Day 1, 2 and 3 - Tuesday February 13, 2024 thru Thursday February 15, 2024 - Off to Australia

By Ellen Outten

 



It's time to go again!   Travel time.   This time, Australia and New Zealand.  Quite a number of firsts on this trip which include a flight more than 11 hours long and crossing the International Date Line.

Let me say Happy Valentine's Day to everyone since I will be 'missing' it entirely.  Our flight itinerary has us flying from Phoenix to San Francisco on February 13.  We depart San Francisco at 8 pm and arrive 15 hours later on February 15th.  Crossing the International Date line means, Goodbye February 14th.

However, on our return journey; we leave from Auckland New Zealand (12 hour flight)  on March 6 at 4:40 pm, connect in Los Angeles (1 1/2 hour flight and arrive back home in Phoenix at 1:26 pm on the same day, March 6th   So, we arrive home, before we leave Auckland.   You gotta love whoever thought up this system!

Update:

We left Phoenix on time and arrived in San Francisco with plenty of time with a four hour layover.  




Our flight to Sydney was loaded and ready to pull out on time at 8 pm.  However, isn't there always a however, when you fly... 

The Sydney airport has a curfew with no flights allowed to land between 11 pm and 6 am.  Our pilot said the flight would be very fast,.only 13 hours and 53 minutes due to a good tailwind.  So we had to wait as we would arrive too early.  Our pilot pushed back from the jetway and taxied out to the nether region of the airport where we sat until 9:30 when we finally took off.  

We landed here in Sydney at 6:30 am.  I managed about 3 1/2 hours of sleep along with two movies and a book.  It could have been a lot worse.

Here we are in Sydney waiting for our gate to be posted for the last leg of the trip to Cairns, pronounced (cain).  Ther is so much air traffic in and out that gates don't get posted until about 1/2 hour before boarding as the incoming flight hasn't landed.  

Well, we have arrived.  A 50 minute delay on our Sydney to Cairns flight didn't put a damper on the fact that we made it.  We've been awake about 36 hours except for the three hours sleep on the long flight.  

I'm so glad we came in a day earlier than the tour starts.  I'm sure we'll sleep well tonight.

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 15, 2024 at 8:26 PM

    Glad you made it safely to your destination. 💕

    ReplyDelete

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