Nothing ever goes to plan with us. I realise that more and more now as I look back recalling the events of our travels…
Today is the day that we pick up Dingo, our future home and travel companion, from the Halifax docks after two weeks of being apart. Blair drove him down to the docks in Liverpool, England and on that journey the Defender broke down and started making some strange noises. Although he got the truck to the docks on time, the weight of the breakdown had us concerned, especially given the information from an English Land Rover mechanic who stated that we would need a new gearbox very soon…
That thought in mind, we were worried about how far Dingo would get on Canadian soil before there was a major gearbox breakdown. However, after a chaotic day like today, that thought was temporarily pushed to the side.
The information given to us by the shipping company was that we can go to the docks and pick up the truck. No other paperwork needed. It would be fast and painless. My auntie, who we were staying with at the time, offered to take us into the city to pick up the car. We had been staying about one hour away from Halifax since we arrived by plane, and the buses into Halifax are not regular so we gladly took her up on the offer of a lift.
Arriving at the docks, it took us a while to find the correct entrance which was tucked in at the back of a car park so we assumed it wasn’t the right spot but we got there eventually. Blair entered the office and they began the collection process. He was suited and booted with PPE and they were about to take him into the port when they asked for a piece of paperwork that we did not have. Of course, said piece of paperwork was needed from the Canadien Government who had a building 20 minutes drive away. Off we went through the busy city traffic, now pushed for time because my auntie had other engagements that day and this was supposed to have been a quick one stop process for the truck import.
We reached the Canadian Customs building full of scary officers in uniform and the room screamed the vibe that smiling is illegal. A long, slow wait in a queue and Blair was seen by an officer. I cannot emphasise how slow the paperwork seemed to go, especially given that our lift availability was on a very tight schedule. The officer uttered words to Blair that nobody wanted to hear… “You must go get this printed”. Stress and frustration rising, Blair jumped in the car and we found a staples, printed off the paperwork and headed back to the world’s most serious office where blair had to go back to the end of the queue and wait his turn again.
My auntie was at the point that she really needed to leave which would have stranded us miles away from the port in a retail park on the edge of Halifax. Just in time, Blair ran out of the door, thumbs up, and we rushed full speed back to the port where we jumped out of the car and my auntie sped off. At this point, if we didn’t have the correct paperwork we were screwed.
Of course, we arrived at the port office just in time for the staff’s lunch break so we sat around waiting for assistance but thankfully the office staff were really kind and funny, a welcome contrast to the serious government officers, so when they finished their lunch, they were right with us.
We hopped into the back of a beaten-up old truck used by the port workers and were driven to the office that deals with the imports. A welcome sight for sore eyes was our first glimpse and our bright yellow Defender sitting waiting for us. A sight that made all the annoyances of the day completely worth it.
We checked around Dingo to look for any evidence of damage but at that point we couldn’t see anything wrong so we waited in the office queue full of other eager travellers, paid a mysterious $100 fee and FINALLY got to take our Dingo out of there.
The process had taken a whole day, and we were glad to have our home on wheels with us and ready for our Northern American exploration to begin. Unfortunately, we found out that we were robbed of our brand new NOCO battery booster that was in the vehicle during it’s Trans-Atlantic crossing. A real dampener on the shipping experience but we now know other travellers who were hit harder by thieves so we count ourselves lucky that it wasn’t worse.