Melbourne Airport TERROR!

Trip Start Jun 13, 2008

Trip End Ongoing

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Flag of Australia Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Wednesday, July 30, 2008

OK, so we made it to Melbourne!! We managed to sleep most of the way to Auckland, and then connect to Melbourne... Upon arriving, we decided to be good visitors and declare the wooden things we had brought with us... big mistake... because we had come from South America and were viewed as some sort of drugs risk, they went through absolutely EVERYTHING in our bags... with a fine tooth comb... to the point where the guy was reading all my little (relatively private) notebooks and looking through all our photos... Fair play Australia, they're doing their best to keep the drugs out... but it doesn't encourage you to declare things!! Even with a totally clear conscience it was seriously nerve racking... they kept taking swabs from my bag and going off to run them through a little machine that was beeping and buzzing... what does that beep mean?!? ARGH!

Fortunately, they did let us keep our wooden goods, but seized the twig pens that Tom bought me for my birthday... boo!! Apparently they could be used to grow a new plant... mad, eh?? It wasn't too much of a hassle, but after travelling for 20 hours, adding an extra 2 on for customs just isn't what you want!!

Anyway... we haven't really done much since we've been here... we turned up on Tom's Aunt and Uncle's doorstep, and they were very pleased to see us... They stayed at Tom's mum and dad's when I was living there, so I've already got to know them a little bit, which is nice... Jan (who is now referring to me as her niece!! :D ) is trying to fatten us up with her amazing cooking (she cooked for the queen!!), and Brian is keeping the drinks topped up... together, they're the ultimate hosting team!! They have made us so welcome and are really looking after us :)

We have been into the city a few times to try and sort out our Chinese visas... we are having real problems with that because they just changed the rules... you can only get a visa in Australia if you have an Australian passport... so we are probably going to have to send our passports to the cosulate in London and pray that they arrive back in Cairns in time for us to fly out to Japan... otherwise we're going to have to cancel the Chinese leg of our trip... which would be a serious downer to say the least...!

Anyway... I shall keep you updated on that situation... More to come from Australia soon!!

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Comments

bellemissesyou on Aug 1, 2008 at 09:15AM

OH my god!!
you were scared??!! imagine if that had been me!
poor you guys! miss u =D

noosafox on Jan 26, 2009 at 09:18AM

Customs
It is even worse if you get caught with something that you have not declared.

After 3 trips to Asia in 12 months when I returned to Brisbane, this time without my wife, I was targetted by customs and they went through everything. Probably because I was an older male travelling alone, and because they took my camera away for inspection were obviously looking for sex type photographs. When they found none they returned the camera and thanked me for co-operating and allowed me to go.
It is frustrating to have to go through when you are innocent, but good to see they are doing their job properly.
On a previous trip we lost a pencil bought in Thailand because it still had bark on the timber.

Brian