Taking a Cat to Australia
The official excuse for this Australian adventure is to deliver Nexu, Russ’s cat. Taking a cat from the United States to Australia requires a ton of work (or so I’ve heard — Sherry did all the work) and a lot of money (this part, I know well). Nexu traveled in a small crate, as a carry-on, from Jacksonville to Los Angeles. This crate was for the domestic part of the trip only. Nexu would fly in the cargo hold from LA to Melbourne, in a different crate that matched exacting specifications. That crate folded flat and rode from Jacksonville to LA inside my checked suitcase.
As I’m allergic to cats, Sherry and I sat apart on both domestic flights, and Nexu rode beneath the seat at Sherry’s feet. Here’s a picture of Nexu in the domestic crate:
Here’s a closer shot of Nexu:
Apparently, he yowled during takeoffs and landings, but otherwise held the cat loaf pose for the rest of the journey.
LA Claws … and Flaws
When we booked our flights, we flew American from Jacksonville to Los Angeles and Qantas from Los Angeles to Melbourne. We figured a 4-hour layover in LA would give us plenty of time to:
- Retrieve Nexu’s cargo crate from our checked luggage,
- Take an Uber to the Qantas Freight office, 1.5 miles away, to drop off Nexu,
- Take an Uber back to the terminal,
- Clear security, and
- Board our flight.
Four hours. Plenty of time. Right? We nearly blew up the entire trip with that decision. First, weather delayed our Dallas departure about an hour. Down to three hours. After deplaning in LA, we walked quickly to the baggage claim. As we waited by the carousel, Sherry’s phone rang. It was Qantas Freight. They said, “I guess your plans changed? You’re not dropping off the cat?” Apparently, we had an undisclosed 5:00PM deadline to drop off the cat at Qantas Freight. We checked our watches. It was 6:44PM. Mentally, I surrendered to finding a hotel near the airport and trying again the next day to drop off the cat and get on a plane to Australia, grateful I’d bought the flight insurance. Sherry never says die. I heard snips of her pleas and cajoling while I watched for our luggage. “I’ve been working on this thing for 10 months. Surely, you can do something!” was one of the things I heard her say. Luckily, our luggage emerged quickly on the carousel. As I grabbed our bags, she reported that Qantas had extended our deadline to 7:00PM “as a favor.” It was, by now, 6:48PM. I summoned an Uber and we hoofed our way to the pickup stop. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. LA traffic. The Uber picked us up about 6:58PM. Sherry called Qantas Freight and told them we were on our way. We arrived about 7:08PM and ran, sweating, through the door. I assembled Nexu’s crate while Sherry filled out paperwork. I thought we’d drop off the cat and get right back into the Uber. After all, Sherry had been filling out paperwork for about 10 months already. She’d walked into Qantas Freight with a stack of papers a half inch thick. Apparently, we needed more. Much more. About thirty minutes more. Sherry filled out form after form after form while I fretted.
In the meantime, I worried that our Uber driver was going to take off with our luggage. I mean, I didn’t think he was a thief, but I didn’t know if he was getting paid to wait. I should have known better. I bounced back and forth between checking on Sherry and checking on the driver. I made a big show of tipping him $50 through the app, showing him the amount before I pressed send. I figured $50 would buy his loyalty. I’m sure it did, and I’m sure a much smaller amount would have bought it as well. Sherry finally finished the paperwork and we took Nexu in his big-boy crate to the loading dock. We set him amongst a cacophany of braying dogs and hustled back to the car. We still had to get to the international terminal, check our bags, clear security, and get on the plane. We loaded back into the SUV and high-tailed it to the international terminal. Then I got the Uber receipt in my email. $187, including tip. $67 of that was for the time waiting at Qantas Freight. I chuckled, thinking it was the last Nexu expense. It wasn’t. We later got a bill from the Australian government for about $100 for recovering their costs from Qantas. Regardless. We’d done all we could, and Nexu was on his way to Australia. We had to get on our plane.
We cleared security, which was another adventure as we missed the sign for TSA PreCheck and had to disrobe and pull everything out of our bags. I’ve never met someone who hated their job more than the agent tending the bins. She barked instructions belittlingly. She blocked my bins from entering the conveyor belt while chastising me for taking so long. With TSA PreCheck, one bin would have sufficed. I now needed four for my laptop, shoes, backpack, jacket, and sundries. Each bin prompted a battle of wills to push off the rollers and onto the conveyor belt. I eventually made it through security. We got to our gate with an hour to spare, dripping with sweat but excited for the flight.
The flight itself was uneventful. We watched some movies, slept, walked around. Somehow, we got lucky in that the seat beside us was empty, so that become our impromptu storage bin. The flight took about 14 hours, and we could only speculate how Nexu was handling life amongst the dogs in the cargo hold.
Nexu’s 10-day quarantine ended yesterday. Sherry and Russ Ubered to the quarantine facility, picked Nexu up, and took him home. Nexu is safely snuggling with Russ now.
Here’s Nexu being walked into the garage:
Here’s Nexu snuggling with Russ:
