Click here to return to 2013 Australia Trip Reports:  http://barry15.com/2013_Australia_Trip/Reports.html

 

 

Tuesday, 24 September, 2013

 

Well, I’m about 12 hours into the 15 hour flight from Los Angeles to Sydney, as I write this.  So far, so good.

 

The flight from Seattle to LAX was fine.  As always on one of my Aussie trips, I’m flying on frequent flyer miles, and I spring for the extra miles to go business class, which means first class within the USAlaska had a nice little “dinner”, which was actually more like a tasty appetizer for me.  I had some bourbon, some wine, and some cognac, though, and that made the flight just fine.

 

Because I’m flying first/business class, I got to use the Alaska Board Room in Seattle and the Delta Sky Club in LA.  Neither was particularly fancy, but they did have little snacks, free wi-fi, and free drinks, so I didn’t complain.  The Delta flight to Sydney got away on time, at 10:40 PM, and the long, long segment started.

 

This is my first time on a Boeing 777, and I like it.  It has two aisles, but it isn’t as wide as a 747. In international business class, on Delta, there are only four seats across, which means everyone has an aisle seat.  No one is climbing over anyone else to go to the rest room in the middle of the night when people are sleeping, which is very nice.  The seats are actually in little cubicles, sitting at an angle.  Here is a picture of the cabin, looking forward from my seat in row 7.

 

I had chosen row 7 because it gave me more privacy, with a little wall on my right, instead of a neighbor across a low wall.  Here is a picture of seat 7A.

 

The seat is fairly comfortable and is also fairly roomy.  It has a number of controls, to adjust various parts of it.  It reclines all the way flat, parallel with the floor, for sleeping.  They provided each of us with a couple of pillows and a nice lightweight quilted duvet.  If you have to spend 15 hours on a plane, this is the way to do it, for sure.

 

There is an entertainment system with over a hundred different movies, as well as TV shows and music.  They even provide noise canceling headphones, although the engine noise is still quite noticeable, of course.  I started to watch an action movie called Jack Reacher, but the sound quality was so poor and the engine noise so loud that I gave up on it after 10 or 15 minutes, because I wasn’t getting about half of what they were saying.  I happen to be reading the series of Jack Reacher novels right now (I’m through 8 of the 18 that have been written so far, and I have the next four with me on the trip), and I thought it might be interesting to see what the movie was like.  Unfortunately, they completely miscast the main character, Jack Reacher, in my opinion.  Jack Reacher in the books is 6 feet 5 inches tall, weighs 250 pounds, and is a really tough guy.  Tom Cruise is 5 foot 7 and looks like a sissy to me.  For me, he just didn’t cut it as Jack Reacher at all.  When I get home, I’ll give the movie another chance, when I can use subtitles if I have to, to follow the story.  Maybe Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher will grow on me.  Anyway, I watched the old Steve Martin movie, Father of the Bride instead, and that was a much better airplane movie.

 

They served us a very nice dinner, in three courses.  The first course was some tasty soup, three large shrimp, and a little salad.  I had halibut for the main course, and it was excellent and a quite large piece of it, for an airplane meal.  It was accompanied by some delicious potatoes and some asparagus.  There was very nice tartar sauce, too, which I dipped the asparagus in.  I had cheese and crackers for dessert.  That helped pass the time, as I watched my movie.

 

About three hours into the flight, I decided to try to sleep.  I’ve never been able to sleep on airplanes, and I have so many sleep problems that sleep is always a struggle no matter where I am, but I gave it a shot.  I took half a sleeping pill, which normally gives me a good night’s sleep at home.  Well, the pill probably helped, but I never really slept, I don’t think, other than little micro sleeps all night long, maybe.  I was able to rest quietly, though, and fairly comfortably, on the edge of sleep, for a full 8 hours, and maybe that will help me get through the rest of this long, long day.  When we get to Sydney, it will be 7 in the morning there, so I have a full day to get through before night time comes around again.

 

I guess that’s enough drivel for now.  Hopefully, these reports will get more interesting when I actually get somewhere and do something.  I’ll try to add on to this in Sydney, later today, maybe with some pictures of Sydney or even birds.  The adventure is underway.

 

Sydney, Tuesday afternoon.

 

Before I continue the story, I wanted to mention a funny incident that happened as we were leaving home to go to the airport.  As I got in the car, Christina asked me (semi-jokingly, I think) if I had my passport.  I didn’t!  What a hoot.  I would have discovered it at the airport, as Christina drove home on the freeway.  We had taken my car, and it has a phone in it, so I could have called her from my cell phone and she could have gone home and gotten my passport, and she would have had time to bring it back to me, but it would have been a three ring circus, and it would have cut it close.  So far, I haven’t found anything else I have forgotten, of any consequence, but forgetting my passport is right up there with top dumbbell moves.

 

So, back to the long, long flight.  They served a nice little breakfast, and we got in on time, at 6:40 AM Tuesday.  I left Seattle on Sunday, and I got completely cheated out Monday, September 23 this year, due to the International Date Line.  So, in Sydney, I stopped in the Duty Free shop and picked up a couple of 1.125 liter bottles of Overproof Bundaberg Rum, my Aussie drink of choice.  It is 115 proof, which is very high test stuff.  I like to mix it with orange-mango juice, and serve it over ice.  Ice in Australia is a story in itself, which we will get to, I’m sure.  On my last couple of trips, the big dramas on almost every day were where was I going to get ice and how would I get on the internet. 

 

Getting through immigration wasn’t bad, but it took maybe half an hour for my bags to come through, and then I had to go through the longer customs line and get sniffed by the beagle on duty, because I had some roasted nuts, and the Aussies are nuts about not letting in agricultural products.  The nuts were ok, but it meant I had to take the longer line and get sniffed.

