Advertisement
Published: September 13th 2018
Edit Blog Post
And He's off .....
or is he? I started planning the trip to Australia shortly after I got back from the Gaelic Turas ride in Ireland & Scotland last August . I thought I had checked on Visa requirements back then but maybe ........not. The day before departure, I tried to check in on line with the American air AP for my flights to LAX then on to Sydney. I wasn’t shocked when it said “need more info see agent to check in”. This happens often when I try to check in for an international flight. When I got to the AA counter the agent said you need a visa.....I said “since when” she said “since last December” I responded with “oh Sh#€ “ ! There are always glitches that crop up on these trips but this one is happening an hour and half into the trip😊
With the assistance of the AA check in agent, I immediately went on line and filled out the online visa requirements for Down under. The email acknowledgement I got said; it would be approved in 24 hours but I received the actual visa number with in about 30 minutes or so.
When I went back to check in the system still wouldn’t let me check in. After the agent called Aussie immigration (in Australia) they were able to get me checked in and with my TSA PRE was able to get to my gate with 8 minutes to spare....whew ! Of course two minutes after I got there the gate agent came on and said that they are having mechanical issues with the plane so it will be a 2 hour delay leaving for LAX (which ended up being a 4 hour delay). I was however prepared for this contingency - I scheduled a 10 hour layover in L.A.
Made it to LAX and rented a car for a few hours -I’d certainly had my fill of airports by then. I went down to Manhattan Beach to Hennessy's Irish pub - I actually intended to go to Hermosa Beach to the Hennessy's there but mistakenly chose the one in MB. Although not right the board walk like the one in HB- the staff were friendly and I met a local chef (Chris). We talked for awhile and I had some food and the first two Guinness’s of the trip. Made
it back to LAX with plenty of time to spare and relaxed in the flagship AA lounge.
After an uneventful flight I arrived Thursday morning about 7:15 AM - I made it through customs quickly but it took forever to get my luggage. I caught a cab during morning rush hour and it took an hour to get to my hotel. My cabbie was from Lebanon but has lived in Australia since 1977. Based on the amount of traffic, I wasn’t surprised to learn from him that 25% of Australian population lives in Sydney - 6 million of the roughly 25 million in Australia live in Sydney proper.
The MARRIOTT Harbour is beautiful and sits over-looking Sydney Harbour and the Harbour bridge. (the famous Opera house is also in walking distance.) The last word I’d gotten about my bike delivery was that it would be dropped off on Friday. However I’d gotten a call around noon shortly after getting to the hotel that they were on their way to drop off the bike TODAY. I actual prefer getting it sooner then later.
I found out that the bike made it to Aus in good order but when
customs wanted to inspect the bike out of the crate and the guys were taking to long to get the tie downs off -the customs guy just cut them off! What a dick! So we have to buy new tie downs when we ship the bike home.
After we unloaded the bike the battery was dead which surprised me - until I saw that they did indeed disconnect the battery. Once we connected she started right up. Don and the guys that helped take the bike off the trailer were great - tomorrow l’ll get gas (down to 11 miles of fuel) and install the Australian chip in my Garmin. So far so good.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.137s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0553s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb