If I thought the last few days on my time away would be all smooth sailing, I was in for a small surprise.

18th September

My last day in Bern was fairly smooth, going to lunch with Rita and her two brothers Frank and Lothar and her niece at the Eckholzli restaurant, then having dinner with Mutti, before she again won at Liar’s Poker. Then finishing packing and getting to bed early in preparation for an early start tomorrow.

19th September

Up early to get the 0725h Bandli (tram) to the Bern railway station, to catch the 0802h train to Zurich Flughafen. I got to the airport early and got through the check-in process with no delay. So I decided to head straight through to the departure gate and catch up with some reading and emails (that was my first mistake). There was no one at the passport control so I walked straight in. However, as the passport agent raised his hand to stamp the passport, he stopped and said “Wait a moment!”. He then made a phone call, and said “I will just keep your passport. You wait over there.” After a few minutes a young women appeared in an Airport Police uniform, took my passport and said “Follow me please”. At this stage, I was a bit unsure as to what was going on, but thought there was something wrong with my passport (which was new and used only once when I flew into Zurich 3 months ago). When we got to the back room, she said “Has it been explained what is the problem?”. I asked if something was wrong with the passport and she replied “No, but you have overstayed your visa”. I was somewhat surprised since I always made sure I left Europe less than 3 months after getting there. But as we talked it became evident that the visa-free Schengen period is not 3 months, but 90 days. And I had been there 91 days!!  As she explained it to me, it became clear that even if I had left yesterday, I would also have been nabbed, since they count part days as full days anyway (i.e. if you arrive on June 15 and leave on June 16, you are counted as 2 days not 1 day). I was asked to fill out various forms, and thought I would get an official warning. But no, I was told that my case would go to court (where I would be found guilty), and I would have to pay 359 Swiss Francs now to cover court costs. I really had no choice, since if I declined to pay, they would have just kept my passport and I wouldn’t be able to fly out. So I made the payment, and mentioned that I was lucky that I wasn’t running late for the flight, since the process had already taken 30 minutes. But then I was told “Oh, if you were were running late, we wouldn’t have stopped you for such a minor infringement”. So three lessons learned: 1. make sure to count off 90 days and part-days when booking a return flight; 2. don’t fly through pedantic Switzerland (I have used 3 months duration for the past 6 years and never been pulled up in France or Spain); 3. never go through passport control early - wait until the last moment when there is a crowd of people also going through.

I fumed as I sat in the departure lounge, and resolved never to fly through Zurich again. But after a few more hours, we were in the air and heading home.

On the first leg to Singapore, I decided to watch some movies, and really enjoyed "Charles III” about what might happen after the death of Queen Elizabeth, and then went on a VEEP binge, watching all 10 episodes from the latest season. We arrived in a rainy Singapore, and as usual I didn’t mind spending a few hours in my favourite airport, using their free WIFI.

20th September

Soon it was time to get on the final flight to Melbourne, and I got a fair bit of sleep on this leg. I was picked up at the airport around 8.30pm by good mate Ian Johnston and then went back to his house in Northcote, where I chatted for a few hours with him and Felicity, before staying at their house overnight.

21st September

Ian and Felicity had picked up my car from Taggerty last week and brought it down to Northcote. Despite my warning to Ian about a likely flat battery after 2 months sitting at Taggerty, Ian reported that the car started on first attempt. However, this morning it was flat as a tack. Luckily, however, Ian was there as were the jumper cables. So within a few minutes, we had the car started. I got out to disconnect the cables and close the hood, but as I went to get back in, I saw that the car had locked itself, with the keys inside and the motor running! And the second set of keys was hanging on the key rack at Taggerty. We tried to get a door open with coat hangers etc, but no luck. Since Ian and Felicity were both going out today, I was at a loss as to what to do next. But Ian suggested that I could go with him to Riversdale Golf Club where he was playing today, then go up to Taggerty in his car to get the keys, then pick him up after golf later in the day.

So off it was to the golf club (about an hour away, but luckily in generally the same direction as Taggerty), then two hours to Taggerty. When I got there, I saw the two goats in our garden (from the neighbour’s property) that Ian had noticed when he picked up the car last week. I then spent some time trying to chase them out of the garden (not as easy to chase as cows) until they went through the wires on the side fence, which is presumably where they came in from).

After this exercise, I drove the two hours back to Northcote (after picking up some fuel in case the locked car had run out of fuel). Surprisingly, the car was still running, and had not overheated (luckily it has an automatic electric fan). Then it was out to the golf club to pick up Ian, then back to Northcote (another two hours driving).

Now, at 7pm, it was eventually time to drive home to Taggerty in my own car. But first I decided to go to the Apple Store at Doncaster, which was open till 9pm on Thursdays, to get them to have a look at my laptop which had crashed in France. I knew that I needed an appointment to get attention and I didn’t have one, but they told me to wait in a corner and see what happened. And luckily one of the 8pm appointments failed to arrive, so I got to slip into that timeslot. But the news was not good. The 2011 laptop was now classified as “vintage”, and Apple no longer carried parts for repairs. So I would need to get a new one, which is what I had actually expected. When I asked about recovering the contents of the SSD hard disk, the consultant told me about external SSD enclosures, into which you could insert any SSD. So he took my laptop out the back, and came back with my SSD in a bag, and some advice as to where I could buy an enclosure. So, not all was lost.

Then finally, it was time to drive home to Taggerty (for the second time today), arriving home around midnight after stopping at the Coles supermarket in Healesville to get some supplies for the next couple of days. Needless to say, I slept very well, and rose next day around 10am to go for a walk in the garden and admire the magnolia tree in full spring bloom. And start thinking about barging adventures for 2018!