24th Australasian Fluid Mechanics Conference (AFMC 2024)

A significant proportion of AFMC2024 will either be of Australian or New Zealand origin, or will be eligible to enter Australia under one of several visa-free entry schemes. If the latter, please check the details - it may be necessary for you to have submitted some paperwork to the Australian government prior to travel.

If you are travelling from a country that requires a visa to enter Australia, you should by now have obtained your visa.

A Welcome Reception for AFMC2024 will be held on the evening of Sunday 1 December, with the conference sessions starting early on Monday 2 December. For this reason, and the common occurrence of flight delays due to Canberra early-morning fog, we do not recommend arriving on Monday morning!

Instead, for those travelling from elsewhere in Australia or New Zealand, we recommend that you arrive on the Sunday, or even earlier, so you can enjoy your Canberra visit and join us without undue haste.

For those travelling from overseas, especially Europe or North America, it may take a few days to adjust to the timezone difference. Please do not try to arrive on the Sunday - this is seriously not recommended! (Yes, we may do this when we visit you - but we are hardy people!) Please give yourself at least another day to adjust to the timezone, or even longer, so you can enjoy your stay and fully participate in the conference.

For those travelling internationally, the arrival procedure to Australia is a little different to most other countries, consisting of (1) border entry, (2) pickup of all baggage, (3) customs and quarantine, including bag inspection, and (4) transfer to your next flight. Australia takes quarantine very seriously, and on arrival you need to fill out a form to declare all imported foods, animal or plant products - please take this seriously. We recommend you do not bring any such materials, but if you do, you must declare them! You should expect all your baggage to be searched.

1. On arrival, if you have an E-passport you need to find a SmartGate machine, in which you scan your passport, answer some questions, retrieve a printout, and then use this for the automated border crossing. If you have a different kind of passport, you may have to queue for manual processing of your border entry.
2. You then must pick up all your bags at the first port of entry (similar to the U.S.). In our case, this is to enable quarantine inspection.
3. Proceed to the customs and quarantine inspection queue. Depending on your declarations, your baggage may be X-rayed and searched. The quarantine queues and inspections are usually quick, but can take 1 hour.
4. Proceed through the airport to transfer to your flight to Canberra. This is not automated like the U.S.; instead you need to find the transfer desk for your airline. If arriving in Sydney, the transfer to Virgin (Terminal 2) is towards the left, whereas the transfer to Qantas (Terminal 3) is a walk for some distance to the right. At the transfer desk, recheck your luggage, and then proceed to your flight.

Note that at Sydney, the international and domestic terminals are separated by a long distance - you will need to take your airline's transfer bus between terminals (or you can take a train, which is more convenient). The transfer buses can take 40 minutes, the train 10 minutes. At Melbourne and Brisbane, the terminals are connected, making the transfer a little easier (just a long walk).

Note also that for Sydney trains - such as for transfer between international and domestic terminals at Sydney Airport - you can use a credit card in place of a ticket. You need to swipe on when you enter, and swipe off when you leave. The cost will appear in your credit card statement!

If you plan to drive in Australia, remember to drive on the left!

We have really tried, but we have found we are unable to offer childcare for attendees to AFMC2024.