I missed my flight to
New Zealand.
I expected to miss a
flight at some point. If you fly more, you're more likely to miss a
flight. That doesn't mean I was expecting to miss the first flight.
Surprise prep for my
trip included having to physically present myself at the bank, I'd
forgotten to do so earlier and ended up going the morning of my
flight. This had a domino effect on the rest of my day and despite
checking-in at the airport an hour and a half before take-off, the
slow-moving lines prevented me from actually getting on the plane.
What I learned?
- Don't be late.
- If you have checked in, you have to check out before rescheduling your flight, before your original flight takes off.
- Any re-booking is done with the airline that you originally booked your flight with, even when they book a connecting flight with another airline on your behalf.
- I got lucky in that they only charged me the difference in price between the two flights. I imagine this varies between airlines/reasons for re-booking.
My flights to New
Zealand had to be rescheduled for the same flights a couple days
later.
The cons are pretty
obvious and include my friend Alex travelling to New Zealand on her
own without me (she was on time).
The pros, and I feel
guilty that there are pros, revolve around it happening in my
hometown and getting to spend quality time with my mom,
binge-watching A Discovery of Witches. Not to mention finishing off
the foods I didn't get a chance to decimate beforehand (oh, Ferrero
Rochers, you were tasty).
Another pro: Alex gave
me the scoop on SIM cards and public transit, so I knew exactly what
I was doing as soon as I got through customs.
That being said, don't
ditch your friends so that they can scope out a new country for you.
You're a big kid, go with them and figure it out yourself!
Flying to New Zealand
from Montreal takes two days, no matter who you're flying with. This
can be exacerbated by long wait times during layovers, luckily there
was only one layover in Vancouver and it lasted two hours.
 |
| View out of the plane from Montreal to Vancouver, photo credit: E. D. Meilutis |
Also, the airlines we
flew with, Air Canada and Air New Zealand, are members of Star
Alliance and transferred our luggage between the two flights
accordingly. We had to pass customs once arriving in New Zealand,
which might seem unusual for frequent travellers to the U.S.A.
However, this is the norm and makes sense considering how seriously
bio-security is taken. It would be a logistical nightmare for New
Zealand to recreate the same thoroughness in an airport on the other
side of the world.
New Zealand has a very
unique ecosystem (1) that has evolved in isolation from the rest of
the world until colonization in the 1800s (2). It's so unique, that
certain species of birds, including the iconic Kiwi, evolved to
become flightless, as there simply weren't any land predators to
justify the need for flight.
 |
| Flightless bird seen at Hobbiton, this one was quite noisy. Photo credit: E. D. Meilutis |
Particularities have also evolved in the flora (1), and as such in order to protect their ecosystem, carrying any food (including honey) into the country is strictly forbidden.
This means completing a
declaration form on the final 13-hour flight from Vancouver to
Auckland (don't worry, the form doesn't take 13 hours to fill), then
getting into your first queue after landing.
At the end of the queue
a customs officer checks that you've completed the declaration and
waves you through to claim your luggage.
Then you go into one of
two queues, something to declare and nothing to declare. In my case
I'd declared some muddy shoes (as part of previously used camping
equipment) and over 3 months worth of medication.
At the end you get to
speak to another officer who looks at your declaration and passport
before waving you into another queue. This queue is to see the
customs officer who is going to examine your declared goods. While
pulling my muddied shoes out of my suitcase I noticed the packets of
tea I'd received as a parting gift from my co-workers. Technically
not food, but a lot of them were fruit teas that contained bits of
dried fruit.
To be honest, I was
freaking out. My instinct was to hide the tea away, but if they
sniffed it out, I was sure I would be fined $400 NZD (roughly $340
CAD). So, once I got to the counter with the customs agent who was
looking at my shoes, I showed her the tea.
She was really more
interested in my muddy shoes.
She explained that tea,
being dried leaves, doesn't really rate. As for the dried fruit bits,
it's really fresh fruit that they're worried about, and I'd be
pouring boiling water over the dried flecks anyways. And that was it
for the tea. The process for shoes was a bit more involved (I wore
them around a muddy lake – I'll just wait here while you disinfect
them, thank you).
After that you're waved
to the back of the room, where your luggage goes through a
bio-security scanner (a big x-ray machine) and if there's nothing
wrong, you're good to go!
The exit was so close,
but I had one last queue. I'd declared medication, as I plan on
travelling for the next ten months, the nurse at the Clinique
Santé-voyage I'd seen in
Montreal prescribed me with the maximum (6 months-worth) of
medication in case of fever or diarrhea resulting from contaminated
water. As the medication was all for me, the customs officer at this
desk wasn't too interested in them either (he didn't even ask to see
them) so I was free to go.
Stepping out of the
airport didn't feel as surreal or magical as expected. I'd just been
queuing for 2 hours straight while weighed down by my backpack, thank
god my suitcase had wheels, and I was worried about catching the
right bus.
I didn't even notice
that I was in a different country, the street outside the airport
looked eerily like a street corner from the West Island and the
greenery looked fairly similar. Given that it is February and that
there shouldn't even be any
greenery and that is a palm tree – well.
It
looks like I had landed in New Zealand after all.
 |
| Taken at a street corner in Tobay, aside from the lack of snow, it's not that different from Canada! Photo credit: E. D. Meilutis |
Events described took place on February 19 through to February 23, 2020.
Sources:
- Science Learning Hub – Pokapū Akoranga Pūtaiao. (2009). New Zealand's unique ecology. Retrieved from https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/1440-new-zealand-s-unique-ecology
- Science Learning Hub – Pokapū Akoranga Pūtaiao. (2018). Our changing ecosystems – timeline. Retrieved from https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/1599-our-changing-ecosystems-timeline
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