Would you take a dog-eared dollar, over a stiff back? Are you travelling from Wellington International Airport at ridiculous-o’clock and your travel mates are panicking? Are you a Brit in search of a cheap Battle Cruiser? If you’re getting sweaty at the axillas, at the thought of diuretic-dollars, then grab this branch of budget advice, and save your fellow travellers’ money. These are the tips, you didn’t budget for.

FAQs About Wellington Airport

Can I sleep overnight at Wellington Airport?

Common Answer: No. Correct Answer: Yes.

Wellington International Airport is officially closed between 01:30 and 04:30 in the morning because it’s so embedded in a residential area. This leads many to believe it’s impossible to kip on the Olde Backpacker Hammock (the airport floor). They’d be wrong.

The airport’s Night Duty Manager has the authority to allow you to stay overnight. They review everyone on a case-by-case basis. Gather around the central bar, Orb from 8:30pm. The friendly manager will come and ask you a couple of questions; “Who are you with?”, “Why are you still here?” If you’re on an early flight (first flights are usually 06:00), and you’re pleasant and presentable, they’ll usually let you stay. They cannot accommodate a large crowd, so priority rules when hoping to sleep at Wellington Airport.

Is there free alcohol at Wellington Airport?

Common Answer: No. Correct Answer: Kind of.

A beer at Wellington airport will cost you around $8. Alternatively, consider spreading the cost and getting three beers; plus free food, free internet and printing, free showers, free tea and coffee and soft drinks, free newspapers and magazines, and the use of a comfortable lounge (yes, for free). Well, not entirely free: but $25 all-inclusive.

Head to the Wild at Heart Lounge, which is operated on a pay-as-you-go basis, meaning you don’t need to be a member of expensive clubs, and they’re much more accepting to the working class. Kids are half price, and there are often promotional flyers being distributed reducing this to $19, $15 and often just $10! Three beers for $10 — I’ll take that.

Is there cheap parking at Wellington Airport?

Common Answer: No. Correct Answer: Kind of.

You hunted around for cheap flights, so why chuck your saving down the drain by paying for expensive parking? Wellington Airport regularly offers up to 50% off their rates, so if you’re parking at the airport, then always check their website for cheap airport parking. Many people will tell you just to stick your motor in the neighbouring streets, but I’ve seen quite a lot clamped recently so do this at your own risk.

Do I have to check-in two hours before departure?

Common Answer: Yes. Correct Answer: No.

I don’t mind airports. I know some travellers can’t stand them, but let’s face it, they beat other transport-hubs hands down. Perhaps the most common question asked of Wellington Airport is: How long before my flight, do I need to check-in? I’ve checked with the four main airlines, and here’s what they say.

Pacific Blue, say:

International

Check-in at least 120 minutes prior to departure time. Especially if you have a Special Service Request (SSR) booking or are travelling in a large group. Check-in closes and boarding commences 30 minutes prior to departure time

Air New Zealand, say:

International:

You are required to complete final check-in no later than ninety minutes before your international flight is due to depart. However, due to increased security requirements on all flights operating to, through and from the USA, final check-in time is no later than 2 hours prior to departure.

Domestic:

You are required to be checked in 30 minutes before the departure of your domestic New Zealand flight, unless you are connecting to an international flight. In that case, please be checked in 60 minutes prior to the departure of your domestic flight.

Qantas, say:

Various times. It’s best to check the link (all airlines are linked in this section). There absolute latest is typically 30 or 60 minutes prior.

Jetstar, say:

International:

[Abridged] Jetstar (JQ) flights leaving International terminals: # Jetstar (JQ) flights leaving International terminals: 3 hours before your scheduled departure, and closes 60 minutes before your scheduled departure.

Domestic:

[Abridged] Jetstar (JQ)… flights leaving from domestic terminals…New Zealand: opens 2 hours before your scheduled departure time and closes 30 minutes before your scheduled departure time.

Is it expensive to eat at Wellington Airport?

Common Answer: Yes. Correct Answer: No.

My hot tip for the year, is Mojo Café’s promo breakfast. For $8 you can grab a good coffee (usual cost $3.80+) and eggs on toast. Considering it’s an airport, this isn’t bad. Alternatively, consider the Wild at Heart Lounge, which opens at 6am and closes at 8pm as the $25 entry fee includes your food and drink, and much more.

Are all my taxes included in my flight from Wellington Airport?

