A quick but long journey
To the Land Down Under
As much as we wished our Fiji layover wasn’t ending so soon we had to move on to our next destination in Australia. The journey to our next destination took us all day which began with our 7:30 am shuttle from the hotel to the Fiji airport. From there we got on a 5.5 hr flight to Sydney and then had 2.5 hrs to get to our Jetstar flight leaving out of Terminal 2, which was about a 20-minute bus ride from our arrival Terminal. I’ll admit I was a bit nervous about making it to our Carins flight in time because you just never know how long customs might take. However, to my surprise, the Australian customs line was surprisingly speedy and took us only about 10 minutes to get through it all.
Here are some standard must to-do’s that you should get done prior to your arrival in Australia:
Apply for your eVisa through the Australian eVisa app. The approval process took a matter of minutes and the cost was $20 AUD per person. Don’t apply for the standard visa if you are only visiting Australia once. I mistakenly applied for this longer-term visa by accident on the Australia visa website and ended up paying $100 AUD for my visa and it took over a week to get approved.
Make sure to have all your vaccination cards on you as the airline check-in desk will request to see these when you check in to your flight
Download and fill out the DPD (Declarations form) for each person. This is pretty easy to do via the Australian DPD app on your phone. You can create one household account and submit each person’s DPD application through that one account. Also for each individual’s DPD application, you will be required to submit a photo of that individual’s vaccination card through the app as well.
Getting these logistical items off your list before you arrive in Australia should hopefully make your customs experience as seamless as ours.
Keep Calm and Data On
Once we got out of customs we wanted to figure out a data plan for our 12-day stay in Australia. This was our first foray into buying a local data plan and I had read on Reddit that you can purchase local data plans through an app called Airalo. Airalo is an app that allows you to easily purchase local data plans all throughout the world through an eSIM card.
I preemptively purchased a 10 GB Australian eSIM card from Airalo for $24.75 USD as we were leaving Fiji. Since I had no experience in purchasing local data plans or eSIM cards I went the Airalo route just to see how it stacks up against buying a local SIM card at the airport. The verdict….instant regret.
Kara was able to purchase a 60GB local data plan for $30 AUD. She got 6x the data for less than what I paid on Airalo and the kicker was they were both on the same Optus cellular network! Obviously, this is a small sample size but going forward I think I’ll wait to see what the local airports charge before buying a data plan through Airalo.
One additional negative about Airalo is the number you get for your data plan isn’t a local number for that area but rather a number based in Israel. I’m assuming that’s because Airalo is based in Israel but for those times you need a local number for excursions, hotel check-ins, restaurant reservations, etc. Airalo’s non-local number isn’t helpful.
Also, we went with Optus but there are other carriers that you can buy similar plans from as well like Vodafone and Telstra.
Note: You will need to provide your passport when getting a local sim card
Jetstar, the Spirit of Australia
We booked Jetstar because it was the cheapest way to get from Sydney to Cairns and also the flight time worked out the best for us.
For those of you who don’t know, Jetstar is Qantas’s discount airline which I would equate to Spirit Airlines back in America. No frills and no baggage either. They let you bring two personal items but combined those items can’t weigh more than 7kg. Obviously, that wasn’t going to work for us so we purchased the 20 kg check-in baggage for each of us. This was an extra cost of $20 AUD per person.
In order to ensure some sanity in the process, we purchased a travel scale so that we can weigh all our bags and also Apple Airtags in case any of our luggage doesn’t make it with us.
As we approached the bag drop-off desk we felt pretty confident things would go smoothly. All our backpacks were 7kg or less and all our carry-on luggage was under the 20 kg limit. As I proudly lifted our first carry-on luggage onto the scale for check the airline staff informed us that all laptops, iPads, and batteries are not allowed in check-in bags.
WAIT, WHAT!?!?!?! Yes, Americans you read that right. Basically, anything with a lithium-ion battery can not be in your check-in bag for Australian flights and must be carried onto the plane instead. This is a complete 180 of the rules in America and we were forced to repack all our luggage at the airport. We pulled out all our electronics, swapped them with items from our backpacks, and went through the weighing guessing game to get all our backpacks within the 7kg weight limit and all our luggage within the 20kg limit. Nothing like repacking 8 types of luggage in the middle of a crowded airport.
Thankfully we managed through it all and breezed through airport security.
We had about 45 minutes until our flight was boarding and so we went to the Rex lounge which was located not too far from our gate. All four of us we granted FREE access to the lounge because Kara and I both have Priority Pass through our Capital One Venture X credit card. The airport lounge was not only great because we got to unwind and have our pick of meal items, snacks, and drinks but it also helps us save money as it was a free meal for all four of us.
After we had our free lunch at the Rex lounge we boarded our Jetstar flight to Cairns. The Jetstar flight itself wasn’t all that bad except the seats are paper thin. You will literally feel every movement from the person behind you. The movement of the seat table alone will feel as if someone is purposely poking you in the back so just know it’s how cheaply the seats are made and not any done by the person behind you.
Old neighbors, new neighborhood
We got into Cairns at around 6:45 pm. The bags all got there safely but we weren’t out of the woods just yet. Once we got out of the airport the taxi line was about 50+ people long. Of course, our first thought was to just get an Uber instead, and usually, this would be a sure thing. The only thing is apparently on Sundays in Carins there are very limited Taxis and Ubers. In addition Ubers in Australia only allow 3 passengers unless you go with an Uber XL which will allow 5 passengers. We struggled mightily to find an Uber XL and kept coming up empty-handed for about 30 minutes until we finally lucked out and go a hold of one. This 12-minute Uber XL from the airport to our hotel cost us $46 AUD.
We booked a one-night stay at the Pacific Hotel Cairns. The hotel would have cost us $134 USD however we were able to use part of our $300 travel credit through our Capital One Venture X credit card to get the night's stay for FREE!
As we tiredly checked into our hotel we were greeted by our old neighbors and friends from Oakland - the Pugh family. They had moved to Brisbane towards the end of last year and we were really excited to be spending quality time with them again. As great as it was to see them, we went off to our room where we ate a quick dinner from the McDonalds down the street, cleaned ourselves up, and went straight to bed.
As excited as we all were to get to our destination in Cairns, Australia, it made us rethink how we might want to travel going forward. Having to endure the myriad of travel puzzle pieces throughout an entire day was extremely taxing on all of us. Trying to time everything while simultaneously being mindful of all the airport requirements and security details from country to country was a lot, to say the least. Going forward we’ll need to figure out how to make things more simplistic so that the travel is easier on all of us. How that will be is yet to be determined but it’s all a part of this story so I can’t wait to see what that will be.
Until next time…
ByeanVoyage Disclaimer: Content on ByeanVoyage represents our expert experience, opinion, and subjective perspective. Reader's experience may vary due to many factors. The content provided is for informational and entertainment purposes only, and should not be considered financial, tax, or legal advice.