With nine days remaining before departure, Trav’s parents came down with a trailer and ute, and took away a lot of the things in the flat. For the next week, we get to live the high life that people experience without access to a dinner table, chairs, sofas, etc.

Left with only the most basic things in life - bread, water, internet - Di and I are now on our way to easily beating those silly Survivor-wannabes from the US. And, realistically, we’re about the same distance from civilisation anyway - all we’re missing is the odd crocodile or two.

I am willing to bet that the Survivor try-hards on television never get asked to tackle major challenges like :

* walking around boxes of data,
* placing CDs into computers without the CD drawer snapping shut and removing a finger or three, OR
* sitting on folding picnic chairs in a living room and pretending to be comfortable and ignoring the metal edge that runs under the thighs.

I tell ya - these Yanks have it too easy.

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Got the international driver’s licence today - no test required, just a passport sized photo and my regular driver’s licence handed over the desk at the RACV and five minutes later - tada! I can now legally drive in the United States. They also gave me a book of road rules and signs we might encounter, but we figure we don’t need to know anything about that sort of thing - people don’t like the way I drive here in Australia, so I can’t imagine they’ll be enamoured with it in the US either…*grin*

One thing about the driver’s licence gets me though - it’s not the size a driver’s licence should be. I was thinking it would be about the same size as a credit card, but in fact, it’s bigger than the passport. At 14.5cm x 11cm (~6″ x 4.5″), it only just fits into the money belt. I find that to be a little silly, really, since I would have thought most people would prefer it to be a lot smaller. Especially since I also have to carry my Australian licence with me all the time as well, to prove that the two licences match.

Ah well, no matter. I can now legally drive in 168 different countries if I so choose. I might as well say it now :

“Dear Drivers Of The World - Now would be a good time to panic!”

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The day finally came where I could not put it off any longer. Having been to see the doctor back in November last year, it was time for me to actually go and have the needles stuck into my arm to protect me from Hepatitis A and Yellow Fever. Di was due to have them as well, and so I was just waiting on her to get them because, well, let’s face it - I’m a big wuss when it comes to needles and I was not rushing in with a big “hooray for needles” dance, I can tell you.

The actual injection process turned out to be less painful than the information I learned while I was at the University Student Health. Turns out that the general public can go and get treated there, just like any other medical centre in Australia that is Medicare-approved. Therefore, it cost me absolutely nothing for the initial consultation, and $95 for the cost of the injections.

Di, on the other hand, went down to TravelVax in the CBD and ended up paying $145 all up for her consultation and injection costs. Doh. If only we’d known, but we figured “Student Health Centre” was for students only. Therefore, if you’re reading this, and are a resident of Melbourne - it’d be worth your while to go there because they are much cheaper than everywhere else for international destination vaccinations.

Lucky for me I was still reeling from the loss of $50, so when the nurse did the evil deed (one in each arm so they both hurt), it did not freak me out right there and then.

Oh, and just for the hell of it, decided to get the polio booster as well, since it was taken orally (the way all vaccines should be, in my opinion!). Plus the nice lady gave me a jelly bean and even though you should never take sweets from strangers, I did.

Sorry Mum and Dad - guess your “Stranger Danger” warnings were not severe enough when I was younger…

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After the wonderfully cruddy serving of life that we were dealt yesterday, today was substantially better. We went to the US consulate again for an interview, which basically turned out to be “simply hand over more documents and go away while we assess them”. This made us glad we’d bothered to write it all down in case it was not a face-to-face interview.

We lodged the documents at 10:30am and by 12:00pm, we fnally got the response. We did not like our chances - the same woman was delivering everyone’s final verdicts and she had rejected pretty much all of them that we had seen that morning. Frightening stuff.

We finally got there and she asked us some basic questions about our travel plans. As soon as we explained how we were leaving the US to go to Canada, then returning back into the US again after a while, she was fine with the whole deal. No problems.

Why she was mollified by this when the rejection letter was more concerned we had no ties back to Australia was beyond us. However, we did not overly care at that point - the final verdict was that we were permitted to get a visa to enter the United States. Hurrah!