Common Answer: Yes. Correct Answer: No.

A common oversight for international travellers out of Wellington Airport is to presume all taxes are included in their ticket. Wrong. For some reason, Wellington Airport still do this manually. International passengers have to pay this prior to going through the departure gate. You need to do this at the Travelex beside Mojo Café, at the International end of the terminal. Departure tax in Wellington is currently $25.

Do I have to pay $7 for the bus to get to Wellington International?

Common Answer: Yes. Correct Answer: No.

Now, I’m presuming you’re a thrifty backpacker, so you’re not adverse to a ten minute walk. Before continuing, I’ll say that the orange Airport Flyer in Wellington is just $7 one way from Wellington central, so already offers good value compared to other capital city’s airport connections. However, you can’t use the $6 all-day Daytripper ticket on it, which you might already have. Plus, there’s a cheaper option.

Take the Number 2 Wellington to Mirimar and alight at Caledonia Street at Hobart Street (near 38), or the Number 11 Seatoun bus, from Taranaki Street at Vivian Street (Briscoes), and alight at Hobart Street at Broadway (near 3).

Both buses are regular, and will cost you just $4 ($3 off-peak) and both leave you with a really short walk (10 minutes max). If you’re baffled, just ask the bus driver. They’ll mostly grunt, but stand still and look gormless and they’ll eventually give in and grant your wish.

What is there to do at Wellington Airport? I’ve got four hours to kill.

Common Answer: Nothing. Correct Answer: Loads.

Leave the airport. It’s incredible how many people feel it is their duty to stay at the airport. Do not be scared to leave. As with most airports, Wellington is completely glass on one side of the terminal, so it’s impossible to miss the view of Lyall Bay, which is almost always full of life.

Lyall Bay is one of Wellington’s best surf beaches, featuring a couple of cafés, surf hire shops and a retail park dominated by Warehouse (New Zealand’s iconic equivalent to K-Mart). You can get there two ways. You can walk via Moa Point, which is the way you possibly drove there. Or, you can take a secret tunnel. Yes, a tunnel runs between Coutts Street in Rongotai. Check out this map for more information.

View Tunnel to Wellington Airport in a larger map

Is there free WiFi at Wellington Airport?

Common Answer: Yes. Correct Answer: Yes.

Wellington Airport offers free Wifi to everyone within their terminal. And the kiwis are not security nutbags either, meaning that anyone can visit Wellington Airport whether they’re flying or not (it’s basically a medium sized shopping centre, with free wifi!) The network is called Wild at Heart (also the brand name of the airport per se), and you just need to enter you email address (actually, any email address) to gain unlimited access.

Is it true Englishmen get 10% off retail at Wellington Airport?

Common Answer: No. Correct Answer: Sometimes.

If you work at Wellington Airport, you get 10% at all participating stores. It would be extremely rude of you to try and purchase something, and pass yourself off as one of the unknown employees from another store. Books, sunglasses, surf wear, coffee — they’re all expensive. These companies need your cash. You owe it to them. I don’t advocate fibbing.

Most of these tips and advice for visiting Wellington International Airport can be checked prior to arriving. As the author — wait for it — I am not responsible for any amount of mischief, or misdemeanour’s that my inside knowledge leads to. Use these budget tips at your discretion, but above all, have a safe journey.

Tips & Advice for Wellington Airport is a post from Trail of Ants.

Consider visiting my travel blog to explore a wide variety of travel related articles, and score yourself a 7% discount on your next travel insurance policy with my World Nomads promotional code.

If you’re one of the growing number who indulges me on Twitter, then you already know I currently live in Wellington, New Zealand (Aotearoa). However, this might come as a surprise to the more casual readers of this dedicated travel blog, as its pages are somewhat entrenched on the backpacking trails of Western Australia, over 3,200 miles away.

I don’t apologise. I quite like the fact I exist in two places at once. If you want the reasons, just drop me an email. I’m reluctant to forcibly bore you, so encourage you to settle for the crux of the excuse: work and family.

Yes, even we travellers must occasionally roll over like rocks on the road, and reveal that moist, moss-covered underbelly of Real Life®.

Real Life® of a Traveller

The writer in me has been feasting on Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city. It’s a place where things don’t so much happen spontaneously, rather they are well thought out and planned. Everything’s prim, and most of it’s proper.

The daily truth, is that I’ve never lived anywhere where people are so acutely aware of social issues.

