We had a bit of back and forth with Daniel over WhatsApp while we were at dinner tonight and I told him that we’ve had the one and only stupidly calamitous day of our entire trip today.
Everything is great. We are alive and well and safe and happy to be coming home tomorrow.
As I write this note I can hear a few little boys running and carrying on in the hall outside our door. Earlier I watched them jumping into the hotel pool trying to outdo each other with hitting the water on their backs and coming perilously close to bashing their heads on the cement edge of the pool deck. My nerves were jumping, but they appear to have all survived.
So, in mini chapters, here’s our day.
Getting to the Airport this Morning
We were a one-hour drive from the Nadi airport. When Ken emailed the resort to enquire about transport upon arrival, he was told to just take a taxi and expect it to cost FD $100 to $140 per person.
There was a licensed taxi driver just inside the exit doors once we cleared customs in Fiji and Ken negotiated a price with him. His taxi was mildly dilapidated, but Fiji is not a rich country, and we were not concerned. The ride was very tame and Avi, the driver, was a congenial fellow talking proudly about his 5-month-old son and how his family had been in Fiji for 8 generations.
He pointed out a few sites along the way. We suggested that he could come back to pick us up for our ride back to Nadi at 6:30 am on Saturday. We agreed to text him the day before to confirm.
We had picked up a Fiji SIM card in the airport, but due to poor communication, we only ended up with a data plan with no cell phone services. So, we could not get a text to go through either on the SIM card or resort WIFI.
I asked the reception staff if there was a phone I could use. They offered to dial it for me. As the clerk was doing that, a managerial type person walked over and said something to her in Fijian. She nodded and her four attempts, as well as an attempt to get the business office to place the call, were unsuccessful. Note, I checked the number with the driver, Avi, twice before I got out of the taxi on Tuesday evening.
With no guarantee that Avi would return, we arranged for coffee and a boxed breakfast, a 6:15 ride from our unit to the reception area and a private driver, chosen by the resort, to take us to the airport. As Stephen’s friend Alex, whom we met-up with in Nelson, labelled us, the “Relentlessly on time Banisters” like to arrive early and requested a 6:30 pick up from the front desk.
We were afraid that Avi might show up anyway, so we kept a bit of Fijian dollars aside to pay him for his effort, if he did show. On our way out of the resort we thought we saw Avi drive by, so we had our driver return to the resort. We had to be sure it wasn’t him.
At the Airport
We were now at the airport, we’d dropped off our bags, had some time to kill and a few unplanned dollars to spend before we left the island. There is one gift store outside security and we spent considerable time checking it out.
We didn’t find a thing. However, one of the sales people must have found my loitering suspicious because she stay within a foot of me until I found Ken and we left. We shopped in the duty-free area past security and spent our few dollars.
The plane was delayed, but not by a lot.
Arrival in Auckland
The passport queues in the international arrival areas were packed. We stood in the wrong line until we realized that we had the right passports to use their unmanned e-gates.
A New Zealand customs agent in Fiji suggested downloading a NZ arrival app rather than filling out paper forms. When we arrived in Auckland, we confidently waltzed over to the secondary line of agricultural agents whose duty it is to make sure that you are not bringing any pathogens into the country and presented our electronically generated reference numbers.
The agent didn’t seem aware that it was a promoted tool and couldn’t get the information to come up when he scanned our passports. It wasn’t a big deal, we just went into the baggage area, filled out the paper forms, got our bags and went off to the next security check.
The last stop in the airport before getting out of the secure area is to put your luggage through an x-ray scanner.
Ken’s black back pack is pulled aside.
Regulations
Ken and I both understand the purpose and application of regulatory processes, but being slightly harried by the day, we both signed off that we had no agricultural products with us without putting any real thought into it.
That boxed breakfast had a small apple in it. We had eaten the breakfasts in the taxi on the way to the airport. They were generous and neither of us finished them. Both of us put the uneaten portions in our backpacks. While we were waiting for our departure, I ate my apple. Ken did not.
It took a few minutes for a biosecurity agent to ask Ken about his bag and if there might be an apple in it. That is when it dawned on Ken that the apple from breakfast was still in his bag.
The agent left for a few minutes. In a very quiet fashion, we were asked to accompany him to a desk just past the scanners. The agent took great pains to point out the regulations in exquisite detail, particularly highlighting that “failing to declare all food, animal products and other items, intentionally or accidentally by forgetting, or simply not knowing the rules is an erroneous declaration which is an offense”. Ken explained to him that he had been a regulator so he understood the intent of the regulations.
There are 4 options available when you commit the offense. You can: pay now; pay within 14 days; request the notice be waived or request a defended or non-defended hearing in court. The measures to wave the notice would take a few weeks and the document states, in bold, “Generally your notice will NOT be waived for simply forgetting to declare items, being tired from travelling, or not knowing the rules”. Ken would not have had to stay in New Zealand in the interim, but it would be kept on record.
We are both practical and honest, if not a bit forgetful, at times. The apple was thrown into a hazard bin and Ken paid the NZ $400.00 fine.
Hotel Shuttle Bus
We rushed out to find the airport hotels shuttlebus. Luckily for us it was just about to leave. We piled on, but the driver wanted our tickets.
What tickets? Right?
She sent me off the bus to a machine and then hustled me back onto the bus before I had a chance to check them. I was very worried that I had ended up with a ticket for me, but not for Ken.
In this instance, everything was in order. We checked into the hotel, dropped our bags in the room and headed down to the pool deck for a beer where all the little boys were having the time of their lives.
That noise was a bit too much for these tired old people and we adjourned to our room to kill some time on our iPads. I couldn’t find my iPad.
My back pack, with a Dale sweater, Birkenstocks, Bose headphones, iPad and chocolate (oh no!) was missing. I had no idea what I had done with it.
Phyllis’ Backpack
This whole apple incident at the airport had taken a while to get settled. I generally keep my back pack on my back with my cross-body travel bag on my front. It gets to be like a costume. You just have it all the time. Until, that is, you’re sitting in a chair waiting for regulatory processes to proceed and you put the awkward bag on a chair beside you. And you’re so happy to be on your way that you make a beeline for the shuttle bus.
Apple’s “Find My” App
We have air tags in our suitcases, and our phones can also track our iPad, one another’s phones and Ken’s airpods. Checking the app on my phone, we could see my iPad was still at the airport.
Off we went in an Uber and we were able to track the iPad to the back side of the agricultural security office. That office had a red button to push for service and a small door the agent could open. I described the bag, checked its contents and signed a form and we were back in an Uber in no time, all.
Dinner Back at the Hotel
By this time, we were ready to be done with the day. The hotel is crowded and noisy. There is a poster announcing someone’s homely daughter’s 21st birthday (creepy picture with Dad, no sign of Mom), a lot of families and their little boys (some girls) and we find out that one restaurant is only serving a $52/person smorg and the other is out of half its menu and has only two beers of 8 left on tap. We order sandwiches and beer. Oh, and the waiter is on his first day on the job and doesn’t know that there is no table service.
(One of the little boys in the hall just played nicky nicky nine doors on us and ran away. Ken was asleep)
So, while we were eating, a very long line of 15 or 16-year-old Japanese speaking boys with sports bags started streaming by our table with a few accompanying adults. They were quite quiet but there had to be a hundred of them, they just kept coming.
They were shortly followed by two monks in orange/saffron coloured robes.
What’s Next???
Wish us luck for the night!
And, Oh, Fiji was great. We will tell that tale next.