Well that is 24 hours that we don’t want to repeat in a hurry. Let’s backtrack a bit. All was going well even if things were going to be a bit tight but it was achievable.
Rachael was at Schoolies over the weekend and apart from being very tired, she had a day to recover before heading away again. No issues here, she was all packed and ready to go.
Jenny and I had a quiet weekend with me having a work commitment on Sunday but we were all packed and ready to go.
Bradley went to Melbourne to the US Consulate for a visa interview. He is doing a 6 month exchange with the University of Illinois so a normal online visa doesn’t cut it. His interview was Monday morning. He had driven over with a couple of Uni mates and was going to hit the road home straight after his interview.
All was going well, Bradley arrived home at 6 pm from Melbourne and it looked like every thing was going to plan for a Tuesday departure to New Zealand.
We were chatting about passports around 10pm when Bradley suddenly realised that he had left his passport with the US Consulate for the visa endorsement. Now this was a show stopper – no way Bradley was getting into New Zealand without a passport.
So what are the options.
- Bradley stays home and waits until his passport returns by post – problem is that our mail is on hold so that won’t work
- Get a second temporary passport – this is possible but takes 48 hours if it is approved
- Get onto the US Consulate and locate his passport and fly him to retrieve it.
There were a flurry of phone calls to various government departments and emails to the US Consulate but not a lot could be done until morning so a very sleepless night ensued.
After a couple of hours sleep it was back on the phone and email to try and get a second passport or locate his current one.
There was no luck with the second passport so the only option was locating his passport in Melbourne. As luck would have it, one of his mates was still in Melbourne for his visa interview and he managed to grab Bradley’s passport and get it to Melbourne Airport.
So with some juggling we got Bradley on the first flight to Melbourne to reunite with his passport and then fly him to Sydney to meet up with us. We ended up meeting in Sydney at the same time.
With crisis averted, a couple of stints in the Qantas Club (Adelaide and Sydney), a couple of flights and we landed in Christchurch just before midnight. A shuttle to the hotel and it was into bed for some well-deserved sleep.
