"Mummy, daddy, are you awake?"
"We are now..."
8am and our last morning in New Zealand for the next two years had begun. To be fair, 8am is a sleep-in compared to the usual 6:30, but we were both happily still asleep and not wanting to wake up yet.
We stayed with Dan's parents for our last night, as they live an hour closer to Auckland Airport than we do, and we had packed up our house two days' before. Our last two nights in our own home were spent sleeping on air mattresses and eating off plastic plates; 'starting our adventure early' we kept telling the kids.
Our trip to the airport was uneneventful, and we made it with just under three hours until departure. Plenty of time for us to check our bags in, go through security, and grab a bite to eat.
Or so we thought.
"Where are your outward tickets from Vancouver?"
...
"We don't have any."
It's pretty hard to have outbound tickets when we are going to be driving a car from Canada to the States.
"You need to have outward tickets, I'll need to speak to my supervisor."
A short wait, and the supervisor came over to listen to our repetition of not having an outbound ticket as we were going to be driving.
"Okay, can you please show me your rental car agreement?"
"No, sorry, as we're going to buy a car and then drive for six weeks across Canada before driving to the States for three months, and then we will sell the car back in Canada before we leave for the UK."
"You need to have an outward ticket when you board with us or we can be fined $10,000 if you get turned away when you land."
"When we filled in the ETA for Canada, there was no mention of needing an outward ticket, but when I looked online and it mentioned needing a ticket, it didn't say anything about driving. It also said so long as we could satisfy the border patrol of our plans and that we had money to support us, it would be okay."
"Do you have your exit flight booked from Canada or the States?"
"No, because we don't know what date that will be yet. But we can show you the emails we've sent to the car yards and also the website I've made to show our plans"
"I'll need to call the Canadian Immigration and check with them."
F*CK.
Abi's response: tears in her eyes and "are we going to have to go home because we can't get on the plane?"
Alex's response: "Well, I'm not going back to school."
Fortunately, Dan and I had already anticipated this possibly happening, and had previously looked at buying fully refundable tickets that we could cancel at a later date. Which is exactly what the supervisor said we had to do when he got off the phone to immigration.
$1400 later, and we were allowed to check-in, now with just a scant 15 minutes until boarding started. Super glad we arrived at the airport early!!!
We flew with Fiji Airways to Vancouver, with a three-hour layover in Fiji Airport. The pilot asked the kids if they wanted to come see inside the cockpit (it seems they do still do this!), and then he asked if we'd like to take a photo! Such a special memory to have, as I can still remember seeing the cockpit of the jumbo we flew to New Zealand in, back in 1994. Not so special for Dan, perhaps, since he trained to be a pilot.
First World Problems Alert:
On our Fiji-Canada leg, my tv screen remote control 'enter' button didn't work, my seat back only stayed back if I was in my seat, the air steward kept hitting the back of my seat when he pushed his trolley past, another air steward spilled water on me, the kids' noise-cancelling headphones didn't come with a cable for the two-pin jack the plane still used, there was a faulty light that kept flickering on and off at night so we kept waking up, the drinks cart was sporadic and missed us frequently, and they kept running out of meal options when it came time to serve us at the back of the plane (turns out most of the plane wanted chocolate pancakes and berry compote for breakfast instead of powdered scrambled eggs and chicken chipolatas, no idea why).
But we arrived in Canada safe and sound, albeit rather tired and 40 minutes late. Late? For what? As we have no schedule now!
So then came immigration, where we were waiting to find out if we were to get stopped because of our earlier issues. I declared a bar of chocolate and jar of gluten free vegemite, the immigration officer asked us how long we were staying and where we'd come from, and that was it! Through to baggage collection then out the door. No questions, no issues.
Our final journey to our week-long Vancouver accommodation was via the skytrain.
"We have to go on a train now?" wailed Alex.
"Nope. We have to go on three trains now!"
I absolutely love efficient public transport; it runs on time, with plenty of trains, and has really clear maps. Well done, Vancouver!
So, we made it to our air bnb apartment, dropped our bags, walked across the road for some dinner and breakfast supplies (which Abi complained about, as is her way), had a shower, and collapsed into bed after being awake for 32 hours.
Needless to say, both Alex and Abi were asleep in seconds...once we'd spearated their beds, that is.
Bring on tomorrow, when our adventure really begins!
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