Start of another big Australia trip
I was lucky enough to be able to take six weeks off work to go to visit Vanessa in Sydney over Christmas and New Year. This was achieved by the simple trick of taking three weeks of the 2010 holiday allocation and three weeks of the 2011 holiday allocation. That means I've still got a reasonable number of 2011 days to take later in the year!
This trip occurred just over four years after my first visit to Australia, on my 'once in a lifetime' trip Down Under. I've now been three times...
As the main reason for my trip was to see Vanessa (and also because my normal stop-off point in Singapore was unavailable as the Evans family were in South Africa), I decided not to break my journey. Instead I was on the direct flight (although that did include a one-hour break in Changi Airport). It was a 22-hour flight. I left the UK at 10pm on the Monday night and arrived in Sydney at 7am on Wednesday (11 hours ahead of the UK). I'll never see that Tuesday again. The other bad news was that I had booked my flights with Qantas, but when I got to the airport, the flight was actually being run by BA.
In fact, the journey wasn't as bad in reality as it had sounded in advance. I managed to get an aisle seat. I had my evening meal and a mini bottle of the red wine, started off watching a film (The Expendables - mindless rubbish), and then tried to sleep for the rest of the journey. I was mainly successful in my task. I woke up in time for breakfast and the rest of the film, and then 13 hours had passed and we were in Singapore. The only major downside was the woman in the next seat but one coughing and sneezing and spluttering and wheezing and sniffing for the whole journey. I think I did catch a bit of a cold for the first few days of the holiday.
Then the next section of the journey was a mere 9 hours. I tried the same trick - meal, rubbish film (Dinner for Schmucks this time), then sleep. And it generally worked again - the sleep was a bit more fitful this time, but still got a few hours which helped the journey whizz by.
The exit from Sydney airport was relatively speedy too - even the Australian Customs weren't interested in scanning my bag so I wandered straight through with only a rabbit, a fox and a cane toad in my luggage.
I made my own way to Parramatta, where Vanessa was staying, and let myself into her flat. It was around 8:30am and she was still fast asleep so I went to the supermarket to get some milk for my cup of tea. When I got back, she was awake. The big trip had started! And jet lag had been avoided in the main. After staying awake for the rest of the day, I had a couple of beers in the city (the Lord Nelson pub in the Rocks area, where I saw David 'Bumble' Lloyd and Paul Allott last time I was there). I flagged at around 11pm, had a long sleep that night and felt almost normal (by which I mean as normal as usual) the following day. I had a few days of pottering around while Vanessa was at work, doing Christmas shopping, going for runs around Parramatta Park (see picture above) and watching the Test Match from Perth (the bad one, that England lost...). Then Vanessa had a few days off, so we went to Melbourne.
This trip occurred just over four years after my first visit to Australia, on my 'once in a lifetime' trip Down Under. I've now been three times...
As the main reason for my trip was to see Vanessa (and also because my normal stop-off point in Singapore was unavailable as the Evans family were in South Africa), I decided not to break my journey. Instead I was on the direct flight (although that did include a one-hour break in Changi Airport). It was a 22-hour flight. I left the UK at 10pm on the Monday night and arrived in Sydney at 7am on Wednesday (11 hours ahead of the UK). I'll never see that Tuesday again. The other bad news was that I had booked my flights with Qantas, but when I got to the airport, the flight was actually being run by BA.
In fact, the journey wasn't as bad in reality as it had sounded in advance. I managed to get an aisle seat. I had my evening meal and a mini bottle of the red wine, started off watching a film (The Expendables - mindless rubbish), and then tried to sleep for the rest of the journey. I was mainly successful in my task. I woke up in time for breakfast and the rest of the film, and then 13 hours had passed and we were in Singapore. The only major downside was the woman in the next seat but one coughing and sneezing and spluttering and wheezing and sniffing for the whole journey. I think I did catch a bit of a cold for the first few days of the holiday.
Then the next section of the journey was a mere 9 hours. I tried the same trick - meal, rubbish film (Dinner for Schmucks this time), then sleep. And it generally worked again - the sleep was a bit more fitful this time, but still got a few hours which helped the journey whizz by.
The exit from Sydney airport was relatively speedy too - even the Australian Customs weren't interested in scanning my bag so I wandered straight through with only a rabbit, a fox and a cane toad in my luggage.
I made my own way to Parramatta, where Vanessa was staying, and let myself into her flat. It was around 8:30am and she was still fast asleep so I went to the supermarket to get some milk for my cup of tea. When I got back, she was awake. The big trip had started! And jet lag had been avoided in the main. After staying awake for the rest of the day, I had a couple of beers in the city (the Lord Nelson pub in the Rocks area, where I saw David 'Bumble' Lloyd and Paul Allott last time I was there). I flagged at around 11pm, had a long sleep that night and felt almost normal (by which I mean as normal as usual) the following day. I had a few days of pottering around while Vanessa was at work, doing Christmas shopping, going for runs around Parramatta Park (see picture above) and watching the Test Match from Perth (the bad one, that England lost...). Then Vanessa had a few days off, so we went to Melbourne.
posted by Gaz man at 5:23 pm
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