Nightmare on Gilmer Street

"This chapter has got to reflect our frustration and anger towards these visas babe" - Kyle.

Yes, yes they do. And frustrating is an understatement. It all began when we found out that we needed to apply for a South African visa. The irony being that Kyle lived in South Africa for 18 years, and needed a visa to go back to his country. And that Danielle didn't need one, if she used her Dutch passport. We decided that this was too risky so went ahead and booked a date at the

South African Embassy exactly one month prior to our departure date. We were not allowed to make an appointment any sooner.
Because we were only wanting to enter South Africa in December, we had to apply for a special extension as normally you can only apply three months out from entering SA. 3 months out from us entering SA we would be in Europe and you have to apply in your country of residence.
So off we went - took a day off work and went to Wellington. Luckily we checked and double checked our documentation before the appointment as Kyle only had two months of bank statements - not the three that were required. So in the morning we went to the bank and sorted this, then into our

appointment. We were quite nervous because the lady there was concerned that the Embassy might want addresses and contacts while we were in Europe - which we couldn't provide her because we didn't know where we were going to be staying. So instead we had to hand write this onto our cover letter.

All of this seemed to be in vain (along with the $385 it cost us for the visa!) as we got our passports back a week and a half later, only to find they had totally ignored all of our documents and had made the visa out for three months from the 26th June. So essentially we had to be in South Africa by September 26th which of course wasn't going to happen. So a panic and few tears later, we rang the school and got the next day off work.

The next morning we drove down to Wellington (while watching Argentina vs. Nigeria Football World Cup) and arrived at the passport office at 8.45am. They assured us it would get done that same day and that it would be a priority. 4.30pm we were finally called to come and get them with the new dates. It was an excruciating day in Wellington as we had no idea if the visa would take 5 minutes or 3 hours - turns out it took more. As two weary travellers, who had not even left the country yet, we got our passports back and gave them to Damian who took them to the Chinese Embassy on Friday morning.

So ironically we are now ahead of where we would have been if the visa was fine. But have had to deal with more stress than we would like to admit.

The next most stressful part of this trip has been trying to agree on a picture for the cover of this book. Which at the moment is a map...taken off Google. Although I am sure it will change. Better not be a cartoon.
- Danielle