Departure day, we were up at six forty five as we had to be at the airport by twenty past eight. Breakfast was a quiet affair, the bags were loaded into the car and with due solemnity we were on our way. Our first stop was the Village butchers where had to pick up four kilos of steak for David.
This was vacuum packed in two kilo packages so when we arrived at the airport our first task was to put two oaks in each suitcase. There is nothing quite like packing meat at the airport. The bad news was that although we thought we would be put in transit all the way to Singapore it transpired that we were only booked to Sydney, which meant we had to enter Australia and then leave again immediately. The tour director was not pleased especially as we now had four kilos of raw meat with us and we would now have to declare those at Australian customs.
We boarded our plane at Gisborne having been through a tearful farewell, the doors were shut and the engines revved up before a guy a seat behind us to the right announced to cabin crew that he had left his wallet in his car. There was a telephone call to the flight deck and the response was that as the doors had been sealed he could not leave the plane. There was another conversation about his five year old daughter he was travelling with and the result was that the pilot capitulated and the guy was let off the plane to fetch his wallet. He did get into trouble for vaulting the three foot fence in front of the terminal, but he certainly sprinted to his car and back. I am not sure this would have happened at any other airport in the world.
The trip to Auckland was uneventful, the flight to Sydney was fine and then we were faced with retrieving our cases and going though immigration into Australia. Luckily the airport was quiet and we were quickly into customs where we declared our meat. The very pleasant customs lady looked closely at our meat and our itinerary , called her manager over to look at our meat and between them they decided we could keep it.
They told us we had to rush to make our connection and gave us very clear directions. We rushed to the departure area where there was no queue at the BA desk. Very kindly BA had upgraded us so we're both delighted. The next hurdle was emmigration closely followed by security, at which point I discovered I had left my kindle on the last Air NZ flight. The tour director was not best pleased, and once we through into the departure lounge we spent a few minutes emailing the airline.
The flight to Singapore was great and we arrived early, David was a few minutes late picking us up but he arrived and nineteen hours after we had started this journey we were back in David's flat, tired and ready for bed. I am pleased to report that David was very pleased with the meat.