Of course, the visa is only a piece of paper that lets the INS decide whether or not they are going to let us into the country and for how long, but we’re a lot better off with one than standing in Australia without the chance to get into the INS office.

The downside of all this is that we now have to forever fill out the forms and answer “YES” to “Have you ever been rejected for a US visa?”. That’s not the real problem. The real problem is the next question - “If so, why?”.

What do you put there? “The initial reason for rejection was because there were concerns we had no ties to Australia but the secondary lodging of documents made them happier and they were concerned about something else entirely”. Write all that in a half-inch space. Except you don’t want to write that, because it’s being smarmy about the staff and they will be able to get their revenge by not issuing a visa to you on that occasion.

That’s got to be a great job if you love power - they hold the monopoly on visas, after all…

Still, much better news, and to all the good folk of the US reading this (and let’s face it, if you’re from the US and on this list, you must be one of the better ones…*grin*), we will be able to see the land of liberty, freedom and drive-by ghetto shootings in a few short weeks.

21 days to go….

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Today started off on a bad footing with the people from the insurance company ringing us to say that Diana is considered too high a risk to insure due to her pre-existing medical condition, and therefore we would have to find someone else to insure us. Delightful. The day could only get better from there, we figured.

Alas, that was not the case at all. We went to the US Consulate as directed to collect our visas, and found we were the proud recipients of 214(b) forms. What does this mean? It means we did not provide enough evidence to show we were not going to abandon our home in Australia and stay over in the US working illegally below the minimum wage.

We, like many people our age, have a rental property. What sort of person is able to simultaneously afford a round the world trip and pay rent while they are gone, on a house that is empty?

The rejection letter also mentioned that more proof was needed we would not be working in the US. How do you prove this? We’re not entirely sure. There is a box on the application form asking if you intend to work in the US and we both marked it as “NO”. It seems that their application form is insufficient evidence.

We are now submitting :

* a second application form
* the rejection letter
* five letters from friends in the US to say we are planning to stay with them during the months, showing we are travelling
* Canadian work visa authorisation numbers
* letters from the Uni and Diana’s work
* airline ticket itinerary and receipts
* banking account details to prove we have sufficient funds

Most of this was already submitted to them the first time, and if we get knocked back despite all this paper trail, well, perhaps we will just have to wave hello to those American friends as we fly over them to Canada. A rather depressing thought, but when you consider we’ve heard of people with criminal records for motorcycle theft when they were younger being able to get visas, it’s very frustrating for us.

Makes us ever so glad we’re considered “allies” on a global scale and they are being “friendly” toward us…

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Just to say that I’ve been to the US consulate again yesterday and applied for the visas with the letters from friends in the USA to prove we’d be travelling, as well as proof of financial support, as well as the full flight itinerary. In the finest tradition of bureaucracy, the girl behind the counter told me I really needed more documentation than what I had (to prove we were coming back to Australia) since the ticket itinerary from the travel agent’s was apparently possibly insufficient.

They wanted more proof that we would return, which stunned me. We had submitted our airline ticket itinerary to them when we’d applied, and I pointed out there were eight other countries we intended to see after the US, but the woman held firm. I asked what form of proof they wanted, and I could get it to them without any hassles, but she said we just “needed proof you are going to return to Australia” but would not elaborate any further. I really had to ask lots of questions before she finally said that returning to work would be something that might be of use in the application.

I asked if there was anything else, since really, Di’s position will not be there when she gets back (not that she wants it back) and I could technically write the last bit of my PhD thesis from anywhere in the world, if I wanted. There seemed to be nothing else that she was willing to tell me might be worth bringing along, but I figured I could just find something to say I was a student at Melbourne Uni still, and so help the application process, even though it did mean coming back to the consulate again.

No chance. Too late. The girl then sharply informed me that the information was in the computer and I would have to come back on Thursday between 3:00-3:30pm to find out the fate of the applications. If unsuccessful, we’d be up for another $85.50 each. Then, while I was still reeling from that thought, she called the next person in line and waved me away.

