After breakfast in the Horizon Court Buffet (always busy on turnaround day morning), we used Uber to get to the Sydney Airport ($29AUD) and by 10am were using a kiosk to print out our boarding passes. Going through security in other countries is always a mystery; our photo IDs were never once matched to our boarding passes and the agents looked at me like I was crazy when I placed my quart-sized bag of liquids on the conveyor belt. OK, so things are a little more laid back in Australia...the same country that won’t allow us to repeatedly get off and on a ship on turnaround day. ;-)
This was our first experience with Jetstar, Quantas’ budget affiliate airline. Well, it couldn’t have been easier or nicer. While I had stressed over the weight of my backpack, even filling my water bottle just half full after going through security to reduce its weight, we were never once asked to weigh our bags. We got nothing (not even water) for free onboard, but for an hour flight, that’s not a huge hardship. The plane and seats were comfortable and the price (around $50 USD per person) was certainly right. We were quite pleased, and hopeful that our 10.5 hour flight from Melbourne to Honolulu in January will be as successful.
Flying from Sydney to Melbourne was a treat. At one point, not long after we left Sydney, we could still see Australia’s eastern coastline, and there was just one long curved beach after another, as far as we could see. And then, after we passed the capital of Canberra, I could have believed we were flying over Kansas or Nebraska or Oklahoma. It was dry and rural, with occasional gently rolling hills.
The Melbourne airport is modern and nice, and we purchased tickets ($18AUD per person) for the SkyBus that dropped us right in front of the apartment we had rented in the Docklands area in less than 30 minutes. We had visited the apartment building to get a look at it and the surrounding area last month, but didn’t know until today how nice our unit is. We did get a unit with a marina view, and it is fantastic. We are on the top floor and the tonight’s sunset was right outside the large floor to ceiling windows in our living room. We have a small kitchen and even a washer and dryer right in our apartment. And cable TV with DVR and a large shower and a king-sized bed...life is good. :-)
G turned the TV on to see NCIS was just starting, and I lost him for a couple of hours, but when he finally had his fill of real TV, we walked to a Cole’s Supermarket about a half mile away and got a few things for breakfasts and snacks and returned them to the apartment. We then walked along the marina area checking out the restaurants with their sidewalk cafes and found one that met both our needs and dined outside as we watched boats and yachts come and go.
I’m not certain of our plans for tomorrow. It is supposed to be really hot, and we may curtail our sightseeing in the afternoon and instead go out before and after the intense heat of the day. Something tells me that some TV time in an air conditioned apartment might feel really good when the 95 degree heat is radiating off of all this big city concrete.