 

There was a long queue for a taxi, and I had thought I might save some money and take the train this time, but I was very tired, and I had a lot of luggage, so I got a taxi, to the tune of 42 bucks Australian.  The Aussie dollar is worth about 93 US cents now, so it is easy to make a conversion in my head.

 

As I expected, my hotel room wasn’t ready at 8 AM, when I got to their, so I put my luggage in their locked room and wandered out into the streets.  I wanted to take care of two pieces of business today – set up my phone so I would have an Aussie phone number and also be able to use it to access the internet on my laptop, and get in some groceries.  My first stop was McDonalds, though, for an Egg McMuffin.  Prices here are sky high, and the egg-a-muffin cost $6.95.  That’s Aussie dollars, and it included a sales tax, but still, that is at least 50% more than in the States.  Probably more than that.  Later I checked the price of a Big Mac, and it was $7.95, again at least 50% higher than in the US.

 

I wanted to get my phone service from Telstra, the biggest phone company here, because they appear to have the best coverage in the countryside, where I will be traveling.  Fortunately, there is a Telstra retail store on the same block as my hotel.  I was there when they opened at 9, and I got my SIM card and the guy put it in my phone and activated my account.  The phone wasn’t really acting quite right, but the guy said it would be ok in a half hour or so.

 

I went back to my hotel, and this time a different clerk looked through the computer to see if there was some other room they could give me, other than the one that had been pre-assigned to me.  What do you know, there was.  It meant I would be on the 12th floor instead of the 15th, which means the view isn’t quite as good, but I could get in right then.  I took it.  The porter brought my luggage up to my room, and I got settled in.  I’m in the Hyde Park Inn, which is located on Hyde Park in Central Sydney.  I stayed here three years ago, and it was ok, but the room was kind of old and tired.  I had read that they had completely remodeled since then, though, and sure enough, it has all new furnishings and fixtures and smells fresh and new now.  I like it because it has a little kitchenette, with a two burner cook top, a microwave, and a little fridge with a tiny ice compartment.  Wonder of wonders, there was even a little ice tray in the ice compartment.  It was dry, but hey, it was there.  I plan to buy one or two medium size ice trays, to use along the way, since I will always have a fridge in my room, and most of them will have ice compartments, I think.  Several places where I stay for more than one night have full sized refrigerators, so I’ll be able to use the ice trays there.  I have never found a motel or hotel in Australia that has an ice machine, and most people don’t seem to have ice trays in their houses, either, let alone refrigerators with ice makers.  I don’t understand it in a country where it is so hot.

 

Anyway, here is a picture of my lonely room, room 124, on the 12th floor.

 

Here is the view from the little balcony.

 

So, I got settled into my room and more or less unpacked.  I checked my phone, and it still wasn’t working right.  It seemed to work ok for voice, but not for data.  Since I had been counting on using it to access the internet for my laptop, that was a problem.

 

Since this is a birding trip, I should mention that on the way from the airport, I picked up my first Aussie bird of the trip, AUSTRALIAN WHITE IBIS.  At least it was a native Aussie bird, not an introduced “trash” species like FERAL PIGEON, which was the second bird I picked up.  When I got settled in and found my phone still wasn’t working right, I walked back to the Telstra place the long way, through Hyde Park, which is what you see in the picture above.  I got this picture of an Australian White Ibis.  They are extremely common, and not very attractive, but this is a birding trip, and I needed a bird picture or two for my first report.

 

I also got a picture of my third bird of the trip, NOISY MINER.

 

There was also a single WELCOME SWALLOW flying around, and a little later I saw a couple of PIED CURRAWONGS.  Both of those are attractive birds, and maybe I’ll get pictures later in the trip.

 

So, back at the Telstra store, I didn’t see the guy who had helped me earlier, but I asked another guy.  He fiddled with my phone for ten or fifteen minutes, and then took it over to still another guy who seemed to be the expert of the shop.  The expert tried some things, and he was about to just give it up, telling me I had to talk to someone back in the US about why it was set up the way it was.  He had demonstrated that the problem had something to do with the phone’s settings, which didn’t surprise me.  The Verizon network at home is a completely different system than they use over here, and while my phone is supposed to work on either type of phone system, there are settings that make it possible.  It was set for a CDMA network, like Verizon uses, not a GSM network, like most of the world uses.

 

I kept asking questions, and I found a setting that sounded like it might have something to do with the problem, and he got interested.  He probably worked on it for half an hour, but he finally more or less succeeded.  I say more or less, because it seemed to be working very slowly on the internet.  I am not sure it is going to work for me to tether the phone to my laptop, but we will see.  I’m too tired to pursue it more today.  The voice function seems to work, and that is all I need today.

 

After that, I went to Woolworths and stocked up on groceries.  Things are very expensive in the grocery store, too – much higher than at home.  I think the Aussie dollar is quite overvalued at this time, and I would expect it to come more into line in the next few years.  It is going to make this trip expensive, but I was expecting it.  Even though I expected it, it is still a case of sticker shock to actually see the prices.

 

So, it is 3 PM here now, and I am too pooped to go out again, other than maybe to just stroll around a little to stretch my legs.  I need to sleep, but I want to try to stay up until at least 8 tonight.  Well, maybe I will crash at 7 if I am really out of it.  A Sydney birder that I have exchanged emails with is picking me up here at my hotel at 6:30 tomorrow morning, and we are going to Royal National Park, just south of Sydney.  I’m hoping to get some good birds tomorrow, and maybe some good pictures.

 

I guess that’s it for my first Report From Downunder 2013.  Tomorrow the birding part of the trip begins.