So, right now, we’re more than a little worried since I have no student position to return to (since I’ve lapsed my candidature) and Di has no job to return to, and we have no flat to return to once we’ve gone, and there seems to be no way of finding out what other forms of proof they’d accept. We will have our belongings in storage, but since we are still using them, we don’t have a receipt to show that, and won’t until three days beforehand.

In any event, our fate is in their hands now, and if we don’t get it, we’re up for a lot of money just to submit one or two pieces of paper more than we did this time…

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Hurrah. I have a travelpack again. There was a period of time there where I didn’t have one, and I was starting to get a bit edgy about that, but the problem is solved now.

For those that came in late, an explanation is in order. Back in November last year, Di and I purchased some Polarfleece jackets and raincoats on the same day that I bought my travelpack. I’d tried on a lot of packs at that stage, wandering through every little shop on Little Bourke St, it seemed, as well as a lot of the shops in the closest shopping mall to us, and had not found much in the way that fitted me.

Apparently I have a long back, and therefore many of the harness systems on the regular sized packs did not fit me. Since the majority of packs sold are 65-75L and the average person is shorter than I am, there was not a lot of stock in the larger pack size anywhere. I finally came upon a Black Wolf 90L pack in the city. While a little worried that with more space, I’d carry more stuff (read: die under the excess weight more quickly), it was one of the two packs I’d put on that felt good straight away, and continued to feel good after 15 minutes in the store.

Since we were spending a lot of money at the same time, it was knocked down from $259 to $189, and we were very happy. Di was not so happy, since she had not found a pack to suit her. Then again, her incentive was small - as soon as we both had packs, I’d said we’d be going for a walk around the park with a load in it to see how they fitted under more realistic conditions. So long as she did not own a pack, she didn’t have to walk around the park. No flies on that girl…

I was moving my pack 10 days before Xmas though, and I noticed one of the straps was not sewn properly. The strap at the top of the shoulder had not been sewn vertically, and one quarter of the strap’s width was fraying, despite being brand new. The pack had a lifetime guarantee for manufacturing defects, which this obviously was, so I took it back to the store and asked if they would repair it for me.

The people in the store had no problems with that at all, but did warn me that the repair centre they used for warranty work was going to be closed for the Xmas/New Year period until the 3rd January. Seemed fine to me, although I told them we were departing on the 14th January, just so they’d hurry along a little with the repair and make it a priority.

On the 5th January, I rang the store to see how the work was going, and they told me it was still in the store, not at the repair centre. They’d decided instead that it would be easier to ask the Black Wolf representative to send down an entire harness system, and then fix the strap with more time to spare. Good thinking, except the Black Wolf representative organised and sent down a shoulder strap (ie: like an overnight carrybag shoulder strap).

The store rang the rep again, explained exactly what they wanted (ie: harness, not shoulder strap) and received a second delivery. Once again, it was a shoulder strap. Two for none so far, and the clock is ticking.

Now, the other thing to note is that the pack I bought was one of the old models, since they were just introducing a new model with a different harness system when I made the purchase. The old harness system fitted me snugly. The new harness system cut into me around the neck, so I wanted the old harness repaired, not replaced with a new harness, and I’d made this clear to the store when I took it back. They’d known the problems I’d had with the new harness, so had also passed that information along to the rep.

The rep, in his wisdom (?), decided that instead of repairing the pack in Melbourne, as was usually done, he’d send the pack to Sydney. Since time was running out (now only 6 days from our “departure date”), I asked if perhaps we could just get the pack back, fix it ourselves and be done with it. Everyone agreed to that, but then it became obvious the rep had not just sent it to Sydney. He had sent it into oblivion, and nobody knew where the pack was physically located.

Not to be deterred, the rep then sent down a replacement pack, which (of course) featured the new harness system. With four days to go before our “departure”, we decided it was time to just get the money back and go find another pack. The problem, of course, was that all the Xmas sales had just finished. Camping stores that had been featuring 20% off sales (and 50% off at Kathmandu, for example) were now full-price once more. Most frustrating.