Wellingtonians are undoubtedly, the most broadly intelligent, and culturally accepting population I’ve ever witnessed.

This is exasperated by the fact that my closest circle of friends in Welly, work almost entirely for not-for-profits, government ministries, or the major banks. Whereas I mostly just bumble around Lala land and drink coffee in any one of the cities 239 cafes. (I’m not sure about where you live, but I reckon one café per 1,598 people is a pretty high average).

However, its intelligence is not intrinsic to the country’s famed cultural acceptance. There are definite factions in Wellingtonian society. The Māori. The pākehā (white New Zealanders). The Pacific Islanders. While they are not what I would call distinct, they are definitely apparent.

Between them all, are Dairy Shops run by Indian families, and Fish ‘n’ Chip shops run by Chinese or southeast Asian families, while a large sprinkling of European, East African and Middle Eastern characters give this city a mellow, moderated feel.

I’m loathed to lazily proclaim it “multicultural”, as I don’t really feel it’s an advert for true multiculturalism in the same way as say, London or New York does. Wellington is more of a cultural experience. I’ll touch on this over the coming months.

And it would be a mistake to believe that all are accepting. Around six weeks ago I was enjoying a beer with my girlfriend, Reb and an interesting German called David who Reb had met through Couchsurfing.

Local Standpoint

He was telling us about life in the north, where he’d been living for the past two years. He’d been welcomed into a whānau (a Māori family unit), in a far northern iwi (Māori social unit, or tribe). I can’t recall the exact details, so will abstain from guesswork (it was good beer) but what happened next really surprised me.

“Sie sprechen Deutsches, Recht?” came a roar from the next table. It was quite obviously threatening. “Yes, I am German”, replied David. “Sie sprechen Scheiße”. I knew this from secondary school. Apparently, he reckons David spoke shit. “Why do you think that?”

What followed was a tense tirade of insults; in David’s native German, and also in te reo Māori (the Māori language) and weaved with English, for the benefit of Reb and I. No punches were thrown, and though I felt sorry for David having been so embarrassed, I was full of intrigue.

The accuser was white and lean, in his mid-twenties, and dressed in funky, street fashion. In no way did he fit my pre-conceived idea of what a Māori should look like. He should have been enormously tall, broad and quite mean-looking. He should have been able to pick David up by his ears and scare him without even talking. “He was definitely, Māori” confirmed David with a tremble.

I learned from that day, that no matter how keen I was to learn about the culture of New Zealand’s aboriginal people, that I should be considerate. Māori are a strong, proud and conservative people. They learned to work beside the early British settlers — like no other people achieved. They did not bow down, and thankfully, in modern New Zealand it’s out of the question that they ever should.

The urban Māori will, it seems, stand up for their entire kinfolk in thunderous prose. It’s enthralling, and slightly raw. I’m glad, because it shows that some things never change.

© All Images: Solace in the Wind by IanDolphin24; and ~Locals~ by AmericanVirus

On the Fringe of Wellington Society is a post from Trail of Ants.

Consider visiting my travel blog to explore a wide variety of travel related articles, and score yourself a 7% discount on your next travel insurance policy with my World Nomads promotional code.

I stare at the newspaper. It wasn’t me. I gawp at the television. It wasn’t me. I trawl through the internet. It wasn’t me! I listen to the radio, podcasts, and conversations on the bus. It WASN’T me! At least — I hope it wasn’t me?

I didn’t know much about Asia before I scribbled over her ancient lanes. I thought it was a factory to stock my English necessities. Indeed, my local fish and chip shop, newsagent, petrol station, pizza shop and Chinese takeaway were all owned and operated by cheery Asians.

It’s only now, as I’m sat in as-safe-as-safe-can-be New Zealand, that it’s sunk in. I’ve left a trail of destruction in Asia. I tell myself every day it wasn’t me, but there’s a residual inkling; that it was.

I believe in the butterfly effect — that a butterfly can fart in Blackpool and lift the skirt of a Cornish virgin. So could it actually be possible, that I inadvertently contributed to some of the most iconic headlines of the past two years?

Perhaps the day I fell asleep in Moscow’s Gorky Park, I missed the chance to quell the August 2008 invasion of Georgia? I’ll never know, I’d quickly fallen asleep on a round-city recce because Moscow had swiftly bored me. However it’s not just the invasion of gritty Georgia that has me looking over my shoulder.

