Almost there

The day after I posted my last entry I was lucky enough to receive some good news - my visa had come through! And they wanted me to start on Monday... As it was Wednesday I quickly realised that this was not going to happen especially as I was going forward in time. That's a fight you just can't win.

Luckily, I had a quick word with George (who like me is also working in Mackay, had had visa problems and hence had not started in August either) and we both felt that leaving on Sunday was much more convenient. The flights were booked quickly and then, on Sunday, we were off, flying from Newcastle.

I have to admit that I know George only a little, having only met her three times before through Zoe, our mutual friend. And one of those times was a trip to Alton Towers, so most of that meeting was spent screaming as we were whisked through the air at 80mph so conversation was not particularly forthcoming or deep then. So I was slightly aprehensive about the prospect of a 48 hour flight (including a stop over in Dubai) with someone I barely knew. However I had nothing to worry about. George is a particularly fine conversationalist with a nice line in Top 5 Lists, and a game called Capitals, Cities and Countries, the rules of which seem to change to match her whims and whether it looks like she might lose! So we got on famously on our trip to Sydney.

We did have a slight blip in Dubai though. The airport hotel is surprisingly difficult to find, and our search took us through customs (whoops) and into the country ourselves. It was rather difficult explaining this to passport control when we had to get back into the airport 15 minutes after leaving it, and unfortunately my Arabic isn't what it used to be now that I'm no longer smuggling arms to Iraq and Libya... (Too soon for a Libya joke?). We did manage to get to the hotel eventually - it turns out we had completely missed the man holding a big sign with our names on it outside our arrival gate. For someone who is still stuck in student mode and tends to stay in hostels, it was quite the luxury to stay in a boutique hotel with free food and drinks. I have to admit I felt like Sinbad as I feasted on the complementary grapes and bananas. All I needed was the scantily clad serving girls for the true Arabian feel, but George was not willing to comply with this. Ah well...

The next leg of our journey has taken us to Sydney, a gruelling 13 hour flight, which has left me feeling distinctly less than fresh. When you can't change your underwear for over 20 hours, frankly you just feel grotty. True. Also, Sydney airport (I am sad to say - and I must type this furtively as I am sitting at a computer terminal in the airport typing this now) is not living up to the high standards set by Dubai. There were massive queues casued by flight cancellations (not ours), and then the baggage transpoter failed so they had to stop checking people in (luckily we had already checked our bags in).

Well, we're almost about to board to Brisbane for our connecting flight to Mackay, Zoe has promised to pick us up at the airport, I have an address to go to for my accomodation overnight, so I'm hoping a good night's sleep will set me up well beore I start on the CCU in the morning. Things, I can't help feeling after all the trouble getting here, are looking up.

Everything must (false) start somewhere

Some of you may know my friend Morag - she went travelling for a year and kept a (highly successful and amusing) blog during that time. You can even check it out at moragchrisite.blogspot.com if you haven't already. You might wonder what this has to do with me, but I'm heading off to Australia to work for a year (give or take a month or so), so I felt that I should try my hand at keeping a blog too. Who knows, it may even turn out to be mildly readable...

So I should start with my attempt at getting to Australia in the first place. You may think that this should be a nice easy thing to do, but this is me. Things are never easy with me - I can somehow manage to make the simplest thing a Herculean task. That is why I am starting this blog sitting on my bed in my parents' house, and not on a beach in Queensland!

Everything started back in August. I had just finished working in Lincoln, and was due to fly out to Australia a few days later. There was just one small, tiny problem - I had no visa. I'd been advised by the recruitment agency to apply for a Business eVisitor Visa while I was waiting for the temporary resident visa that would allow me to stay in Australia for the year. However, even this was not back when I was due to fly out. I discussed this with Cat, one of my friends who I will be working with in Australia, and we decided that, as we had already booked tickets, we should use them, and as we were staying in Singapore for a few days I could just check that the eVisitor visa came through whilst I was there. So, after a 13 hour flight to Singapore on a particularly unfriendly flight with Quantas (one air hostess in particular had the welcoming manner of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot combined) , Cat and I arrived. And boy was it hot and humid! Thank God for air conditioning is all I can say, and my reaction does not bode well for the coming year as Mackay, where I am working, regularly hits temperatures of 40 degrees in their summer!

So Cat and I did what everyone does in Singapore - we shopped. Well, window shopped. And then an e-mail came. My application for a Business eVisitor Visa had been rejected...

There's no denying that I was pretty disappointed about this, but I figured, what the hell, it was a possibility, and since I was in the area I could spend time in Japan, or some such place. Or at least I could if my credit card had a decent limit. Let this be a lesson to you - if you're going away for any extended time make sure you have a credit card with a limit greater than £350. Since I could not afford flights on such a paltry sum, and they did not accept a debit card I had to go home.

However, the next morning Cat and I were woken up by my phone ringing furiously (well, as furiously as the Nokia tune will allow - come on, I have to add some drama to the story). On the phone was Jenny, one of the ladies who works at Wavelength, the recruitment agency that Cat and I had gone through to get our jobs in Australia. And she sounded very upset. Our conversation went something like this:

"Where are you? We've heard from Mackay that you don't have a visa, and are in detention in Japan and that Cat abandoned you in Singapore."

"I'm sorry - what?!"

"We heard that you're in detention in Japan and I wanted to know if you need some legal advice or for me to itervene on your behalf."

"But I'm sitting in a youth hostel in Singapore, and Cat is here next to me. And I haven't been to Japan."

She was pretty relieved to hear this, as she had been on the verge of calling just about every airport in Japan to find out if I was there! I have to say that this was probably the best rumour that I've ever heard about myself! So once this was cleared up, Cat and I had one last day in Singapore before she departed for the working life and I headed back to Blighty to await my visa while watching daytime TV and eating more chocolate biscuits than is healthy for one man. Which essentially, is where I am now.