Right up to the minute the Air Calin agent asked for our Australian visas, that is. "Oh, we don't need visas for Australia, we're Canadians," I replied with a slight superiority complex. After all, I am a citizen of the best country on Earth, and all. "Well, unfortunately, I can't let you board the plane without an Australian visa." I quickly flipped my Lonely Planet to the visa section where, to my complete disbelief, it states, "All visitors to Australia need a visa - only New Zealand nationals are exempt." How did I miss that? I'm an experienced, arrogant world traveller. I do NOT miss things like that. Suddenly, the implications of my humbling error washed over me like a tsunami: extending the stay in New Caledonia, a new ticket to Australia, missed flights to Tasmania, and on and on it went.
Our Air Calin agent, sensing my utter panic at T-minus-55 minutes to take-off, said, "Let me see what I can do." I'll cut to the chase here, and suffice it to say, this small New Caledonian airline went above and beyond to arrange something online with the Australian visa authorities to enable us to board the plane. We ran like gazelles to the gate, but we made it. And upon arrival in Sydney, the Aussie authorities were very accommodating and all worked out. But it was a truly humbling experience and a very close call.
The three-hour flight over to Australia was smooth, practically empty, and featured pastries and kind service. We were very impressed. Upon arrival, we retrieved our bags, cleared customs, and rechecked our bags with Virgin Australia in the same terminal, before taking a bus to Terminal 2. We relaxed, had some lunch, and at 2pm boarded our Virgin Australia flight to Hobart. VA is Sir Richard Branson's Aussie experiment that saw his Virgin Atlantic airline venture in the low-fare airline sector. It has been a total smash hit in Australia, and that led to Virgin America being launched a few years back.
We landed in Hobart at 4:15pm, as dusk was starting to fall. We got our car rental and headed out immediately, to make use of the little remaining daylight. Driving on the left-hand side at dark is quite challenging, especially after such a long day. The drive north from Hobart to Launceston - our base for exploring tomorrow - turned out to be longer than anticipated. The highway was a two-laner and was under construction in many places. About halfway there, we saw the truck in front of us swerve and next thing we knew, we heard a huge CLUNK: we had hit something on the road. All seemed okay, so we just carried on. (But that CLUNK will have ramifications that you will hear about in tomorrow's blog...)
Finding the hotel amidst Launceston's maze of one-way streets in its downtown core was challenging. We pulled up to the front door at 8pm, and were pleased at the beautifully restored historic property. After check-in, we ordered room service and called it an early night.
Tomorrow we will hunt down the illusive Tasmanian Devil -- our primary objective for this trip to Tas!
These two views from Tontua Airport shows how mountainous New Caledonia is.
The first aircraft we spotted upon touchdown in Sydney was this Vancouver-bound Air Canada Boeing 777. It made us feel close to home!
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