In July 2007 I arrived in Mongolia. The Mongols were in full on party mode; it was the annual Nadaam Festival and everywhere I looked small horses jerked fancy young jockeys around the beaten green Gobi. Gers sprang up; a hundred pickpockets tried their luck; I was cruelly threatened in a local nightclub; and I heard of one backpacker being kidnapped, and another who was raped.

Though shocking, none of this deterred me — I was in Mongolia. I was living a dream I’d dreamt for years. A year later — July 2008 — and Ulaanbaator became the stage to escalating violence as protestors rallied against suspected election fraud, and a year later a flood temporarily swallowed the capital. This was amazing; not least because Mongolia is one of the emptiest expanses of land I’ve ever seen. The devil had hit the bull’s-eye.

China’s also suffered. I spent three fascinating months there in late 2007 and ever since it’s been hailing horror. First of all, hundreds of thousands of my beloved Chinamen were affected by the worst snowstorms in decades. Then the warm up to the forthcoming Olympics became the catalyst to a massive anti-China uprising, resulting in my cherished Tibetan skies being splattered with the worst violence in Lhasa for twenty years. As if China hadn’t taken enough of a pounding in my absence, the Sichuan earthquake then culled tens of thousands and not to be outdone, the north-eastern Xinjiang region imploded in another round of ethnic violence. I won’t even mention their milk.

Brimming with innocence, I entered the Kingdom of Nepal. Word had already reached me of the Maoists — a terrorist group — demanding money off stoic foreign hikers in the mystical foothills of the Himalayas. Undeterred, I dodged my way around Kathmandu, spluttered down the river, clambered through bushes looking for tigers and rhino and snuck in and out of Buddha’s old place.

Other than a few spontaneous (yet peaceful) protests, I was confident things were running smoothly. Then I left — and a trio of bombs rippled the terai. Before I knew it the headlines told me the terrorists were in government and soon after they levered the monarchy permanently off their thrown. What had I done? The Kingdom had fallen.

India was never short of controversy during the four months I spent there — that’s one of the reasons I love it so. But nothing of the scale that happened after I left. First off, forty-nine people were slain by a series of bombs in Ahmedabad, and a few months later the sickening news came through that Mumbai had suffered a similar fate, with four times as many losing their lives to hereditary violence.

If all of this wasn’t bad enough, the next country I forayed into was Sri Lanka. I’m almost thankful that when I first stepped foot on the Venerable Island, it was already in the throes of civil war. It meant I couldn’t be the catalyst. The Sinhalese government pulled out of a six-year peace deal the week I arrived. I stayed for two months, fearlessly venturing to the war-torn east coast before looping around and back to India. Then the government accelerated its stance, fuelling the climax to a bloody feud. Maybe my many inquisitive questions were misplaced?

The next country I dared to step foot in, was tiny Singapore. Rumours were strife that a woman in her twenties was brutally cursed for crossing the road without being escorted by a little green man. And then, if that wasn’t shocking enough, I was told off for taking too long to order noodles. I’ve got my eye on Singapore, if only to see if anything interesting ever happens.

From Singa’ to the Indonesian archipelago. A two-month jolly around Sumatra, Java and bountiful Bali proved to be one of the most exhilarating periods of my life. I left full of admiration for a country of simple brilliance. Four months later the government executed the infamous Bali Bombers, which seemingly acted as little deterrent — eight months later, central Jakarta reverberated to the blasts of two of its iconic hotels.

A year in Australia ensued, for the most part I was safe in the haven of Melbourne sipping stubbies and perusing antipodean quirks. Then one Saturday I dropped Reb and her dad at Avalon airport, and the radio began to crackle through the news that became known as Black Saturday; bushfires left 173 dead and levelled lives in the worst natural disaster in Australia’s history.

All of the above lays in my wake. Battered and torn, broken and bruised. Lives inextricably twisted, love curtailed, and communities eternally altered.

Perhaps it’s true, that you only really know a country and its people once you’ve been there — once you’ve spent time laughing with its children. But perhaps it’s also true, that you only get to know a place, once you’ve left?

Trails of the Unexpected is a post from Trail of Ants.

Consider visiting my travel blog to explore a wide variety of travel related articles, and score yourself a 7% discount on your next travel insurance policy with my World Nomads promotional code.

