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Unlike virtually every other day, nothing of great importance happened. We got up at least three hours before the crack of dawn, took a three hour flight, a 12 1/2 hour flight, and then an hour flight. Finally, back at the nest, but still with a 40 mile journey to unload the cargo (Rachel's luggage, and Rachel). And yes, this day (and it's update) one will seem a bit longer, but also consider that just as we'd be reaching midnight, we set our clock back to Pacific Time, or -17 hours from where we started our day...
| 3:50am | The first alarm went off. |
| 4:00am | Whilst I thought one was enough, two is definitely enough; the second came in the form of a wake-up call. |
| 4:03am | There came a wrapping, a tapping, a tapping on our chamber door. The chap picking up luggage was there to grab our bags. |
| 4:05am | Tubby and I actually got out of bed. (Yes, our primitive people let the girl answer the door in the dead of night.) |
| 4:26am | We checked out of the resort, after concluding our sundry tasks within the room. The bill came to 35c less than what Tubby had calculated in his brain. (Don't encourage him; he already thinks he's the Rain Man.) |
| 4:31am | The shuttle, exclusively for us, departed for the international terminal. (Despite us connecting to Sydney first, well... we've learned it's a long story, but the short version is the plane is amidst a Japan-Sydney flight, so we're international by definition.) |
| 4:37am | Our luggage and our beings are set down at the terminal, and we make our way to check-in. |
| 4:40am | Check-in completed with a rather pleasant sheila named Jo, which is even more pleasant considering we're hours before the hour is a civilized one. |
| 5:02am | After clearing security screening (Rachel was yet again selected for a random screening for explosive residue), we arrived at Gate 4... it's a short walk, considering the entire "international airport" only has six gates. |
| 5:03am | The waiting begins. The flight isn't until 7am, with a 6:30am boarding. Heck, our plane's hasn't even arrived to the gate thus far. |
| 5:44am | The moment is drawing near, I figure, since the plane is now at the gate. |
| 6:02am | Tubby and I pass the time by first calculating the amount spent on stuff we'll need to declare (we independently totaled out to AU$906, or about US$635), and then what time we should sleep to get back into a Pacific Time zone schedule (the answer we came up with was at 4pm-midnight Australian Eastern Time, which works out to Wednesday 11pm-7am Thursday morning Pacific Time). |
| 6:32am | The boarding call was made, and we loaded up quickly, although we did have a number of transfer folks from other places connecting into this flight. |
| 6:59am | We pushed away from the terminal and began to meander toward the runways. |
| 7:12am | Flight 60 is now off and running for Sydney. Just to taunt us, they showed that Twisted movie, which I tended to ignore, as I saw it a while ago in theatres. |
| 9:58am | Our 767 touched down, and not a moment too soon... the movie apparently ended about 20 minutes ago and the natives were getting restless. |
| 10:04am | A quick hop from gate to gate, passing through security once more, and we were now waiting about at Gate 8 for the 11am flight to Los Angeles. In theory, boarding would begin at 10:30am. After all, our plane, Longreach, was already here. (And whilst I can't prove it, we've flown at least once before on this same plane; Qantas names the planes in their fleet by cities in Australia, or so I believe I read somewhere.) |
| 10:39am | Well, we're now boarding first class, and families with children -- which they knew numbered nine on this flight. The rest of us stood around, wondering about the promise of boarding in just five minutes was over 10 minutes ago. |
| 11:06am | The doors were shut, and be departed the terminal toward the tarmac, with just one plane in front of us waiting to also depart. |
| 11:17am | And, we're off. We're told the minor delay was due to increasing security procedures, but I secretly suspect is had just as much to do with starting the boarding process 10 minutes late as well. |
| 11:20am | I decided to get comfy; we've got just over 12 1/2 hours left before Los Angeles. And fortunate for me, Tubby and Rachel are wedged into 48H and 48J (with some blonde named Heidi from Australia in 48K), so I ended up with three additional seats next to me in seat 48G to relax and stretch my wings. |
| 12:02pm | Beverage service begins; two of us had Diet Coke, Tubby went with the hard stuff -- regular Coke. I'm annoyed to find the Australian film I wanted to see on Channel 6a, had sound that continually cut-out. Trying other seats and headsets, it seems to be the channel itself, drat. |
| 12:41pm | A bit of turbulence had everyone seated back down again, and Rachel opted to steal my seat, and force me down into 48F so she could have the aisle. |
| 12:54pm | I switching from primary entertainment (the laptop) to a secondary source (a Dan Brown book). |
| 2:32pm | Looking directly in front of me in row 47 E and F are two children, ages 4 and 2. Through a prolonged series of name guessing games with Rachel, the coy 4-year-old told her the first three letters of her name; Tubby came up with "Dana," which was the right answer. We didn't get the little boy's name, but he also wasn't making ga-ga eyes at me like Dana. |
