Departure Date

The day to depart has finally come!
It’s been quite a stressful lead up to today though. As part of applying for a working visa for the UK, I was required to post my application paperwork away, along with my passport, to the UK Border Agency for consideration for the visa.
I caught the train to Sydney on Monday 30th May for an appointment to be fingerprinted as part of the application process. This took all of about 5 minutes, but it meant the first stage of my application was underway.
The following day I completed the rest of the paperwork, and placed my passport into the post, to be sent away.
I waited, and waited, until on Thursday, less than a week before I was due to depart, I received an email.
“Your visa will be despatched shortly.” And they estimated approximately 3 days for it to arrive back to me via post.
Now any other week, this would have been fine, and it would have arrived the day before I was due to depart.
But, just my luck, Monday was a public holiday, and such, my passport did not move in the post.
This left me, at best, an expectant delivery date, of 15th June, between the hours of 9am and 5pm! I was due to depart at 4:10pm that day!
So the frantic phone calls began. Trying to find an alternative flight as a backup plan was looking to be rather expensive, but as a last resort, I would still be able to get to London.
Calls to the UK Border Agency were of no use, the best I was given was “any day now”
Then, after refreshing the postal tracking website, at 6:32pm on Tuesday evening, the day before I was set to leave, a status change. My passport was finally in the post on the way back to me!
I monitored the tracking all night only to see no change in the status, until I eventually fell asleep.
Waking up the next morning, the status had finally changed. My passport was in Newcastle!
I phoned the postal service and explained my situation, and was pushed to the top of the queue as they tried to locate the delivery driver with my package.
Sitting at home, looking out the window, wondering if I’ll ever get out of the country, when all of a sudden, at 10:28am, half hour before I needed to leave for Sydney, there’s a knock at the front door.
The long lost passport had arrived!
I opened the package, checked it was correct, and jumped in the car with mum and dad for the two hour drive to Sydney.
We got here safely and I met up with my pommy mate Nick, who is returning home for a few weeks, before heading back to Australia for a very extended stay.
Nick and I checked in our luggage, and we began to follow the crowd through customs and security.
After a very painless process we were on the other side and our plane was in sight!
We waited around for an hour or so til our flight was called to board.
With no delay on the runway, it wasn’t long before the pilot had our A380 jet high in the sky and headed for our first stop, Singapore.
This plane has an on board camera, where all passengers can view the take off as if they were sitting just in front of the tail.

We are currently 3hours away from Singapore, casually cruising at 900km/hr, 12000m above the earth. Current in-flight data says it’s a cool -58C outside! I know England is cold, but this is beyond a joke!