story short, we had 20 minutes to find an internet cafe, book an outward bound ticket  and produce evidence in hardcopy before the check-in desk closed.  There were a few expletives exchanged between the two of us under the pressure. Finding an internet cafe was easy but one with a printer not so. 

Booking a flight to Fiji or the Cook Islands was not good enough as we would have to return to NZ to catch a flight to South America, put simply, they would only accept a flight to SA.  This put us under serious pressure knowing the most expensive flight on our trip would be from NZ to SA and having to book this ‘on the fly’ was a bit of a kick in the teeth. 

Galloping around the airport with our rucksacks on was no mean feat but we managed to find a cafe, book a flight, get it printed and back to the check-in desk with minutes to spare.  We ended up paying over $2,000 but were allowed to board. 

When we got to passport control in Auckland Airport, Sam had somehow mislaid the hardcopy evidence of our flight to SA, so we were hauled into the interview room like criminals.  These guys are hardened officers and my lighthearted jokes didn’t go down too well. Thankfully, they allowed us to use their computers and print off our confirmation email.  After an hour or so of paperwork we were let loose.  To be honest, we can’t blame them for being so strict having passed the dodgy characters in the interview queue.  Once the officer looked at our tickets he strongly advised that we change airlines if we wanted to ‘land safely’ in SA. 

So when we arrived at our hostel in the city it was down to business and we managed to cancel the tickets but spent a full day doing so.  Now we have to research flights to either Fiji or the Cook Islands and then onto SA, yet another few days on the web – life can be hard at times!