The people in the store had no problems with issuing a refund though - it was not their fault. I had initially thought they might have been unclear in the “shoulder strap” saga, but the subsequent foul-ups made me suspect the company representative more.

After a couple of hours in the city, walking the backpack stores once more (though this time I knew which ones just did not fit at all), I found a new model in the Caribee range that was only $20 more than what I’d paid. It was 80L also, so large enough for my back, but smaller so I could carry less “junk”. The new harness system on these was more comfortable for me than the old harness which had made me disregard the Caribee packs, and I made the purchase that day. After a month of fiddling about trying to get the pack repaired (and then found once the rep put it in a black hole), it was good to own a pack once more.

Diana was, as you might imagine, delighted later that evening when I told her we were off for a walk around the park to test them…

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We went to the US Consulate office in Melbourne yesterday to organise our visas. Found the multi-storey building without any hassles, and went inside. As we walked into the foyer, a large apparently-permanent sign was prominently displayed to alert us that if we wanted to go to the US Consulate office, we would have to notify the foyer guard first.

Since the main thing you hear on the news about a consulate is that it has been bombed or people taken hostage, I figured this must have been a security precaution to prevent unwanted sorts from making it into the offices. Still, a little odd that you’d be allowed right into the foyer - a decent bomb would take the entire building down, if you were of the suicide-bomber persuasion.

As we went with the guard to the lift so we could go to the offices on the 6th floor, I decided to ask if that was indeed the reason he was there - to prevent mad terrorists from getting to the consulate staff. He gave me a gentle smile, and assured me it was nothing so grand or interesting - the lift is broken, and requires the guard to insert a key so it will go past the 5th floor, that’s all.

Ah well, not that interesting after all, but I guess it’s better to have the guard there for that reason than them believing there to be a realistic chance of a bomb-toting terrorist storming the building…

Incidentally, this is “Part 1″ because we never got the visa - we needed more documentation to make them happy to let us into the country.

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An interesting and expensive adventure today, trying to organise working holiday visas for Canada. A couple of months back, when looking into the relevant visas, we looked up the Canadian consulate in Australia’s website, and found that working holiday visas for the coming year were issued on a first-come, first-served basis from 2nd January 2001. No problems. We’d just jump online at that time, and grab a form, because the site clearly stated that the forms were available through the site from that date. In fact, their first instructions on how to get a visa form were “Download a form from this website from 02 January 2001.”

So, on 2nd January 2001, we dial up to grab the form, and find the site does not have the forms. It has, however, been updated and now features the line “Forms will not be available over the internet.” which was a bit of a turn-around. Also, very confusing, because just down the page a paragraph or two later is the original text stating “Download a form from this website from 02 January 2001.” - huh???

We decided that they must have updated the site to reflect the fact that they were actually not going to issue forms over the net, and forgotten to remove the other bit of text when they made the changes. As a result, we called the phone number in Sydney to get a forms sent to us.

Engaged at first, finally the line cleared and we were able to go through a series of menus until we decided we had all the relevant information and wanted to get back to the previous menu to register our contact details. Not possible, since the menu had no “go back” options. We had to hang up and call up again, having wasted the first 8 minutes.

On the second call, we sped things up since we knew the appropriate buttons to press on the menu system, and got to the point where we were to register our contact details. I pressed the option to do so and instantly got a strange voicemail message saying something very quickly, and then it just informed me to “press 2 if you want to leave another number”. I had not managed to leave the first one, I thought, but then took a guess that perhaps it had worked off my phone number and that from that information, it would mail to the address. Seemed a bit stupid though, in case someone wanting to apply had been calling from a phone box in the street, so I decided to contact the receptionist, and went to get put in the queue. Not possible again, due to a lack of “go back” options built in, so I had to hang up and call back. Another 6 minutes wasted.

After calling back and waiting for the receptionist for 12 minutes, I decided that it might be time to go look at the website again. After all, it was the middle of the day, and we were calling long-distance, so we were accumulating phone charges quickly, just to listen to recorded on-hold classical music, and the occasional bi-lingual “we’ll be with you shortly” message interrupting every 60 seconds.