It was close to midnight as the pilot mumbled that we were about to descend. I looked around the cabin, a gallery of oval frames. In a dozen of them, I glanced the burning embers of Wellington. Street lamps flowed in channels off the rumpled hills that shepherd the city to the southern coast New Zealand’s North Island (Te Ika-a-Māui). The plane’s wheels clunked into place and soon after we bumped onto the runway. It’s a pleasure I always hide, that reconnection with earth.

Family Reunion

Arriving in Wellington meant a reunion with my older sister, Rachael, her husband Brendon and my scallywag niece and nephew, Rebekah (5) and Josh (3). The last time I’d seen Rachael and Josh was during the frantic last week before I left England.

By some miracle of scheduling my nomadic parents were in England, my older brother Matthew and his wife had flown in from New York, and my little sister Natalie hooked us all up on a canal boat in the Midlands. I came back from the music festival, Glastonbury and before I knew it a week of farewells had flung me onto a Moscow-bound plane.

I’ve seen my parents a couple of times along The Trail, travelling with them through parts of northern India, Sri Lanka and more recently in the mesmerising island state of Tasmania.

State on Highway One

I’ve visited Wellington previously for Rachael and Brendon’s wedding. It was a flash in the pan tour; a two week trip in 2004 that was mostly spent in spit’n'sawdust gin joints. The only landmark I could recall was a central Wellington strip bar and an Auckland casino. Indeed, the first thing I was reminded of was that the morning of their wedding I was peeled off the stench of my bed with an hour to go before I made a loving speech. I made it, at least in body.

Soon after the wedding, I somehow managed to drive my uncle and his friend to Auckland. We cruised up the spine of the North Island, on the unremarkable State Highway One. We stopped in Taupo and Rotorua to booze the nights away, sleeping the nights off in cheap hotels and and shaking it all off with fast food and a lung full of nicotine. I fell asleep three times while driving that highway, and other than a spin in a jet boat I genuinely can’t remember much more than a few bars and a few more beers.

I loved that time in New Zealand, and was glad to be returning to try and do it justice.

Return to Rotorua

I’ve been here a few weeks, chipping away at some personal projects and getting to know my niece and nephew. I’ve revisited Rotorua, a central tourist hub here on the North Island. I traded the bars for the giddy steeps of a luge and snagged my first insight into Māori culture. We visited the Te Whakarewarewatanga O Te Ope Taua A Wahiao. I thought I was drunk again when I read the name and was most relieved when I learned it was commonly known as Whaka (pron. f•aka).

It was to be a gentle introduction. I was shown small steamy hot springs, and encouraged to buy some corn-on-the-cob that had been cooked in them. Our Māori guide told me — and a select four hundred thousand people — how they used the hot springs to cook everything, as well as small boxes called hāngi that are used to steam everything from meat to sweet desserts. The village was living, people were milling around and there was a funeral going on in the village.

The Māori Man Dance

In fairness, the tour wasn’t capturing my imagination but I agreed to sit in on the cultural performance. We were greeted by a glowing Māori woman, in her senior years yet choked with positivity, she took us through the Māori Poi, a dance involving strung balls — if you’ve spent time at hippy festivals, you’ll have seen versions of the poi being swung around gracefully by sultry women.

Ever present in the background of this display were three big Māori men. I couldn’t take my eyes off one. He was massive. He wanted to eat me, I was sure of it. The finale made me sure of it. The infamous Haka. An ancient dance, and one of the best known components of Māori culture and it was staring me in the face.

Eyes bulging. Tongue wagging. Feet stomping. Chest slapping. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I didn’t know whether to stare him down, or if it was offensive to do so. I was pinned in a plastic chair while I was seemingly picked out as the target for this Māori’s menace. He scared me. I loved it. I was back in New Zealand.

Returning to New Zealand is a post from Trail of Ants.

Consider visiting my travel blog to explore a wide variety of travel related articles, and score yourself a 7% discount on your next travel insurance policy with my World Nomads promotional code.

Heart thumping. Eyes sweating. Palms clenched. Girlfriend weeping. People staring. Lady smiling. Jaw gripped. Foot shuffling. Mind racing. We were checking in one hour before our scheduled departure, and the lady at the check-in desk was telling us we weren’t getting on the flight. Lady smiling. Palms clenched.

We’d run the gauntlet up until now, phone call after phone call destined to dash our journey to New Zealand. I’d managed to secure my own working holiday visa for New Zealand just 24 hours before our departure date, but my high was swiftly soured by the incredible news that Reb’s vital medical certificate had been misplaced in transit.

