For those applying for a Pakistan visa here in Australia, my recent experience may be of assistance. First I called the Sydney consulate and explained that we are leaving Australia in a few weeks and won't enter Pakistan for about another 8 months. The official advised to simply write a letter of explanation of our particular circumstances and the chances were good they would give us an immediate 6 month extension.

So we went in person to the Canberra embassy just two weeks ago. With the completed visa application, 2 x photos, bank statement and a letter explaining our plan to ride a motorcycle around the world and hence our need to apply for a visa so far in advance.

We anticipated that showing up in person and explaining our situation would be of benefit. We didn't fabricate some cock and bull story about learning Pakistani cooking or similar. Just told the truth. The consular official seemed very reasonable, and accepted that we couldn't possibly book hotels considering our plan. He initially asked, "do you want 30 days?". We responded, "no, that may not be long enough, 60 would be better". His response was, "no, not possible, 45 days is the maximum".

So we left our passports and applications behind, then about 5 days later we got our passports back in the mail, with 45 day single entry tourist visa's and an immediate 6 month extension on the usuall six month validity.