were causing us problems, firstly it took an age to find the Rough Guide and secondly the visa appointment system seemed somewhat bizarre and extremely expensive! Finally I got through a lady and she offered me an appointment for Tuesday the 16th - RESULT! The only problem was that there was only one appointment which meant that we would have to keep trying to call them (spending $25 each time - grrrr) and hope they would have another cancellation. What a palaver!!! We were somewhat subdued but headed for a campsite which was fairly close to the Antarctica centre which we wanted to visit, it was also on the flight path so we had numerous planes blasting off every now and again but thankfully its not as busy as Manchester airport so it wasn’t too bad. The campsite lady was extremely friendly and helpful and said we could use her phone to call the consulate as long as we paid for the call -what a star! And she lent Rob a baking tray so she was really in his good

books!

We woke up early the next morning and had an e-mail alert from Sarah, our Antarctica lady so we headed to the campsite off to check the internet. It was at this moment when things started to go a little pear shaped! We checked the email only to read that our credit card which we had used for the deposit for the Antarctica trip had been refused, we weren’t too bothered by this as it had happened before and we only needed to call the bank and clarify the transaction. Rob phoned the bank and was on for an age but was successful and got the card unfrozen. He then had to call the consulate as I couldn’t do it as it wasn’t my appointment. Amazingly he got through straight away and was offered an appointment for two days later, neither of us knew what to do so he refused the appointment. After he came off the phone, I suggested that he check out flights and if it was a reasonable price then he should fly to Auckland and get the interview over and