We considered it a fluke when we were told that as Brit’s, we could obtain a 3-month visitor visa on arrival in Wellington. It was a warm and welcome relief. We’d paid out well over a A$1000 each in flights, medicals and visas – not to mention the cost of an enforced 6-week layover in plain and wintry Perth.

Sexy Stubbornness

To celebrate the green light, I had 4-inches chopped off my barnet by an Iraqi barber. I now looked less scarecrow, more Pee-wee Herman. Meanwhile, Reb stamped her feet and sharpened her scowl to secure a duplicate set of medical certificates. The following morning a Kurdish cabbie dropped Reb and I at Perth airport, and we braced ourselves for the connecting flight to Brisbane.

I was the first to check in, therefore the first to feel the wrath of Virgin Blue’s sexy stubbornness. The check-in lady, Natalie stood defiantly, insisting I needed an onward flight to enter New Zealand. My argument – that it was unreasonable (and likely impossible) for me to book an onward flight to follow a 23-month visa – fell on deaf ears.

Reb stepped forward, knowing she didn’t have either. It didn’t take long before Natalie broke it to Reb; she couldn’t even board the plane without a valid visa, and the onward flight. In fifty minutes the plane was due to soar into the Perth sky, and disappear without us.

Waive us Bye?

“REB! Take my laptop, go through security, find a Wifi connection and ring our case manager at NZ Immigration and explain the situation. I’ll put the bags in the locker then we’ll book onward flights. Don’t panic. All good. Deep breath.” Reb flew like the wind in one direction, I blustered to the lockers. Slightly dazed I subconsciously reread my e-visa.

“Outward passage waived.”

“Outward passage waived?”

“Outward passage waived!”

I grabbed the nearest Virgin Blue staffer and asked his opinion. He clearly struggled with the definition of ‘waived’, so referred me to a leggy blonde who umm’d and ahh’d. Inside my chest, the Countdown to Disaster ticked on. I skillfully prised the visa from her gawp and ran back to Natalie, who promptly disappeared for what seemed a lifetime.

Black & White Romance

“You’re clear. And…” she paused, adopting the role of a game show hostess “… there’s a clause that might allow Reb to fly”.

I was off again, yanking my belt off as I stumbled through security and tripped up the escalators, desperate to find Reb and drag her back to the check-in desk. As if rehearsing for a black and white romance she was twirling, startled at the top of the escalators.

“COME ON!” I whisked her down the stairs, burst back into the terminal and bounded back to the check-in desk. Once again, Natalie disappeared to her secret place with Reb’s passport. I stroked Reb’s arm. Her back. Her hair. My arm. I offered her a massage. I kissed her head and squeezed my hand.

Party of Emotions

“You’re clear!” announced a relieved Natalie. Suspense was bowled over by relief. Emotions partied on through our veins. “Quick, just twenty minutes to take off! Fetch your bags and we’ll get you checked in”.

We ran the 100 metres back to the electronic storage lockers, entered the PIN and listened for the whir and click. It whirred. It whirred some more. “Try the PIN again, Ant!” Reb clawed at me. More whirring. More whirring. Whir whir, whir.

Wounded by stress I hurtled back into the terminal. Natalie was busy smiling at a more fortunate guest (as Virgin Blue describe their passengers). I eye-balled her colleague, grasped her desk and let loose, “we were told we couldn’t fly but then we were told we could fly and we really want to fly but we can’t fly until we get our bags back from the locker and Reb doesn’t need a visa and I don’t need an onward flight and that doesn’t matter because THE LOCKERS BROKEN!”

Cancerous Hobgoblin

This lady was as compassionate as a cancerous hobgoblin, she silently nodded to indicate the terminal payphone. I dashed over, dialled the locker company, spilled my guts and went to meet her. Seconds turned to minutes before she arrived, and we could drag our hostage bags out. Natalie was outside by now, brimming with adrenalin and soothing charm, we dragged the bags through check-in, forced our way politely through security and joined a nonchalant queue of clueless people.

The reality sunk in. “That should never have happened” I gasped to my disbelieving girlfriend. We’d been thrown into blind panic, for nothing more than an untrained staff member, though we suspect we gained in the end with Reb’s waiver.

