March 15, 2017

     We had breakfast, checked out and took the hotel’s 7:50 a.m. (12:50 p.m. yesterday) shuttle to Sydney International Airport. The airport is located on the shore of Botany Bay, one of the first landings of the English settlers to Australia.  The local time zone in Sydney, Australia, is 18 hours ahead of Vancouver.

Sydney is experiencing severe weather as are other parts of eastern New South Wales and Queensland.  Overnight some Sydney areas had flash floods.  There was rain overnight. More of this weather was expected today.  This morning’s temperature was a nice 22 C and a light breeze.  There were a few showers as we waited for our plane. This morning the sky was cloudy, but a bit of blue sky sometimes was apparent. 

    We had checked the departure time yesterday however, when we and Maureen and Bob arrived at the airport the plane was scheduled for a 1 p.m. departure due to snow storm conditions in Toronto, its starting point. The New England coast was forecast for a big snow storm that affected New York City. We had a 4.5 hour window in Vancouver, to catch our next flight, so we had no concerns.

   The plane was scheduled to leave Sydney at 11:20 a.m. today’s date (4:50 p.m. yesterday Vancouver time) and to land at 7:30 a.m. Vancouver time today’s date.  We will get back the “day” that we “lost” when we flew to Sydney.  The shuttle dropped us off at the opposite side of the terminal to where Air Canada’s counter was located which gave us a good start on the day’s steps. The process of checking in, then going to Australian Border Force Customs went smoothly. We were questioned about being on sheep farms in New Zealand.  They wanted to know if the soles of our shoes had any soil on them from the farmers. Final chore was to go through security and find the gate. It took less than an hour and over 1,500 steps. We managed to walk another 7,000 steps before entering the plane, which left only 2,600 steps to achieve in Vancouver’s airport.

    There was a pillow and blanket on each seat in the Economy section. This plane had the TV in the back of the seats, so you only needed earphones to watch movies, play games or listen to music.  Once in the air the crew distributed Canadian or American Customs forms since all passengers would be going through Customs upon arrival. There was some turbulence about an hour into the flight. Being a noon flight we had little intention of sleeping, which was a good thing. The back third of the plane had 10 children, seven of whom were toddlers or babies. Almost a dozen times there was a child crying and more than half the time when one started and two or three more joined in. Parents were having a difficult time to calm their children. Then the crew delivered the first meal, chicken with mashed potatoes and cooked broccoli, a quinoa and cooked squash salad, a bread roll and a piece of apple raisin slice plus complimentary wine and coffee. The white wine was a blend of Colombard, Grenache blanc and Viognier from Ferrandiere in France. Before the tray was picked up, the first of several episodes of turbulences occurred.  Not too severe, but enough to have the seat belt sign on for 15 minutes at a time. The air plane speed averaged about 960 km per hour, ranged from 870 to 1017 km per hour.  The total flight time was just under 14 hours and a distance of 12,515 km Vancouver to Sydney, the flight crew changed in Vancouver and the plane continued to Toronto.

     About one third of the way to Vancouver from Sydney we crossed the International Dateline in the mid Pacific Ocean, west of Hawaii. Six hours into the flight a snack of a small roll with ham and cheese inside and two cookies was served with coffee, tea or juices. Perhaps every 1 1/2 hours, one of the attendants would be passing out water for people if they wanted some.  There were turbulences about an hour before and then at about two third of the way from Sydney there was about 80 minutes of intermittent turbulences. About 90 minutes before landing, breakfast was served.  A choice of scrambled eggs with a small slice of ham and hash brown potatoes, or pancakes, and roll and fruit cocktail was served with coffee, tea or juices.

   The plane landed just after 9 a.m., the original arrival if it had not been delayed was 7:30 a.m.  We did not need to collect our luggage as it was labeled to continue to our next flight. We walked through the terminal and down two floors to get to Customs Hall and then back up two floors to go through security. In less than an hour we were sitting at Tim Hortons with Ice Caps. The wait in Vancouver was shorter by 90 minutes. We were glad that we booked a nice window of time between the two flights. Our flight home was on time leaving at noon.  We were home by 6 p.m.

               

Steps 13,982    Flights of stairs  27