| 4:08pm / 11:08pm (PDT) | Nap-time. As we sorted out at 6am today, this would be the designated napping hour. Whilst the brain still considers it 4pm Australian Eastern time, it's only 11pm Wednesday at our final destination's time zone. To wake up in synch with that time zone, zzz... |
| 4:47am (PDT) | Relative success. Sort of overlooking the time it was before, we're doing well. Our arrival into Los Angeles is about 2 1/2 hours out. |
| 5:02am | much to my delight, the movie we couldn't hear earlier (poor audio) sounds fine if we switch from English to Channel 6b ("secondary language option")... which happens to be English, because apparently no one translated it into anything else. |
| 6:22am | Breakfast service begins. By redefining the continental breakfast, we find we're given trays of cereal, a muffin, milk, and orange juice. Not bad, really. |
| 6:39am | The film is over. Not exceptional, but I've seen worse. (It was an Aussie film, One Perfect Day.) |
| 7:01am | During a check of the cabin, Rebecca stopped to ask what a bit about me. Clearly a wise and intelligent woman, she, too, had a travel companion, a 24-year-old teddy bear named Teddy Roosevelt. Despite her accent (Australian would be my bet), the choice of names after the "Walk tall and carry a big stick" U.S. president was first rate. She was also keen on joining me and Teddy in a photo. |
| 7:14am | After the usual seats-up, tray tables-up, seat belts-fastened routine, our flight 107 touched down at Los Angeles airport. |
| 7:26am | The pilot explained our plane (a 747-400) was too big to taxi into the terminal, so we'd be shutting down engines and taxiing to the gate. I don't recall having to do that the last time we were aboard a 747-400, but I'm also not a professional airline pilot, so I said nothing. |
| 7:39am | After alighting from the plane, we headed in to clear Immigration, picked up our bags, pushed them through Customs, dropped them off again for the last flight, and queued up for security screening. |
| 8:11am | Third time's a charm, and we cleared security for the third time since our trip began, no incidents to report. |
| 8:18am | At long last, we're seated in reasonable comfort at Gate 48a in LAX Terminal 4, waiting for our American Airlines flight back to the nest. |
| 9:20am | So, we're sitting here in Los Angeles World Airport ("World" per their signs). Despite having sat in airports for hours and hours across the last month, it's apparently an American thing to be sitting in the airport and on the phone. The gate area is reasonably crowded, but glancing around, there are at least a dozen people on mobile phones, three attached to headsets. (And most of the guys are wearing the standard button-down shirts and either khaki pants or business suit blue.) Whilst phones are at least as popular in New Zealand and Australia, and text messaging is huge, but I didn't see nearly as many people using their phones so overtly. Just an observation. |
| 10:38am | Boarding for our flight began, but with seats in row 12, we're amongst the last to be boarded, since they tend to board back to front (which makes sense if you think about it). |
| 10:54am | With a quick departure, we were off and running toward the last airport of this trip. Yea! |
| 11:59am | We touched down, and began the taxiing thing into the terminal. |
| 12:04pm | It never fails to impress me how quickly people can move when properly motivated. Sadly, the luggage arriving to the Baggage Pickup area wasn't as prompt. |
| 12:26pm | An announcement told us there was a problem opening the luggage door, and there may be a delay of an additional 10 minutes or so before the bags began appearing. |
| 12:33pm | Less than 10 minutes, but no one complained. When the conveyor belt stopped for a moment, though, one one was heard muttering, "oh, God." Right |
| 12:45pm | The airport tram connected us from the terminal to the trains, and we hopped aboard. |
| 1:40pm | With only one transfer of trains back, I could almost smell my pillow growing near. |
| 2:37pm | A final leap through turnstiles, and we're back at Ground Zero, where the trip all began 28 days ago. And that's that. |
Since no one would really want to look at a 28-day summary of stats day-by-day, here are some of the highlights from the Kiwis and Koalas 2004 trip...
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Trip
Summary - Kiwis & Koalas 2004 |
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And finally, I try to capture the last 28 days of my life into a few key points. No small task, really.
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On
a total of 12 flights for a total of 24,393 miles (39,378
kilometers). And yes, we all signed up for membership in the
Qantas Frequent Flyer deal things... even if we're not eligible
for the $5,000/year in free tickets for life contest.
In rental cars on two occasions (Auckland to Wellington, 633
miles/1,022 km) and in Tasmania (181 miles/292 km), enjoying
driving on the "wrong" side of the road, and for
the first time, not having people flip us the bird for doing
so.
In long-distance trains three times, covering 1,296 miles
(2,092 km), from Adelaide to Melbourne, Melbourne to Sydney,
and Sydney to Brisbane.
Seated in shuttles too often, and of those times, not always
necessary (Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane; Darwin
and Perth airports were both sufficient remote to actually
seem to need the shuttle).
One
ferry ride to and from