First & Last

You’d think that was it. But this was my birthday, so upon landing in Brisbane we hit the airport bar to celebrate, and managed – for the first time in my life – to get the infamous “last call” for the onward flight to Wellington (not helped by the predictable delays I now accrue at every security point since having my stolen passport replaced in Jakarta). Thankfully we had a belly full of steak and beer, and an armful of duty free cigarettes to ward off the knowing looks of fellow guests.

It was eleven thirty at night when we landed in Wellington, one more final forty minute struggle at the Immigration desk and we were through. I could finally introduce Reb to my awaiting quasi-Kiwi sister, Rachael and the following morning to my brother-in-law and young rascally niece and nephew.

New Zealand didn’t fail to honour the tradition of The Trail which has seen me not so much as glide over borders, much more stumble cluelessly over a knot of red tape. The upside is, it’s usually uphill from here.

Share your calamitous airport stories in the comment thread below. For those wondering where the posts on Australia’s west coast have gone, worry not. I’m working on the final two or three chapters so save your emails.

A Haphazard Birthday is a post from Trail of Ants.

Consider visiting my travel blog to explore a wide variety of travel related articles, and score yourself a 7% discount on your next travel insurance policy with my World Nomads promotional code.

Have you ever pre-applied for a visa while on the road? If so, you’ll know they always say “don’t make travel plans until your visa is confirmed”. As always, when I was recently applying for New Zealand’s 23-month working holiday visa, I respectably scoffed at the small print. Six weeks to secure a working holiday visa for New Zealand, while based next door in Australia? No worries, mate.

Medical for New Zealand Visa

Pretend for a moment, you’re me. What you don’t realise is, you need a medical, and that medical comes in two parts. The first part consists of a chest x-ray and various tests on two squirts of liquid. One yellow. One red. The second part consists of a forty-five minute hands-on examination. What a thrill. What you can’t work out is why there’s only one Panel Doctor (the only type you can go and see) in the whole of Western Australia, and what infuriates you is that the first appointment isn’t until two weeks after your call, and the second is nearly three weeks after that. This automatically leaves you with four days between the date you get your results, and the date you fly. No worries, mate?

What you also don’t realise is, those results, even though they’re crystal clear and you’ve paid not-a-cent-less than AU$536 for, have to go to Sydney to be mulled over before being forwarded to Auckland. Somewhere down the line, you hope to get an email to say “congratulations, please proceed to NZ”. No worries, mate!

Kiwi Visa

However, when you first rang NZ Immigration they told you you could carry the medical certificates through airport immigration. When you deduced that was a bit far-fetched and rang them again the following day, another operator told you there was no chance you could achieve clearance in such a short time. So, livid, you ring the Panel Doctor and re-explain to them that they had originally told you it was no problem to have the last appointment so close to the departure date. They hold up a shield. You smash it. They put you on hold to conjure their army. You defeat them. Eventually they concede and do the impossible; they bring your second appointment forward. You’ve scored some precious days. You complete the forty-five minute appointment in ten minutes flat, and on their advice you bypass Sydney, and send the results straight to the heart – Auckland. No worries, mate!

But wait. What no one had told you is Auckland have to dither a little, before sending them on to Wellington, where they’ll wait in line a further 4-6 weeks for a Medical Assessor (independent to the doctor who actually jabbed and nudged you) to examine the wad of ticks and swirls, and thus decide whether to let someone else know whether you’ve got AIDS, or worse.

Applying for Australian Visa

Now relate this experience to my entry into Australia which went a little more formally than this: Excuse me Australia, can I come in please? No worries, mate! But have you been in India or any of them nasty backwaters recently? Well, yes sir, but… Don’t you worry sunshine, you just pop into that nice Balinese private hospital and pay a small fee for a chest x-ray and wait for us to get in touch. Oh, OK will do mate. Two days later, poof, one visa.

My once-assured existence in New Zealand is now on the ropes. Gagged by red tape, and beaten by bureaucracy. I’m positive things will somehow work out; I have who seems to be a genuinely concerned young lady on the case in Auckland. But the point remains: Should we, as travellers, really have to put up with this, and similar costly experiences just because some immigration offices can’t produce a more streamlined procedure?

Is there a better way? Should there be some kind of global health register, and fixed costs instead of extortionate monopolies? Share your visa experiences below.

Also, some feedback would be appreciated. This post was born a rant and thus written in fifteen minutes flat, whereas I’m sure you can appreciate, my usual work takes a lot more refining.

Flight of the Cockheads is a post from Trail of Ants.

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