Andrew Dubber     

So – first things first. Let’s start with the flight over to New Zealand.

Bobbie took us to the airport, and at 8.30pm, Jake and I boarded an Emirates flight to Dubai, where we were to intersect with another plane that would take us on to Auckland. Bobbie wasn’t coming with us for a number of reasons that became a number of different reasons, but her consolation prize was a trip to France with her mother.

The flight was okay. I hate flying at the best of times. I’m not scared of it by any means. I understand it’s the safest way to travel. It’s just unpleasant. The recycled, dehydrated air, the slightly smaller than person-sized seating arrangements, the uncomfortable changes in cabin pressure, the stomach-lurching turbulence they always manage to hit just after serving my cup of coffee and the complete inability to open a window or step off and have a look around on the way just make the whole thing less than ideal.

Give me 12 hours on a train for every hour on a plane any day.

The flight was broken up into four sections:

Birmingham – Dubai – 7 hours
Dubai – Singapore – 8 hours
Singapore – Brisbane – 7 hours
Brisbane – Auckland – 3 hours

Though as it was only two planes, with some set downs, refuels and pick ups at Singapore and Brisbane, it didn’t seem too terribly bad. I could have done without the endless repeats of the Simpsons Movie and Transformers, but I had a couple of books, and so they intruded on my world very little.

I bought a bottle of Glenlivet Nadurra in the duty free at Birmingham as a gift for my father (and, obviously, to share while I was in New Zealand). Nadurra’s a single malt I absolutely fell in love with a couple of months back, and have had some customs difficulties with in the past. You can see where this story is going already, can’t you?

I was worried about getting the whisky through Dubai. It’s an Arab city, and I understand there can be some strictness about alcoholic beverages in such places. But in its sealed duty free bag, I might as well have been carrying a Little Book of Calm for all the attention it garnered.

Jake and I had a look in what seems to be the biggest Duty-Free store on the planet, and searched out a digital camera for his 15th birthday present (today, as it happens). We ended up with a rather nice little Fuji that has a few tricks up its sleeve. Not the £600 Canon digital SLR he was hoping for, but it takes some nice snaps that will no doubt start appearing on his blog before too long.

Back onto the plane and off to the Republic of Singapore, where we had a very similar experience. We were ushered off the plane, to our surprise, because this stopover included a complete crew replacement. And so the nerves about whether we’d hang onto the whisky resurfaced, though not as strongly as before.

Again, no problem whatsoever.

Back on the plane and off to Brisbane. More recycled air, more coffee and turbulence, more Transformers (more than meets the eye). I asked the flight attendant if we’d be getting off again in Brisbane, or if it was just a short stop.

- Oh, we’ll just be minutes. I don’t know for sure if we’ll be disembarking yet, but I wouldn’t expect so. We’ll know when we get on the ground.

Of course, the ground arrived, and we were ushered off the plane with all of our belongings. Here, the security procedure was not quite so straightforward.

- Ah, mate… if you want to go any further, you’re going to have to give me that.
- What? The whisky? You’re joking.
- No joke, mate. It’s more than 100mls. It stops here.
- It’s in a sealed duty-free bag.
- And now it goes in the bin.

I knew resistance was futile, so I handed over the treasured bottle that represented 1000% of my legal limit of liquid that I was allowed to bring into the waiting lounge of the airport of a country I had no intention of visiting, almost swimming distance from my final destination.

Gutted.

I guess they’re being vigilant about terrorism. The recent leadership of Australia has, after all, given almost as many reasons for frustrated militant extremists to take bloody revenge than has the recent leadership of America, so naturally they’re going to be careful about expensive bottles of potential
explosives.

But throwing it casually into a giant yellow bin of other potentially lethal incendiary devices, disguised as enjoyable fine liquors, seems an odd and cavalier approach to the perceived threat. It added insult to injury and I was entirely cranky the rest of the way home.

Emirates misplacing Jake’s guitar (it stayed an extra couple of days in Dubai) and the long lines at New Zealand Customs finished me off, and by the time I finally got to see Mum and Dad waiting to take us back to their place, I was a bit of a wreck.

And now Jake has the photographic proof of that.

Tags: travel, new zealand, emirates, customs, whisky, flight

Tagged: New Zealand, Travel