The reason for looking at the website again was that a different URL was given in the recorded message to the one that we’d been looking at previously. A local phone call cost (more phone expense) as I connected to the net, and I found that the new site was simply a redirectional URL for the one we’d looked at. I decided to see if I could get around the automated phone service and see if there was an alternative office number which I could ring and sneak in the back door, so to speak. A quick hunt through the White Pages online, and I had a different number. Disconnecting from the net, I went back to the phone.

It answered instantly, but the receptionist simply told me to “hold the line please” and disappeared for another 8 minutes. Coming back just as I was about to give up in disgust (the phone had literally left my ear and was heading downward to be hung up when I heard the voice come through), the rather frazzled receptionist told me that the form was going to be available on the internet. However, the reason it was not on the net today? Because the site (even though a .com.au domain) was maintained from Ottawa, and it was not the 2nd January in Ottawa yet.

She was obviously not impressed with the situation, and told me that the last three hours had been basically spent trying to figure out why there was a problem, and then trying to see if there was anyone who would work on a public holiday just to upload the form, and then trying to answer all the Aussies and Kiwis calling in asking how to get a working holiday visa form since the website gave conflicting information and the recorded message service was not functioning properly.

Presumably there is a form already created, and presumably it would take 10 minutes to go in to the office, make the necessary changes and then upload the form, but that is obviously not going to be fixed today. Then again, presumably they were aware of the fact that with only a limited number of visa applications being granted on a first-come, first-served basis, when it became 2nd January in Australia, there might be some Australians wanting to get the forms. However, it would appear that nobody ever considered the date line or time differences in the planning stage, and thought “well, if we make it the 3rd January in Australia, then that means nobody has to come in on the public holiday in Canada to do anything”.

In the long run though, what it means is that we ended up on the phone to Sydney for roughly 40 minutes, paying peak long-distance charges, all because some SPOTD didn’t think about the fact the world is not all on Ottawa time…

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It’s a very weird feeling. We’ve reached 2001 and are only 38 days from departure. No longer am we referring to that grand and glorious adventure coming “next year”. Now, it’s “this year”. In fact, it’s “next month” which is even weirder. Not to mention somewhat scary…

In other news that is known to a couple of you on this list, and not to others, my parents have sold their farm to a couple from New Zealand and they’re moving off into the big wide world outside Waaia. Yes, after almost 24 years of “going home to Waaia”, the farm now belongs to someone else. Well, it does as of about a fortnight’s time. The news has not been spread very far up until now, mainly because the last time there was a buyer for the farm (about 18 months ago), it all fell through at the eleventh hour due to the finance on behalf of the potential buyer. As a result, this time, nothing was said to anyone until the ink was on the contract and the 10% deposit was in the bank.

One of the downsides of this is that there are now a few problems with storage we were not expecting. The Mighty Rocket, for example, was something we figured it would be possible to leave at the farm until we returned, on the grounds that there were several hundred acres on the farm, and it would not be a major problem to find a place for my car until our return. I mean, how inconsiderate of one’s parents to have their own lives and all…*gasp*

On the up side, it would appear that the plans for world domination are moving up another notch, with the Waaia residents storming the Northern Hemisphere. For several years, my parents have been planning to go to the USA on a tour specifically for dairy farmers, which takes them to various dairy research facilities and farms through North America. Since they were running out of time to qualify as dairy farmers obviously, they decided this was the year to go. And so it is that for the month of May, while Di and I are driving ourselves up the east coast of the US, my mother and father will be coming down the east coast of North America on a month-long tour. We are likely to cross paths somewhere between Quebec and Washington DC in May, according to our estimates, although the exact point will be determined closer to the date.

As for the fate of the Mighty Rocket, it is looking ever more likely that another owner will soon be behind the wheel - a concept that frightens hell out of me, but all good things must come to an end. Even the beautiful partnership of Trav’s driving and the marvelous craftsmanship and engineering behind the 1987 Holden Camira is not immune to the relentless march of time, and so the symbiotic link between the two is likely to be severed in the next couple of months.

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